A few days ago I watched an FO preflight a CRJ-700. Today I sat across from an RP (student) and watched him preflight a Hornet. I think it took the RP longer! So this got me to thinking.......how long does it take you to preflight your type of aircraft (C-152 to 747-400)? Does the time change appreciably depending on different conditions - day/night, weather, first flight of the day, etc...? Please - share your experience.

USMCFLYR

 

I pre-flight for a minimum of 10 minutes, regardless of the weather. That is how I was taught though.

Personally, I have never seen a commercial pilot pre-flight the airplane he is about to depart on. I always thought there was someone at the airport going around pre-flighting the exterior of the aircraft. I could be wrong though. Pre-flighting a jumbo jet wouldn't be too bad of an exercise .

 

In the Brasilia I make sure everything is still attached, tires arent worn, check oil, check boots for cracks, look for any defects on the prop blades, etc etc etc. the whole thing takes about 5 min. At Skywest the FO does a walkaround before every leg, and after if there is no crew waiting to pick up the airplane.

 

Usually 5 min for me, at the most. I fly about anything below 12,500MGTOW

 

I've never timed myself but my instructor thinks I take too long to pre-flight the 172 I fly. I've found missing/loose screws on access panels, landing lights inop, tires worn and the exhaust duct cracked at the mount just flapping in the wind.

 

For a walk around about 5 minutes on a 172 sized aircraft, and 5 minutes on the flight deck. On the CRJ I took About 10 Minutes on the preflight walkaround (<5 on a post flight) and another 10-15 minutes on the flight deck. Most people think they take longer than they really do, a full 10 minutes is a long time, and plenty to do a walk around on most GA aircraft and small jets. I bet if you really timed yourself you would be surprised.

 

When I am at the flight school all I check is the fuel, oil, and glance down the horizontal stab to see if anyone had a little extra fun with the airplane and didn't report it. The fleet is very low time, documented and we have an on-call MX staff so spending a lot of time on preflights is overkill. My students preflight using the checklist anyway before I get there. I usually will dip the tanks to see what they have in them, and I always tap the sumps because jet A has been known to get in the supply. Also, I usually will check the oil but not always. The planes are so new that any problems tend to stick out.

On the other hand if am out where they have 40 year old airplanes I may spend quite a while preflighting before flying. I am leery of something cropping up that goes unnoticed even though the airplane may have flown recently. You get systematic wear patterns in the airplanes because they stay at the same field doing the same operation year after year. A new oil streak may mean trouble or it may not, but you want to know about it before it leads to that. Older airplanes tend to have a host of idiosyncrasies that hide any real problems if they exist so you have to spend more time preflighting them. In addition there are some mild psychological barriers to consider, such as the resistance of the owner to spending money on the airplane. This can be kind of subtle because we tend to see what we want to see. It is my job to say hey, you know these tires are really getting too far along, this nose strut is down or I think you need to redo the brakes because the owner may not be ready to drop hundreds on the airplane that month and you have to push them to do it.

 

One of the pilots does it, usually the first officer. It takes about 5 minutes on the outside, actually less time than a 172. You don't check fluids or physically wiggle control surfaces on a typical airliner.

 

Though it's an FO duty on the 767, at least with our company, it takes me about 20 minutes to demo it to an IOE student.
Contrast that with about 40 to 45 minutes on the CH47, even during the winter months at Fort Indiantown Gap.

 

USMC:

T-38: About 3 minutes, and I do a very thorough job....but I know exactly what to look for, especially known hydraulic leak points and loose panels. It goes fast because it isn't a very big airplane, and there is only so much you can check. Students take about double.

747-400: about 15-20 minutes. Airliners have built-in pressure gauges on each tire. Problem on the Whale was: 16 main wheels, and they tended to get sooty...I think it was a combination of carbon from the brakes and hydraulic fluid. Nose tires were pretty clean, usually.

I usually had a few paper towels with me, as you would have to scan around the rim to find the gauge, then see if it needed to be wiped-off to read, and then shine your flashlight on it to check the reading.

Checking the fan on the engines took a while too. Twice as many engines, and a lot of blade-area to scan for nicks....and I always looked thoroughly.

Either the Capt or an FO can do this, but usually it's the FO.

The 727 took about 15 minutes because some of the gauges you had to read were hidden up inside the aft stairwell, and I'm getting fuzzy on this, but I think there were things to check in the right wheel well, too. On the 727, the FE normally did the preflight.

A-320: about 10 minutes.

Lear 35: about 10 minutes for the first preflight of the day, as you had to go into the "Hell Hole" (Sounds like a song by Spinal Tap), and it was hard to read the halon pressure and hydraulic accumulator. After that, 5 minutes for each stop.