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Originally Posted by fromFT
This thread always goes in full force! Thank you W0X0F. Always looking for you or your brother when I board a 75x/76x. One day I will be lucky.
Start looking when you board an MD-88. My brother went to the left seat about six months ago and I'm going to training for MD-88 Captain on October 28. I should be back flying the line by December. (I'm going to miss the international flying. Going to Iceland this Friday.)
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Now, to the usual questions (or not usual):
Have you ever conducted or participated in a maintenance acceptance flight for the company? Who is conducting those when planes return from long maintenance (SIN) or when they enter service? for example, I presume that each of the new 737-900 goes through a maintenance flight before it enters the fleet.
Also, what would one usually check in the Boeing acceptance flights in particular? The Airbus tends to do alot of examination for the automated systems, but in general the B757/767 is somewhat less automated than the Airbus.
Is there a fixed protocol/task list for those flights upon major maintenance or acceptance to service? Are they considered more 'fun'/'interesting'/'challenging' to the flight crew?
I used to perform Maintenance Acceptance Flights (MAFs) at ACA, but I haven't ever done one at Delta. I assume that pilots from the training department are doing those flights.
I used to regularly do "ADG drops" in the Canadair CRJ. This was a simple flight check of the auxiliary drive generator, a device that pops out of the side to the plane to provide limited electrical power in the case of a complete power failure. I'd sometimes do two or three of these in a row late at night (after the planes were done with revenue flying). We had a script to follow, which included shutting off both engine-driven generators and then verifying that the ADG deploys and then provides the necessary electrical power. This check had to be done every 180 days for each airplane. (Later models of the CRJ had an improved ADG that didn't require a flight check; it could be tested on the ground by maintenance personnel.)
To my knowledge, we never had an actual situation where the ADG deployed. Oh, and yes, I enjoyed those flights. Didn't have to wear a uniform, and I could yank and bank more than I would ever dream of doing with passengers on board.
Last edited by W0X0F; 09-10-2014 at 04:51 PM.