Xtra knowledge about aeroplanes

Busy Busy Busy! It's the end of the semester, finished all classes, having a so called study break for a week (but i call it HOLIDAYS!), week after having final tests for a week, and then, i'm free for 5 weeks til Jan 15!!! yeay yeay!

Today's post is about aeroplanes, AGAIN. I guess some of you are dead bored of this by now, thousands of apologies! (kneals down and serve u chinese tea to apologise. Or u prefer teh tarik? ahhaha) Nah, it's not that i'm an aeroplane fanatic (a lil actually), but i just feel like sharing my knowledge with u guys. It's fun to know more about aeroplanes. It's huge, it's gigantic, it's heavy! but still, it flies... ain't that amazing?

Oh yea, before i proceed with the post, i would like to convey my condolences to the family of the demised new student who was involved in a road accident (he was on a bike) on wednesday night. And also, i hope the other guy who was involved in another different road accident on Monday(he was motorbike racing and paralysed waist down now) to get well soon, and I really hope a miracle will happen. To whoever who rides motorbike, PLEASE be a safe rider and make sure your bike is road-worthy. And for mat rempits, think twice before racing, is it worth using your flesh as your motorbike's protection? No.

Hey, bring the happy mood back! Let's learn more about aeroplanes! So, what do u know about aircraft's fuel and the storage tank(fuel tank)? It uses Diesel? Petrol? Liquid Hydrogen? It's stored in plastic bags under each seat? Circumfuring the fuselage(body)? Tail section? At the nose? No no no, the fuel tanks are here...


Fuel tanks

See the 3 red arrows? yea, that's where all the fuel are stored. The middle arrow is called the center belly tank, then the inboard wing tank, and the outboard wing tank. So, there are 5 fuel tanks in all with 2 on each wing, and the center tank having the biggest capacity. How big? I'm pretty sure u can play squash in there!

What type of fuel keeps the engine moving? For these big turbine powered engines, we use Kerosene. But we dun call it Kerosene in the industry, it's called Jet Fuel. There are 3 type of Jetfuels, namely Jet A, Jet A-1, and Jet B. These fuels are not colored blue or green or red like our Shell V-power or Unleaded'97 used by cars, but rather transparent of slightly yellowish (straw). Jet B fuel has a blend of kerosene and gasoline, whereas Jet A and Jet A-1 is pure kerosene.

Knowing that turbine powered aircrafts cruise at an amazingly high altitude of 30,000-40,000ft, the temperature up there must be freezing, not to forget the speed of aircraft of more than 900km/h! Though the freezing point of Jet A fuel is -40 degree celcius, yet ice can form and cause the engine to starve from fuel. Therefore, these fuels are added with inhibitors(some sort of chemical) to prevent fuel icing.

U might be wondering: "The most dangerous part of the plane must be the center, cos there's where all the fuel are" hahaha... Well, i guess so?! But hey, how often do planes crash? And till today, MAS' flights are pretty safe! hahaha... Dun be scared of flying! OUR LIVE IS FATED is my favourite sentence. That's what i told my parents when they disallowed me from applying for Cadet Pilot (they were worried that I might die in a plane crash).

Refuelling process is done most of the time when the aircraft lands, and normally it is refueled to FULL. Why? Just in case some emergency happens or the airport has heavy traffic and thus needs the aircraft to go for a few extra rounds, and that is when extra fuel is needed. So, it's a good practice to keep the tanks FULL, u dun wanna see the red warning light blinking in mid air rite?

The next time u board a plane, get the window seat slightly ahead of the wings, then u can view the refuelling process going on. You'll see a truck just underneath the wings with big pipings. And there will be this refuelling man walking down there (might be me! hahhaha!) opening up a cover on the floor, and connecting that big pipe into the ground at 1 end, following by the aircraft wing on the other end.

Wear this before entering the fuel tank for maintenance, cute leh?


This is cuter!


Albert - My mate, preparing to enter Boeing727 fuel tank


Did he notice that his flyer has burst?!


Believe me, people with more than 40in waistline, stay out!


Now you see me, now you don't !


Dun forget to wear the respirator (fumes can cause impotency)


Now i know when the respirator comes to full use! ewww...

Enough of fueling. Now we'll talk about lightings. I'm sure it's easy to identify a plane flying during night time, having the blinking white, blue, and red lights standing out in the pitch black sky. Just like cars, aeroplanes have head lamps too! It's positioned at the inboard side of each wing. As for the tips of the wing, that's where the blinking lights will be. Left wing is for RED, and right is for blue/green. Therefore, if u see a plane in the sky, and the red light is on the RHS, blue is on the LHS, it means that the plane is coming towards you. If the plane is heading away from you, u won't see either of the red and blue lights, but rather a single white blinking light only. There are exceptions however, some manufacturers put so many lights on the plane, that it is almost impossible to fly into another plane without noticing it. That whole freaking thing in the sky is BLINKING!!!! hahaha...

Have a wonderful week ahead guys!