Describe a typical day?

[dominoes]

Can someone describe a day in the life on a pilot? A general overview from start to finish. I need it for a school project. Cheers :)

[tom775257]

Typical afternoon Tenerife from the UK. Wake up 11am. Get ready, head to the airport 1pm. Go to the crew room, print out flight plans, weather, Notams. Prepare the flight envelope (manual load sheets, plotting charts etc). Decide on fuel figure for the trip, call Esso or whoever to tell them, call the handling agent with your fuel figures (block fuel, trip fuel, taxi fuel, crew numbers etc). Decide which way the FO or Captain will fly it - we take it in turns.

Head to the aircraft. Person not flying will walk around the aircraft, to check for any problems, they will check fuel being loaded correctly also. Other pilot will perform a security check on the cockpit, check switches and circuit breakers, will start loading the flight computers with the route, radio aid selection for departure etc. Pilot not flying will operate the radios eg. call for departure clearance. Once cabin security check complete call for the passengers. Eventually the load sheet will arrive. Enter the figures and work out takeoff speeds, thrust etc.

Pilot flying will brief the other about what he/she plans to do on departure and also what to do in an emergency. They will also run through various checklists eg. Before start check list.

Call for push/start, speak to the ground crew, they will push you back. Pilots fire up the engines, set flaps, rudder trim etc. then run the after start checks. Call for taxi, taxi out, flight control checks whilst taxiing. Run before take off checks. Once you are ready, engines warmed up and cabin secure given, call ready for departure.

Take off, usually pretty intense until top of climb. During cruise keep an eye on the systems, keep checking fuel levels, weather at near by airfields incase you have to drop in with an emergency. Apart from that read the news paper.

Before descending at the destination, the pilot flying will have programmed the computer for the expected arrival, radio aids etc. Then the pilot flying will brief the other about the approach, minimum altitudes, radio aids used, flap setting, autobrake setting, use of autopilot / autothrust, where to vacate the runway, what to do incase of go around. Then fly it.

On the turn around offload the passengers and baggage, get the aircraft cleaned, load fuel, another cabin security check then get the passengers on. Repeat the whole thing on the way back. In my example get back to stand about 00:30am, leave the aircraft about 1am and drive home.

[dominoes]

Thanks, I appreciate it. :)

[donnlass]

What does the cabin security check involve?

[tom775257]

A security check involves among other things a very thorough check throughout the cabin, toilets, hatracks etc for anything that shouldn't be there. This is tested by DafT on occasion to check we are doing the job correctly.