CRJ 200 Experts, Please share your preflight tips

[mike1]

Mike1:

Thanks for the memories. I am now furloughed from the plane you aspire to fly.

So although I want to be as sarcastic as possible all I can do is tell you the truth and here it is:

For the next few months you will try to do the best g'da$n job you can including your preflights. Then you will be paired with "THE" captain and he will teach you everything you wanted to know about preflight for the airplane. He will show you stuff that you "only get from the Tech Manuals". You will hate his (or her) guts. He or she will ask you "how many things you found wrong with the airplane and woe be to you if you don't find the same things. A four-day pairing will feel like a month. A month will seem like a year. You will cry to get away from this moron. And then you will never care about another preflight your entire career. Big things attached and nothing will get me in trouble - Done! Let me get out of this f'in weather. Believe me the ramp will suddenly get too cold, too hot, too icy or too rainy very soon. You won't care about a bonding strap unless it pokes you in the eye - with the door closed it's probably grounded anyway. Hydraulic leaks are going to have to be whoppers to cause a delay. Paint - ha, ha-ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha - After you've worn through the airline colors, the base white, the green zinc oxide and you start seeing holes in the aluminum and fiberglass - OK, now I'll worry about paint.

Do the best you can - it's better than 70% of the rest of your fellow crew members and good luck. I'm sure glad I'm not working for $19K a year doing preflights in Burlington, VT or god forbid, Fargo, ND in December.

Mike:

Great thread. Too bad some of the replies here mistook your idea as being that of a super-geeky newbie F/O who wants to restore each plane to factory-new before every flight!

Thanks for the great stuff so far everyone! Lets up the safety level even more!

Two more good ones are the Placards for the oxygen door and ADG door.

 

[shamrock]

I remember one day when I was working ramp for Pinnacle an FO did a walk around and didnt even notice that the whole tail cone was covered in speed tape. I asked the FO during his walk around what had happened to the plane. he had no clue that the plane was taped together. I noticed it as the plane was landing. Youd think somehing like that would be noticed during the pre flight when its right in front of your face! That makes me wonder what else this idiot misses??

Not to defend that FO, but I do walkarounds every day that I work and after 3 and a half years I sometimes wonder how much of an abnormality there would need to be for me to notice.

It's kind of like when you look at your watch and as soon as you take your eyes off it someone asks you what time it is and you can't tell them without taking another look. Sometimes I feel like that with gear pins. I know I looked at them but I always have a little bit of doubt when the Captain asks. After having done walkarounds for a while without finding anything significant I notice that my my mind does tend to wander.

I'd like to think that I would notice a tailcone covered in speedtape but, as I said, sometimes I wonder.

 

[Tank Commander]

When ever picking up a new plane, I aways look in the aft equipment bay. Anything that can make your day go to $hit really real fast is located there. I've found tools bails of safety wire left behind by maintenance. really don't want things like that bouncing around back there in turbulences.

 

[wmuflyguy]

I remember one day when I was working ramp for Pinnacle an FO did a walk around and didnt even notice that the whole tail cone was covered in speed tape. I asked the FO during his walk around what had happened to the plane. he had no clue that the plane was taped together. I noticed it as the plane was landing. Youd think somehing like that would be noticed during the pre flight when its right in front of your face! That makes me wonder what else this idiot misses??

Just cause it is covered in speed tape doesn't mean it isn't the way it is supposed to be. I doubt the speed tape was holding the Tail cone on. Go look at the winglets, those things are taped on.

 

[J32driver]

Just cause it is covered in speed tape doesn't mean it isn't the way it is supposed to be.

Speed tape is mostly used to protect epoxy as it cures. If it was on the tailcone, it very well could have been a repair of a lightning strike. I've seen that one several times.

 

[wmuflyguy]

Thanks, I'm yet to see it on the tailcone, but your explanation makes sense. I have seen it put on wing tips and and winglets to protect them from rock damage.

 

[mullet]

Two more good ones are the Placards for the oxygen door and ADG door.

Not sure what you mean by good ones? Are you preflighting your aircraft or trying to point out the many items that would ground an aircraft. PLEASE, PLEASE don't be that guy. Every company has a few, and trust me you dont want to be that guy. You will impress no one and annoy so many. (px, scheduling, fa's, rampers, mx, dispatchers, your pilot group, etc...)

 

[Captain X]

And as a wise man said, sumb!tch flew in, sumb!tch'll fly out!

Try telling that to the 3 crewmembers and 11 passengers that lost their lives in an EMB-120 on 9/11/1991 over Eagle Lake, TX.

 

[erj-145mech]

Thanks, I'm yet to see it on the tailcone, but your explanation makes sense. I have seen it put on wing tips and and winglets to protect them from rock damage.

Speed tape is different from erosion tape. The speed tape metallic and is aluminum colored and erosion tape is opaque, and vinyl based.

 

[b82rez]

Try telling that to the 3 crewmembers and 11 passengers that lost their lives in an EMB-120 on 9/11/1991 over Eagle Lake, TX.

Uh..that would be like....totally impossible :erm: