Leaving the aircraft for the next crew

[Will]

Curious about various real-world ops here... Let's say you've just landed and parked the aircraft, and you're off to the crew hotel for 36 hours of rest. Meanwhile, the inbound crew is arriving shortly to take over the aircraft for the flight back home. What sort of items do you switch off before you walk off the aircraft? I'm curious about:

APU - turn off if external power is available? Right?
IRS switches - OFF? Or leave it to the next crew to cycle them to off, then NAV?
Emergency lights - leave armed, I'm sure
Window heat - probably leave on
Yaw damper switches - leave on?
Trim air, recirc fans, gasper, humidifier - leave on
Packs - leave on if conditioned/bleed air is available, else OFF?
MCP - just leave it as-is from your inbound flight? Or set 200/000/10000 like when you've just turned it on?
Left and right EFIS panels - also leave as-in from your inbound flight?
Upper EICAS - leave the messages present, or clean things up with the CANC button?
Lower EICAS - leave it as-is, or blank it for the incoming crew?
3rd FMC - leave it on your last ACARS page, or go to menu?

Any other things you would do to prep the aircraft for the next crew?

 

[John H Watson]

There does seem to be some variation between crews (even in the same airline), but generally your first observations seem to be correct

e.g. if the APU is shut down, some remember turn off the battery just in case ground power is lost.

On practicality. There is no point cleaning up messages. Every time someone opens a door or touches a switch, new ones appear. It's good to switch off window heat in hot climates as this can create nuisance messages. If the heat on the window from the sun is greater than the overheat temperature, the system thinks there is a fault.
Some airline crews turn off the flight directors. I don't think ours did unless the approach required turning them off.

There are additional steps, such as disarming the flight deck door lock (if the door is closed by someone after leaving the flight deck, you've got problems)

[Will]

Thanks, John, that's helpful.

[Mariano]

Will,

In my operation (767, though), we rarely (very rarely) perform the securing checklist. Once we park, we complete the shutdown checklist, after which Maintenance boards the airplane and immediately starts working on completing the transit check, daily check, and/or Pre-Departure Service Check (applicable to ETOPS flights only).

Once they board, one engineer sits on the first observer seat and starts messing with the lower EICAS, mainly going through maintenance-specific system pages (and status page).

We leave the flight deck pretty much as the shutdown checklist leaves it. Nevertheless, we do have to unplug and stow headsets, remove iPad stands from windows, group all electromechanical Mach/airspeed indicator bugs, reset DA bug to zero (electromechanical altimeter), stow seatbelts, and dispose of all trash from side consoles.

As a personal procedure, I always turn off all panel and flood lights (during daytime or at night if flood override is on), put both CDUs on the INIT/REF INDEX page, put ACARS DLM/CDU (the 767's "Center CDU" ;-) on the main menu page, and dim CDUs, ADIs, HSIs, and ACARS DLM/CMU.

Maintenance will carry out their checks/inspections, which will have them move certain switches from the positions in which we left them (emergency lights, window heat, cargo heat, packs (as needed for them to stay comfortable, etc.).

IRUs to OFF is part of our shutdown checklist. Connecting external power is standard in our operation, but APU may remain on for temperature control (Maintenance will then do as they please, which is usually to turn it off if airplane is to sit for a while).

Best regards,

Mariano

[Will]

Also very helpful, thanks!

[Ton van Bochove]

What is the procedure in case of a short turnaround ( 1.5 - 2 hrs) but NOT handing over the AC to another crew. I suppose after shutting down nothing else is cleaned up. 

[emerydc8]

As mentioned above, most everything is covered by the parking checklist. As a personal technique, I always set 2000 on the transponder and select both radio transmitter switches to interphone in case of a stuck mike. If we get into the blocks and maintenance hasn't shown up by the time we are leaving the airplane, we will turn the APU off and wait until it spools down before turning the BAT switch off as well, for the reason John mentions above.

Jon

[localiser]

Hi Will,

36 hours would be great!

As Mariano says, normally you leave the aircraft with the Secure Checklist complete and occasionally if the engineers are there to take over right away, one step earlier with the Shutdown Checklist complete.

(bearing in mind the normal checklist can change between operators, so this isn't set in stone)

APU - Very often when landing in a hot climate we would leave this on as this will power the a/c and packs, which we would also leave on if there was no external cooling air on the ground. Sometimes the air on the ground isn't particularly good/effective. One flight I did a while ago there were issues with the APU/ground air and the cabin was 37C, the flight deck was 38C, when we got on. After we finally took off, it took 3 hours in flight for the cabin to cool down to 24C again. There is also a hot weather supplementary procedure in the FCOM which offers some guidance in prepping the cabin such as closing the window blinds to delay heating from direct sunlight. So, APU on/off all the time is probably fine for the short haul airlines but there are some practical differences on the 747 which in the end an operator just has to accept it's a different kind of mission and put down to the costs of running this machine.

IRS - off with the Secure Checklist

Emergency lights - off with the Secure Checklist, once non-crew have got off

Window heat - Always stays on but this could probably go off if its really hot I don't think it's prescribed though

Yaw damper switches - last time I touched it was on the 737 

Trim air, recirc fans, gasper, humidifier - stay on. The humidifier I believe has been deactivated on many models. Apparently, releasing moisture into the cabin air was causing corrosion in various areas.

Packs - As related to the APU, but  if it's cool outside these go off and the the APU goes off with EXT power available.

MCP - normally IAS - 100 knots, HDG leave alone, ALT - 00,000

Left and right EFIS panels - normally just clear your minimums. Some guys turn the VOR/ADF switches off and turn all the ACP volume knobs down. Just so you have to turn them all back on/up again... More useful is to deselect VHF radios from the mic and leave it on FLT INT, that way a stuck mic won't block the radio by accident.

Upper EICAS - clearing the messages is futile...

Lower EICAS - stays on Status page

3rd FMC - normally stays on OOOI times as once you've got your block time you forget about it 

Other things? On the CDU a lot of people clear the FIX and NAV RAD pages, reset the clock.


Ton,
If you had an unscheduled tech stop or a transit check you'd probably go down to the Shutdown Checklist, realign the IRS and just start everything from the beginning again from Preflight Checklist.

[Ton van Bochove]

Ton,
If you had an unscheduled tech stop or a transit check you'd probably go down to the Shutdown Checklist, realign the IRS and just start everything from the beginning again from Preflight Checklist.

Thanks localiser, that will be helpful

[John H Watson]

 

One flight I did a while ago there were issues with the APU/ground air and the cabin was 37C, the flight deck was 38C, when we got on. After we finally took off, it took 3 hours in flight for the cabin to cool down to 24C again.

Our airline had a policy of no boarding with the temperature above a certain value (can't remember now, but maybe 28C). This has led to delays, with the economic consequences of such. The bean-counters probably didn't factor this into their APU and pack usage policies or the engineering man hours wasted disconnecting/connecting external power/air. There were also a number of back injuries relating to this, so many in fact that OH&S had to run training courses on how to apply external power in the correct manner.

[FreightDog767]

...and select both radio transmitter switches to interphone in case of a stuck mike.

I thought I was the only person who did that!

[David Palmer]

If...
'IN' late at the gate
and
know next service destination
and
ATI hasn't changed
while
pax disembarking
then...
set HDG to dep. rwy hdg
set ALT to cleared alt./lvl issued in SID
gather up old newspapers and other crap

[Toga]

When I was training my class and I had a habit of deliberately pulling a CB or switching something off to catch our mates out. That was in the sim. A lot of fun and kept you sharp.

[emerydc8]

Hopefully the next crew/instructor catches it before it gets too far into the session and causes something unexpected. I've seen prior crews/instructors do this to be cute and it ended up causing a significant delay while maintenance was called in and time was lost. Then they ran out of time and didn't get to finish the script.

I remember hearing a story while at the old Flying Tiger training center in LAX before they were purchased by FedEx. Apparently, a prior crew had landed the DC-8 sim at LAX but they were upside down when they touched down. They left the sim and didn't tell anyone. The next group couldn't get the sim to boot up. It took the engineers quite a while to figure that one out.

Jon

[Toga]

Ha ha brilliant anecdote Jon.

We usually pulled something that would be noticed more or less at the beginning of the detail: the AP was the classic.

[emerydc8]

One of the instructors' favorite Easter eggs is to leave all the engines running when you first jump in -- something you're never going to see in the real world, but it does create some confusion before you start your scan-flows. Almost no one catches it on the safety check because engines are not on it. I have sim this week. I'm sure I'll get to deal with Easter eggs soon.