G'day JulieFlyGal and welcome to the wonderful, frustrating, exciting, exasperating world of aviation, particularly in Australia. I suspect the answers to your questions will vary significantly from company to company. For the mob I work for, read on.
1. when you arrive for work at the airport do you have to "check in" at the "office" so to speak and clock on? I'm thinking about how the company keeps track of your flight duty times.
We have to log onto a computer, then sign on. We're given 45 minutes prior to departure if the aircraft we're crewing has flown that day (called a hot ship), and 1 hour prior to departure if the flight will be the aircraft's first for the day (called a cold ship). The computer system automatically signs us off from duty, 15 minutes after the aircraft is parked on blocks at the end of the duty period.
2. when you arrive for work at the airport, how do you know which aircraft is the one you fly and where it's parked on the apron? Do you look up for the flight number and departure gate on the TV screens like the pax do?
When signing on, we obtain a Crew Briefing sheet from the PC. This has details of the route/s to be flown, departure and arrival schedule, aircraft reg, etc. Some crew rooms have a monitor which displays arrival and departure details. This is usually only used to determine when the aircraft is due from the previous service and what bay it will be parked on.
3. after take-off and in the cruise, do you choose when you have your meal or do you eat when all the pax are being served their food as well?
Mostly eat when it's convenient for the cabin crew. Mostly they'll do a drink service, feed the 1st tech crew, then feed the pax, then feed the 2nd tech crew.
4. whilst on the topic of food, are you allowed to bring your own on board if you can't stand the stuff they dish out to pax?
I'm not aware of any regs in Australia re not taking food on board. On my regular three day trips, I take lunch (bread roll) and two plastic containers with cereal and two UHT milk serves. As soon as DOTARs gestapo start to confiscate this, I'll go back to buying food. Many of the cabin crew I work with take their evening meals with them. I only fly domestically so the 100ml of fluids in a ziplock bag doesn't apply ........ yet.
5. who's task is it to do the pre-flight walkaround? is it the captain all the time? or the f/o all the time? or if you carry a s/o, are they delegated this task?
This seems to vary from captain to captain. My own procedure is that the person flying the sector does the walk around. This gets varied on the odd occasion if needs be, e.g. one of us wants to go to the terminal to see a friend during turn around.
6. what exactly does an s/o do inflight? I imagine they don't get too much hands-on flying, so do they get a decent anount of time in the sim flying rhs?
Haven't flow as or with an SO, so can't comment.