Flight Crew Activities During a Typical Flight

Flight Crew ActivitiesDuring a Typical FlightSeungwon NohFeb. 2012

Hello, everyone. My name is Seungwon Noh.Today, Im going to talk about flight crew activities during a typical flight.1Airline Flight OperationSafetyEconomicsCustomerServiceAircraft & Support equipmentCockpit & Cabin crewsMaintenance &Ground service personnelAirline/Air carriers

Most airlines and other types of air carriers manage their flight operations under a system of goals including safety, economics and customer service such as on-time departures and arrivals. Also, they need to coordinate the aircraft and support equipment, cockpit and cabin crews, maintenance and ground service personnel for any flight. And Ill talk about a detailed activities of flight crews during the phases of a typical passenger flight. Before discussing flight crew activities, I will show you a chart.2Typical flight phases

As you can see, the chart from the textbook illustrates the flight phases of a typical flight.A typical flight can be divided by total 17 phases. First 7 phases will be occurred at an origin airport, and next 6 phases in airspaces, then last 4 phases at a destination airport. Flight crew activities in first 10 of these phases will be explained briefly, finally how the activities might be changed after NextGen technology allocated will be discussed.3

Flight crew activities Flight Crew Sign-in Sign in 1hour prior to the departure Operation/Planning Best routing Flight plan contains routing, weather, alternate airport, fuel requirements, etc. Examined by flight crewSample Flight Plan

RoutingSummaryA/C, TimeFirst phase is the flight crew sign-in. Crew members are required to sign in at the airport flight operations office 1 hour prior to the departure. Crews usually arrive earlier than 1 hour in order to accommodate international flight planning, publication/flight manual updating, or administrative responsibilities.Second stage is operation/planning. Most airlines have a central Airline Operation Control Center staffed by certified flight dispatcher whose duties include the planning. The flight planning is to select the best routing in terms of time, fuel burn, weather, etc. given the available information. The flight plan accounts for aircraft type, routing, forecast weather, aircraft performance, loads and operating weights, fuel requirements, etc. Finally, Flight crew examine the flight plan.4

Flight crew activities Pre-flight Preparing the aircraft for departure FMS & Autoflight initialization Pre-departure Finalizing FMS & Autoflight parameters Receive confirmation of the flights routing from ATCFMS Control Display Unit

Next phase is Pre-flight. The term Pre-flight is typically used to describe the interior and exterior inspections of the aircraft, but in general can be used to describe any activity involved with preparing the aircraft for departure. Once the exterior/interior inspections and system checks are complete, the crew takes the Flight Management System and autoflight initialization programming to allow their use during the flight.In Pre-departure phase, as the scheduled departure time approaches, the pilots finalize the FMS and autoflight parameters by obtaining an update on weather conditions and runway utilization. In addition, the crew must receive confirmation of the flights routing from Air Traffic Control.5F/C: Ramp. Speedbird 177, request push back.Ramp: Speedbird 177, clear to push to face East.F/C: Speedbird 177, clear push, face East. (Change the radio frequency.)F/C: Ground, Speedbird 177, taxi.Ground: Speedbird 177, clear taxi. Give way to a company 757 on your left, follow the parallel taxiway for 27L. (Change the radio frequency.)F/C: Tower, Speedbird 177 is with you.Tower: Speedbird 177, roger. Ill call you back, youre number three.Tower: Speedbird 177, after departing Air India line up and hold 27L.Flight crew activities Gate Departure Ready for moving the aircraft out of gate area (Ramp) Start Engines Taxi-out Get taxi clearance and routing to the active runway (Ground) Takeoff Get takeoff clearance and takeoff (Local)

Next 3 phases are Gate Departure, Taxi-out and Takeoff in order. In Gate Departure stage, the flight crews are releasing the parking brake and calling ramp control for push-back clearance in order to move out of gate area. When the clearance is received, they start engines. In the next phase, flight crews contact ground control to call for taxi clearance. After taxi, flight crews change the radio frequency to local tower control and request takeoff. In these 3 stages, lots of redundant and time consuming voice communications between flight crews and controllers exist.6Flight crew activities Terminal Area Departure Follow certain standard departure procedure Using an autopilot Mode Control Panel Climb Continuously monitor aircraft performance Coordinate an optimal cruise altitude and speed with ATC Cruise Monitor flight path, maintain fuel balance, communication with ATC/AOCC Prepare for the possibility of diversioin

Terminal area airspace may be very complex, so after Takeoff, flight crews fly by certain standard procedures which have been developed at high-density locations, and implement radar heading assignments (vector) provided by ATC through an autopilot Mode Control Panel, which is used in many flight phases when specific altitude, heading and/or speed target values are required in order to achieve separation.In Climb stage, the crew continuously monitor aircraft performance and compare the optimal and maximum cruise altitudes with the planned data and desired cruise speed, then coordinate an optimal cruise altitude and speed with ATC using the monitored information.During Cruise, the crew perform more routine duties, such as monitoring the aircraft flight path, maintaining lateral fuel balance within limits and ATC/AOCC communications requirements. In addition, the crew must be constantly prepared for the possibility of contingencies requiring diversion of the aircraft, due to medical emergencies, aircraft equipment problems, terrorist activities, weather of the destination airport.7Changes after NextGen Major Features of NextGen Required Navigational Perfromance Dependent Surveillance (ADS-B) Digital Communication Area Navigation (RNAV) / 4D TrajectoriesChanges More precise routing, departure and landing Share accurate location of aircrafts Reduce voice communication Optimal routing

In the end of this video, Id like to mention about NextGen and how NextGen technologies will change flight crews activities. We learnt major features of NextGen last class from Dr. Felder. There are 5 technologies, Required Navigational Perfromance, Dependent Surveillance, Digital Communication, Area Navigation / 4D Trajectories. Each technology makes aviation system improve in different way. At first, flight crews are able to fly on the route, takeoff and land more precisely with RNP technology. Second, dependent surveillance concept provides more accurate location information of aircrafts to both pilots and controllers. One of the most remarkable improvements from this technology is that pilots can know the location of aircrafts around them, which means that the crews can surveil other traffic on emergency circumstance like out of communication with ATC. Next, Digital Communication provides significant improvement to both pilots and controllers. As I presented on former slide, there are a lot of voice communication between pilots and controllers, and many of them are redundant and time consuming work. After introduction of this concept, pilots and controllers can exchange information more easily and precisely. Last, RNAV and 4D trajectories allows pilots to fly more direct route from origin to destination instead of flying between waypoints which are established over ground navigation aids. These technologies choose the optimal routing after considering with various aspects, like noise, fuel consumption, emission, and so on.8Summary

In summary, flight crews have lots of responsibilities during their flight, and about half of their activities were explained briefly in this presentation. However their routine activities, such as navigation, communication and surveillance, will be changed in the near future when the NextGen technologies are allocated. Thank you for watching. 9