The Science of Aircraft

Hello everyone, again, this is going to be my last post as i sum my blog up. If you compare this with everybody's else, it will be the one which is the longest among the others, comprising of many paragraphs, structured to make it as interesting as possible.It will be, on the science of Aircrafts! An aircraft needs to have all its parts functional to allow it to lift off into the air, to touch down or to continue cruising in the air! Here, i shall talk to you about every specific and important part of an aeroplane and we would focus especially on the A380! Please also note that all the facts below and this entire article is written through knowledge and not copied from the internet. The basic parts of an aircraft, are the following- "Wing, Turbine Engine, Horizontal Stabilizer, Cockpit, Fuselage, Slats, Spoilers, Flaps, Winglet, Aileron, Rudder, Elevator and the Vertical Stablizer". Of course, there are far more minute systems in the aircraft body but they are just too "unimportant to be mentioned here".

So, lets talk about the wing first. Every Airbus or Boeing has to generate enough lift to lift itself, its passengers, cargo and the aircraft up into the sky and this is carried out when the aircraft flies so fast in the air, virtually "slamming" through the air at a moderate speed of 9ookm/h. This creates a huge aerodynamic drag over the wings. The winglets are then created and then fitted to the sides of the wings to reduce this drag created by the rapid passing of air to ensure that the plane does not slow down significantly and lose its lift. Although this is in heavy relation to physics over lift and drag, i would prefer to talk more about the physical side. Many people would think, the wings seem to be usless, they cant do anything! They are just there for nothing and in reality, create eaven more drag with the plane. But they are wrong! Without the wings, a plane cant have the flaps, the spoilers, the ailerons or even the engines. Without all these vital systems, do you think a plane can even lift off into the air with just its oval body? No! A wing comprises the important systems such as braking systems for a plane to slow down upon landing and also the 4 engines required to boom and to boost the planes to space.

Now, we continue, with the planes thrusters (engines) Most planes have the rolls royce Trent 900 engines but they are known to have caused many accidents before. General Electric sells aircraft engines too but no one can guarantee that one's engines are 100% perfect! These engines provide thrust to overcome the drag created by air resistance and to propel the aircraft forward through the air. One interesting fact about how the engines work is that they suck in air from the outside and a compressor raises the pressure of the air.The compressed air is then mized with fuel from the fuel tanks and an electric spark lights the mixture. The burning gases expand and blasts out throught he nozzle and this properls the engine and the plane forward at a very high speed. Tkae note that once an engine catches fire (Qantas a380 incident case), the pilot would automatically deploy a fire extinguisheif t engines are unable to shut down and the fire extinguisher puts out the fire in a few seconds. However, the downside is that once a fire extinguisher is ever used, the engines can never be tried to restart ever again. Similar for a birdstrike when the bird gets sucked into the engines and mized with fuel instead of air.

So now, we move on to the Horizontal and Vertical Stabilizer, have you every wondered about Jet Turbulence? Many of you would think that it was the pilots' effort to pull the jet out from turbulence but it is not actually. It is the work of the horizontal and vertical stablizers of the plane which does the work manually.The vertical Stabiliser prevents the plane's nose from swinging right and left while the horizontal stabilizedr prevents the nose of the plane from swinging up and down. They provide stability for the aircraft and ensures that it is flying straight.

The cockpit is where you get to see all the flight controls and the captain and the co-pilot controlling the aircraft. On Boeing planes, they use the Yoke to control it. In Airbus, its the Joystick. If you are lucky and flying on a very unpopular airline like Garuda or some Russian Airlines, they can allow you to seat at the Jumpseat and talk to the pilot after you bribe them a sum of money. Alternatively, they will allow you to fly the plane even for a larger sum of money provided you know how to fly it in the first place. In some airliners, even the good ones, the Captains prefer to leave the cockpit door ajar to give the passengers a bird eyes view of the cockpit to not let them worry and to send them a message that the captaisn and co pilots are in control of the flight.

Now, the fuselage. The fuselage of an aircraft holds the entire aircraft together. In some old russian airliners like the turpolev, you see crack in the fuselages and that is fatal. Passengers are usually carried in the back of the fuselage and in some aircraft, fuel in stored inside the fuselage.

Slats.Have you ever heard of slats before? Slats are aerodynamic structures positioned on the leading edge of an aircraft to allow the wing to operate at a higher angle. They are deployed to make the aircraft fly at a slower speed, especially during landing.

Spoilers have quite the same function as the slats. When they are deployed, they disrupt the air-flow over the wings and thus. decreases the lift produced, In an accident whereby an American Airlines overan a runway, the pilots forgot to activate their spoilers during landing and could not stop in time because the runway was wet and slippery.

Flaps are deployed downward on takeoffs and landings to maximise the amount of force produced by the plane. It has the same capability-which is to reduce the speed at landing or take-off.

Aileron works just like a car's steering wheel, by rolling the aircraft side to side, for example, when the aircraft is on the ground and wants to drive or turn left/right, when the pilot turns the yoke, the ailerons do the work, not the rudder. The rudder is used to control and manoevre the plane left and right when it is in the air. It is used to deflect te tail left and right and thus causing changes in directions in airflows, pushing the plane left or right, Similarly, the Elevator, controls the up and down movements of a plane, as it deflects the tail up and down instead. And one more is the hydraulics systems, they control the balancing of the aircraft and also the turning of the aircraft left or right. Without it, the aircraft would not respond to the yoke or Joystick. So how does it oprerate. A normal aircraft has 3 hydraulic fluids while an a380 only has two. They Hydraulics system are filled with different chemics, the a380 being green and yello while normal planes being green, yellow and blue, these liquids roll around in the plane and once the pilot jerks the joystick to the left, the fluid also moves to the left, automatically tilting the plane left. These are the science of an aircraft.

Here i have concluded an analysis on plane systems and i shall start my little interesting flight stories here as i have been on many airlines and flights before. Here, i shall give a detailed analysis of from the take offs to landing. Imaging you are an Emirates Captain of an A380-600 and you are commandered for take-off while your co-pilot shall do the landing. Before tazi to a runway, a pilot must complete a checklist regarding whether the number of passengers on board are correct, cargo, systems check, engine check and also that all the quipment are working fine. If anything, even the spoilers are not working well, the flight has to be cancelled. The most important instrument in a plane is its static port, which gauges the altermetre, the height and the speed of the plane. If one tapes it up as in recent accidents, the plane would giv ea false reading and eventually crash. After doing the checklist, radio control tower and state your flight, destination and request in a polite way. Get the green go sign and proceed to the runway. Put flaps to 20 degrees, heat up the engines, put tke off lights and all necesary lights on, and put throttle to full speed. Thereby, grab hold of the throttle and ensures that it does not slide back to 0% and the other hand hold on to your Joystick, When it reaches takeoff speed, which your co-pilot will be observing, he will shout "V1-Rotate" and when he does that, pull up the joystick by a little unless you have enough speed to do a fast ascent especially if you are taking off in Pakistan's airport and you have to ascend really fast due to security concerns there. Thereby, maintain speed and do the turns to the direction you are heading to. Upon hitting 8000 metres in the sky, release your hand on the throttle, set the plane on autopilot climb and straight mode, and also auto-throttle mode. Now, relax untill the time when you need to do a right or left turn, then disengage auto-pilot. When the plane reaches its final destinations, theres two ways of landing, the eye method, or the Virtual Glidescope method whereby every big airport would have a glidescope for planes to line up on its runways. Decrease altitude, put on flaps to around 80 percent 800 metres above ground, decrease throttle to idle mode, disengage auto-pilot, auto-thottle, deploy spoilers and slats, lower landing gear via the hydraulics, inform cabin crew and passengers etc and slower lower the aircraft until the back wheels touch the ground. The plane is so clever that when it knows you are going to land it will automatically tilt the front of the plane up so that your back wheels touch the ground first, and this technique is the most challengin to perfect especially on an a380 where you do not want to bounce after landing for such a heavy aircraft! Then, pull back the joystick and when the back wheels have touched the ground, gently and slowly release the joystick to its normal position. There, your plane has landed! Deploy thrust reversers, apply brakes, taxi to drop off area (terminal building) and have a good rest there after a long-haul flight!

Flying a plane is not that difficult, i myself, being an aviation enthusiasts has flown on many airlines before, including Singapore Airlines, China Eatern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Mexican Airways, American Airlines, Air France, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways, Qantas, Emirates, Ethihad, Garuda, Ryan Air, Tiger Airways, JetStar, Jet Asia, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, a couple of bad Russian airlines, Malaysian Airlines, Thai Airways, Cathay Pacific, Dragonair, Brunei Airways, and a couple of very small American private airliners like Hawaii airlines etc.Well, i would advise everyone of you here, in most of the above flights stated, the flights were nothing to worry, but i was extremely disgusted at the way the Russian and the China small airliners handled their massive backlog of flights. See, there was this huge storm and the Russian Airline continued its flight despite warnings. I was soo worried as the plane was rocking like hell but in the end, i still managed to survive it. The china airlines' experience was even worse, upon take off, the plane immediately dropped like 800 metres in an emergency before the pilot managed to regain control and started to ascend again. They didnt even boter to investigate the problem at all and continued the flight with a 2  hours delay!! Thus, as an advice, dont ever take Russian or China airlines. The american small private ones are better. I have set in cockpit jumpseats before maybe i was very lucky just recently, got into an a380 one during take-off, you could request for it especially since its lufthansa and not SIA. The experience was fun and i understood how relaxing driving a plane was, the difficult thing was not about manoevreing but about remembering all the controls in the aircraft.

Most accidents are not caused by teh aircraft itself, bbut by the pilot. Remember the concorde incident whereby the whole air france concorde exploded into flames. That was caused by runway maitenance negligence. The worker forgot to spot some steel pieces lying on the runway and that pieced the tyres of the concorde and the tyre rubber flew off, got sucked into the turboprop engines of the concorde and eventually, the engine couldnt take it and burst into flames, englufing the entire plane with it, causing it to crash into some hotel. Thus, everytime, pilots should take upmost concern, especially the russian ones, old aircraft should be replaced, this to prevent any further accidents from taking place and toe nsure that Passengers get to enjoy aviation and the reality of planes in our modern society.

As i end my post here, i like to thank everyone who read through it and i hope you find the Science of Aircraft Interesting and at the same time amazing, and i hope you learn from my extrodinary encounters on the small airlines and gained an insight into how airplanes work. Thank you very much and hope you like my blog!:) Also, take a look down to the videos which i took on the various airliners. 

Well, this was to Zurich from Singapore and on the 14th of May. Although you may think that 14 May was a school day, that day and the after 3 days were holidays and just boarded this a380 for fun! (Singapore Airlines) 

This is Air France Take Off in Boeing 777. My seat is located near the engine. Very bumpy take off though.

This is Emirates B747 take off from Dubai, Well, i flew from Singapore to Dubai, then from Dubai to LAX. (Los Angeles) Their Service was pretty good, comparable to Singapore Airlines although Emirates B747 is very very rare.

Well, This is Qatar Airways, the World's 5 star airline and the best airline of the world 2010. This flight was from Casablanca to Libya Tripoli then transfer to Another Qatar Airways to Qatar then from there to Singapore. I love Transfers!! Best Service ever! Airbus A340.

Lufthansa, i would say, maybe comparable to Emirates. This flight was from Madrid to Frankfurt last December when i was exploring the Best of Europe! Airbus A320.

China Eastern Airlines. Well, whenever i go to China, i always take China Eastern and not Singapore Airlines. Well, low cost,, their service is also good and their planes are old though the seats are clean. Airbus A320 from Singapore to Shanghai Pudong.

British Airways takeoff from Spain Barcelona to London Heathrow Terminal 3. Service very poor, planes are very old, toilets are very dirty! Boeing 757-very old plane.

Russian Aeroflot Airline landing in Moscow. Took a flight from Heathrow to Moscow. Very bad flight procedure, pilot seems to be drunk and crazy, aircraft drops for 30 metres after take off suddenly. Boeing 767.

Japan Airlines Boeing 767 again from Tokyo Narita Airport to Bangkok. Pretty good flight attendants and service, overall 4 stars rating.

China Southern Airlines Boeing 757 Take Off from Hainan to Beijing. Similar to Russian Airliners very poor service and pilot experience. Not recommended.

American Airlines Boeing 737 Take Off from Miami to California in my America Exploration Trip. Very rare airplane but average service.

Qantas Boeing 737 from Brisbane to Melbourne. My gratitude to Qantas for letting me film the cockpit at the end of the flight. Very awesome service but lots of turbulence in the 737 which uses Yoke to fly instead of the Airbus's Side-stick.

Ryanair, a small private airline company which only has Boeing 737s in stock. No meals, alittle budget but service still good standards.

Well This is a video of Garuda Boeing 747. Well, pretty good service and meals. Thumbs up. This flight was from Indonesia to Greece.


Here ive concluded the list of videos i took. Hope you had fun watching the videos:)