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How to start up a Boeing 737 [video]

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Re: How to start up a Boeing 737 [video]

#11

Private pilot here (who's also ridden in some full-scale airliner flight sims). A lot of the procedures in the video are going through checklists to test the various instruments and systems, both normal and emergency ones, as well as entering the route in the flight computer (used by the autopilot). This is what real pilots on real flights have to do. If you just want to start the engines, taxi, and take off for a jo…

How long do the checklists normally take for airliners? I was actually surprised how short this was.

Re: How to start up a Boeing 737 [video]

#13
post #11

Private pilot here (who's also ridden in some full-scale airliner flight sims). A lot of the procedures in the video are going through checklists to test the various instruments and systems, both normal and emergency ones, as well as entering the route in the flight computer (used by the autopilot). This is what real pilots on real flights have to do. If you just want to start the engines, taxi, and take off for a jo…

How long do the checklists normally take for airliners? I was actually surprised how short this was.

It would take a long time, the first few times you did it. Do it a few times per day with a second pilot reading and checking the items to you.

Re: How to start up a Boeing 737 [video]

#14
As someone who has designed avionics for experimental aircraft and rockets, one of the satisfying highlights, like the salty sticky bits as you mop up the plate of a roast, is designing and building the switch panels.

Just as web-UI design can be an all-consuming obsession to get it 'just-so', you can loose yourself in comparisons between rotary switches - finding one with just the right torque and a satisfying positive click, locking toggle switches, the colour of the panels and the colour of the filled engravings to get the readability good in both direct sunlight and dim red-lit cabins, the pride you take in wiring looms that no other humans will likely ever see. It's of course not all fun and games, people's lives will depend on the quality of that wiring loom, and the spark from an unsealed toggle switch in the oxygen-rich cabin is what caused the Apollo 1 fire ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1 ).

So videos like this are quite a source of design inspiration!

Relatedly: if you wonder what goes into making nice panels and wiring looms, have a flick through this: http://www.rbracing-rsr.com/wiring_ecu.html it's motorsport but it's basically the same story for aircraft.

Re: How to start up a Boeing 737 [video]

#15
post #6

Cool vid, but calling that a 'start up' is a little misleading. There's much more going on there than starting the engines. Modern turbine engines are pretty automated and don't require much more than the push of a button (starter) and flip of a lever (fuel) to start.

>Modern turbine engines are pretty automated and don't require much more than the push of a button

FADEC notwithstanding, there are easily a half dozen different ways to start the engines even in normal circumstances, depending upon what ground services are available, ex: Ground cart vs APU, crossbleed air, electric vs air(aircraft dependent).

Re: How to start up a Boeing 737 [video]

#17
There are a bunch of similar YouTube videos made by the Baltic Aviation Academy.

I'm mostly impressed with how simple things are, given the number of components involved. Seems to be a fine line between "banks of idiot lights" and flying an airliner with a zillion gauges and dials. There's a crapload of stuff you need to know about electrical systems, hydraulics, backup systems and self-diagnostics . . . not to mention actually flying the crate.

Re: How to start up a Boeing 737 [video]

#18
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long do the checklists normally take for airliners? I was actually surprised how short this was.

It would take a long time, the first few times you did it. Do it a few times per day with a second pilot reading and checking the items to you.

Not to mention the walk around.

Re: How to start up a Boeing 737 [video]

#19
post #5

This video is like explaining how to write software by pointing a video camera at a programmer's keyboard.

No doubt... Crazy complicated. Still a great video.

I'm still wondering how the camera which seems to be held in his hand and then it shows him using two hands to do one check, and it looks like it's in front of his face not held by someone else off to the side; Google Glass?

edit: I'm seeing things it was just one hand.

Re: How to start up a Boeing 737 [video]

#20

As someone who has designed avionics for experimental aircraft and rockets, one of the satisfying highlights, like the salty sticky bits as you mop up the plate of a roast, is designing and building the switch panels. Just as web-UI design can be an all-consuming obsession to get it 'just-so', you can loose yourself in comparisons between rotary switches - finding one with just the right torque and a satisfying posit…

surely the people who maintain, build, and upgrade the aircraft will see your wiring...?
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