Had a bit of a mad ten minutes this morning at work. I was working on an aircraft and the only person other than me who initially turned up to also work on it, was the dispatcher, and she's busty dealing with her stuff of course, so could only help me a little bit. So I had to get it on stand, chock it, cone it, power it, do an arrival walkaround check, put the towbar on, get the dispatcher to help me bank the belt onto the aircraft (she forgot to chock it which the person banking on should do, but I did put the parking brake on so it's not the end of the world), then get the truck and trailer for the bags, then get in the hold, unload stuff onto the belt, then go down the belt to pull stuff onto the trailer, then repeat that twice to get the rest of the bags off, since I could not operate the belt from the hold, then start loading it with the outbound stuff.

At that point someone else turned up to help and then someone else turned up with a tug, so since I was no longer doing everything myself, I decided to test my new camera glasses which I bought for use on some of my youtube videos since my other ones were not of sufficiently good quality. These ones appear to be better both on image quality and audio quality although they are a tad flimsy and actually broke toward the end of this clip, so I've reinforced them a bit tonight and hopefully will get to shoot some footage I intend to use properly tomorrow.

So, this video is nothing special but with it being entirely unedited raw footage, there are a few things of interest if you like aeroplanes and so I figured I'd post it for anyone who is curious about what it is actually like working down on the ramp. It features an Embraer 145 of Loganair on a spin (quick turnaround) to Inverness on Stand 17 at Manchester. In the video you can see the astonishing fact that it is occasionally sunny in Manchester. In addition to this you can the bar being put on the tug, the headset going into the ground interphone socket for the pushback comms which is also where the 28v GPU plugs in, the interior of the tug and me checking the book in there to make sure we have the correct pushback procedure, the hold being closed up with the nets being fastened and the weird cargo door arrangement on the E145 being closed (even then I had to open and close it again a minute or two later because the ECAM in the cockpit was showing it still open because of a dodgy microswitch on the door). You can also see the horrible sludgy green de-icing fluid all over the stand (yeah I know it looks sunny, but it was still cold).

You can see a few other aeroplanes coming and going including a couple of ATR-72s and there are some Dash 8s, Airbuses and 737s in there as well since this was on Stand 17 which is in the busy cul-de-sac, so if you like realistic AI traffic in your sim, that stuff is what is really on those stands most of the time. Toward the end, you can see me do a final quick walkaround to ensure all the GSE is clear and to check the two doors which were not opened or closed by me (the main passenger door and the fuel access panel) are properly closed and latched. Me of course having done a more thorough walkaround check of all the other stuff earlier, as indeed did one of the pilots too, and I knew the cargo door was shut because it was me who did that.

Incidentally, when you see me close the cargo door, you also see me pull out a red vent handle to the left of the door lock mechanism. Many cargo hold doors have these vent panels and their opening and closing function is often automatic (such as on the Airbus A320 for example), but on the E145, you have to pull that out yourself which is why it has a big handle on it and is painted red so you don't forget to do it!

19 hours ago, Chock said:

....and she's busty

Really? Pictures, Al?  Ahem, predictive text and spellchecking aside (yes the word is spelled (spelt?) correctly, but I'm sure you meant BUSY), interesting video. Cheers!

1 hour ago, HighBypass said:

Really? Pictures, Al?  Ahem, predictive text and spellchecking aside (yes the word is spelled (spelt?) correctly, but I'm sure you meant BUSY), interesting video. Cheers!

Lol: good typo huh.