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VP and their misunderstanding of the word "preflight"

Fezz CB

Fezz CB

"Spanish"
None
129 Paddles said:
BIO - Look forward to picking up the book, enjoyed the story about your recce pass up I-15.

Break Break

P-3 Dudes, What does a 5 hour preflight entail!?! Do you literally walk around the airplane for five hours looking for discrepancies? Does that time include the brief, reading of ADB, aircraft preflight? 5 hours seems like a good way to piss through a chunk of your crew day pretty fast by doing nothing?. Help an ignorant tac-air guy understand :)
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I've done 7 hour pre-flights and still had to fly a mission! We normally get scheduled for 3 hour pre-flights (I know right?). If you're non-P3 type, you have to realize that #1 Our plane is old and #2 we have 11 crewmembers preflighting their equipment. Stuff is likely to break, need repair, etc. I think I speak for most of the P-3 bubbas when i say that taking off ontime is a good day. But preflights greater than 3 hours is nothing unheard of in the P-3 community. I know for our squadron we need to inform the Skipper at the 5 hour mark.

Btw, it's great to be back on AW!! I cant even remember the last time I posted. It had to be when I joined my fleet squadron. Funny thing now is that I'm checking out for my shore tour. How time flies...
 
BarrettRC8

BarrettRC8

VMFA
pilot
Fezz CB said:
I've done 7 hour pre-flights and still had to fly a mission! We normally get scheduled for 3 hour pre-flights (I know right?). If you're non-P3 type, you have to realize that #1 Our plane is old and #2 we have 11 crewmembers preflighting their equipment. Stuff is likely to break, need repair, etc. I think I speak for most of the P-3 bubbas when i say that taking off ontime is a good day. But preflights greater than 3 hours is nothing unheard of in the P-3 community. I know for our squadron we need to inform the Skipper at the 5 hour mark.

Btw, it's great to be back on AW!! I cant even remember the last time I posted. It had to be when I joined my fleet squadron. Funny thing now is that I'm checking out for my shore tour. How time flies...
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Each of the 11 crewmembers are preflighting for the entire three hours?
 
M

MasterBates

Well-Known Member
Define this preflight.

My plane is old as shit, chock full of electronical doodads and more than a 1+30 from power applied to takeoff is rare.

Sent via my HTC EVO 4G
 
scoolbubba

scoolbubba

Brett327 gargles ballsacks
pilot
Contributor
Ryan_Cunningham said:
Each of the 11 crewmembers are preflighting for the entire three hours?
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No. On a Dedicated Fuel Waster (bounce flight), the crew can be done in well under an hour. 2 hours for the brief, getting all the pubs/wx/etc, and actual aircraft pre flight to off deck. A full ASW preflight, or something that requires any level of comms with a ship or ships besides voice takes significantly longer.

We don't have a team of trouble shooters standing by, so if there are any gripes, you have to factor in the time it takes maintenance to find someone from the shop to come out and take a look at a gripe, call it back in, track down a part and either get it from supply or another bird, put it on your bird, and cut and sign off the appropriate maps. Shit can get old really fast when you are trying to get off deck around mx shift change time.
 
Fezz CB

Fezz CB

"Spanish"
None
Sorry, I guess I should have clarified. 3 hour preflight means from brief to wheels up, like what scoolbubba said. The 3 hour preflights are usually for tactical events i.e. ASW, ASUW, ISR, etc. and 2hr preflights for DFW, FCF-type flights. For the 3 hr preflights, a full TSC brief including a crew brief takes anywhere between 20-45 mins. Then you read the book, walk to the plane, preflight, planeside brief, then takeoff. Some aircrew members will finish their preflight faster than others and will review their systems, grab some food, hit the head or grab a quick nap. But if a system doesnt come up properly that is required for the mission, thats when the potential of a >3 hour preflight exists. Again, this is for tactical preflights. The P-3 pilots can elaborate more on bounce flights since I'm just a dirty TACCO who puts out expendables and pukes in the back.
 
A

a_m

Still learning how much I don't know.
None
So this entire time you guys have been accounting for the brief into the preflight?
 
Harrier Dude

Harrier Dude

Living the dream
alabama_matt said:
So this entire time you guys have been accounting for the brief into the preflight?
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Evidently, in the P-3 community, from the moment the crew is all at work and in physical proximity to one another, to the moment of rotation, is known as "preflight".

That explains the 5-8 hour preflights.
 
phrogdriver

phrogdriver

More humble than you would understand
pilot
Super Moderator
Here I was thinking that the pilots were out there doing D&Ts or something. How long could you conceivably look at a flap before deciding it was good to go?
 
J

JBM

Gainfully Employeed
None
129 Paddles said:
P-3 Dudes, What does a 5 hour preflight entail!?! Do you literally walk around the airplane for five hours looking for discrepancies? Does that time include the brief, reading of ADB, aircraft preflight? 5 hours seems like a good way to piss through a chunk of your crew day pretty fast by doing nothing?. Help an ignorant tac-air guy understand :)
Click to expand...

Standerd preflight with a full crew of 11 guys is 3 hours. But when a mission critical component fails 2 hours into preflight...they can get very long. And it happens frequently. Our squadron stan notes literally have procedures for approval of preflights extended beyond the 5 hour mark.
 
M

MasterBates

Well-Known Member
Outside of VP, that's not really called a x hour preflight.

It's called a maintenance/troubleshooting delay.

Example. I brief at 0800 for a 0930 launch. I am in to do planning at 0700. I have a 2 hour maintenance delay because a hyd pump springs a leak on start, and launch at 1130.

I had a "normal" 15ish minute preflight, 45 minutes before takeoff.
I then had a 2 hour delay while maintenance changed a pump, did a low power turn/leak check, and the hyd samples.

Not a 3.5 hour preflight or 4.5 hour preflight (depending on if you count mission planning, talking with teh fighter clowns on the phone, etc before the actual NATOPS brief)
 
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