Did you know that pilots are only allowed to fly one type of plane at a time?
When news.com.au visited Jetstar’s engineering hangar in Melbourne this week to meet senior pilot Lizzie Archibald, a throwaway remark in the conversation shocked.
Ms Archibald was asked whether flying Jetstar’s new A321neo aircraft would mean she had to get her head around a whole new system. (If you have seen the amount of buttons in a cockpit, you would not want them to move positions or change functions after you had learnt what they are.)
She explained it would not be a whole lot different to fly than what she was used to, but added she could only fly one aircraft type at a time anyway. No switching is allowed.
“Once you’ve been endorsed – we call it an endorsement – or trained on a particular aircraft type, you can only fly that one for that period of time,” she said.
“Even if you went and trained on another aircraft type, you couldn’t just come back and fly the previous one.
“And that’s just to make sure, because they are all quite different and the systems are complex, that we know exactly the aeroplane that we are flying at any particular time.”
So even though Ms Archibald, who has been flying for Jetstar for 15 years, has previously flown Boeing 787 Dreamliners, she wouldn’t be allowed to fill in if they needed a pilot for one tomorrow.
‘One thing as a pilot I would never do as passenger’
Another revelation that may come as a surprise, is that even as an experienced pilot, Ms Archibald says she will never ignore a safety demonstration when flying as a passenger.
“It’s always a really good idea even if you’re flying all the time to make sure you’ve refreshed where everything is, where the exits are, and every aeroplane really can be different, even within Jetstar, let alone when you start flying with other carriers,” she said.
“And as well, the cabin crew are up there, they’re demonstrating the safety information for you so [it’s important] to just show respect for them by paying attention to what they have to say.”
Warning on packing popular item in carry-on bag
One thing Ms Archibald has learnt over her many years travelling is to always pack a small bag in her carry-on with a toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant to freshen up on the plane.
When it comes to deodorant, you might think roll-on is your best bet – but Ms Archibald tells us that is not the case.
“Make sure that it is one of the stick deodorants, the ones with the ball can pop out under the pressurisation of the aircraft which is never particularly comfortable and the aerosols can muck with the technology in the bathroom, so stick deodorant is definitely the way to go,” she said.
This author learnt that fact the hard way recently, with the roll-on deodorant making an absolute mess.
Inside the flight deck
For a lot of travellers, what lies beyond the door at the front of the plane is a mystery.
The most obvious sight when entering the out-of-bounds flight deck area is the overwhelming amount of buttons. They are in front the pilots’ seats, between them, on the ceiling and even behind them.
There is no steering wheel, as feet pedals are instead used to steer the aircraft when it is on the ground.
Ms Archibald says one of the most common questions pilots get is whether they know what all the buttons do.
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“Absolutely we do,” she confirmed. “They all have a purpose. They look like they’re laid out a little bit randomly but they’re actually all laid out in a way that makes a lot of sense for us as pilots.”
The buttons that pilots have access to in the cockpit, that control things passengers would be familiar with, include turning the seatbelt sign on and adjusting the airconditioning.
“Normally it’s set at about 22C, which is the sort of standard temperature,” Ms Archibald said, however it does change and is split across different zones in the cabin.
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