Shop, Flight-Line Safety and Servicing

Every flight starts with a walk-around: tyres, fluids, controls free and correct, no foreign object debris. Checklists exist to catch what memory cannot. Any defect found is recorded, and the aircraft remains unairworthy until an appropriately authorised person signs the release to service.

Protect the person first: eye, ear and hand protection matched to the task, secured clothing and hair around rotating machinery, and no bypassed guards or interlocks. Know the fire classes — A ordinary combustibles, B flammable liquids, C electrical, D burning metals — and match the extinguisher, because water on a fuel fire spreads it. Treat fuels, solvents and paints as health hazards requiring ventilation, gloves, no ignition sources and correct disposal.

Tool control is a safety system: shadow every toolbox, count tools in and out, and stop work to search after anything is dropped. A clean, lit and ventilated shop is the first inspection you pass every day.

The ramp kills the careless. Never approach a turning propeller or an air intake, and treat exhausts and auxiliary power units as hot and toxic. Marshalling signals are a language: wands, night wands, chocks and the emergency stop, and never walk between a marshaller and the aircraft. Before fuelling, bond and ground, verify the correct grade against the manual, and sump for water and sediment. Finally service oils, hydraulics, tyres and struts to the book, tie down into the wind, and leave the aircraft clean, chocked and locked.