Avionics
Avionics video
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Video Transcript
1.10.05 Mohnish: My name is Mohnish , I’m 17, I go to Manurewa High and I have a very great interest in the aviation industry.
1.10.13 Clinton: Well you’re in the right place Mohnish because the airforce has a range of jobs for anyone interested in aircraft and leading aircraft man Chris Anker is going to show you the critical work done by avionics engineers.
1.10.26 Chris: Firstly what we’re going to do to day is take you through a couple of the instruments on the aircraft, and show you what we do in avionics, and then we’re going to shoot back to the base and try and fix them.
1.10.35 Mohnish: Ok, so lets have a wee look.
1.10.40 Chris: Alright mate, this is the flight deck of our C130 Hercules, basically all these gauges is what we look after with avionics. We look after fuel gauges, pressure gauges and various things like that.
1.10.52 Chris: It’s such an important trade because if anything were to go wrong, it’s the safety of all those people on that plane that falls on our shoulders. So if we do something wrong and the plane crashes, it’s a huge deal. If there’s something that isn’t done right, there’s the potential for loss of life. It’s quite literally that important.
1.11.18 Clinton: Squadron based technicians identify faults with equipment and send them back to the bay to be fixed and Monish is going to have to fix a HSI unit.
1.11.28 Chris: This is a Glide Slope Indicator, and what that tells the pilot is that when it’s coming in for a landing, it’s the ideal angle for the aircraft to be approaching at in order to make a very successful landing. And what happens when this flags displays itself, it’s telling the pilot that the information being received into the instrument is unreliable.
1.11.48 Chris: Right, we’ll get you to fire it up – that’s those two switches there. If you just flick those, what should happen is all the flags should go away. Ok, and as you can see, the Glide Slope flag is still showing.
1.12.01 Clinton: And after confirming the fault they have to identify the cause.
1.12.04 Chris: Look at that, you see there’s a loose wire – that’s probably what’s causing our problem.
1.12.11 Chris: A good avionics person should have a good eye for detail, have a good interest in electronics and be interested in planes in general. Patience is a key factor, you need to be able to keep a cool head and nut it out.
1.12.24 Chris: So if you want to flick the power back on…and the flag goes away! Nice work!
1.12.36 Clinton: In the Air Force, smoko is called Joe and it’s a perfect time for Monish to relax and have some fun with the other Avionics staff.
1.12.46 Chris: I think it’s a lot different to what it’s commonly perceived to be. The impression that I go, before I joined up, was military, that it was all just marching around and doing disciplinary type of stuff. The reality is quite different.
1.13.01 Clinton: But they are soon back to work as Chris introduces Monish to the P3k Orion which carries some serious avionics hardware.
1.13.11 Chris: It’s a maritime patrol vessel, and is used primarily for search and rescue type operations. It uses the infra-red electro optic turret here, also the radar and a couple of other boxes on the plane to try and locate people while they’re in the water.
1.13.23 Chris: So this is the tech rail, in each of these stations there’s an operator sitting in and they control different parts of the aircraft.
1.13.32 Clinton: The infra red electro optic turret is a highly specialized piece of equipment and Corporal Kaarem Al-Darra is going to show Monish how it works.
1.13.45 Monish: It’s the colour and stuff like that?
11.13.46 Kaarem: Um, You can use that button there, it swaps between cameras.
1.13.52 Clinton: The turret is gyro stabilized and can track moving objects automatically with the help of special software.
1.14.00 Monish: So they don’t need to twist?
1.14.02 Kaarem: No, they’re all looking at the same thing at the same time.
1.14.07 Clinton: Inside the turret there is a colour daylight camera, a high zoom spotter camera and an infra red one as well.
1.14.15 Kaarem: And you can zoom in with the other button in there. I’ll show you some of the things the system could do, it will be able to pick this up.
1.14.25 Clinton: The infra red camera sees heat and turns it into an image which makes spotting a warm bodied person against the cold ocean much easier.
1.14.34 Chris: Ok Monish, here we are at the radar bay. This is the same radar that we looked at on the P3 before. It’s radar – stands for Radio Detection and Ranging. Basically what it does is it will send out a pulse, and that pulse will then reflect off objects in the distance and then some back to the receiver. So basically what that does is that it will paint a picture of the terrain or weather, depending on what the radar is tuned to. With this particular radar, it has a bit of a fault with it. This servo just here, it’s gone kaput, and we need to change it.
1.15.07 Clinton: The servo spins the radar at 150 revolutions per minute – but this one’s not going anywhere.
1.15.16 Chris: As you can see it’s not moving, so that’s our fault confirmed. Now what we need to do is fire down the power and change our servo.
1.15.25 Clinton: When it’s working the radar can emit 2000 pulses a second, revealing a phenomenal amount of detail from the surrounding world.
1.15.32 Chris: Ok, we’ll just pop it on the bench over here.
1.15.34 Chris: Now we have a serviceable one from stores, and we’re going to open this up, and that needs to go back where the other one was.
1.15.45 Clinton: So with all Monish’s careful attention to detail, will his Radar repair get things spinning again?
1.15.58 Chris: Look at that! Nice work!
1.16.03 Chris: I think he’d make a great avionics technician – he seems to have the discipline down, he’s focused and seems to have the right attributes for the trade.
1.16.12 Cinton: With the radar fixed and installed the Orion on to it’s next mission so how has Monish found his time in Avionics?
1.16.19 Monish: Definitely my favourite part would be fixing up the HSI Unit – that was fun because it was really techy, and finding the fault for it and soldering it and doing it by hand. It was really great.
1.16.30 Clinton: Avionics engineers need to be accurate, patient, effective and able to follow instructions. They should be practical and logical in their work, with good hand-eye co-ordination, normal colour vision and must be comfortable working in confined spaces.
Three years of secondary education in English, maths and science is needed before starting training and previous experience in electronics or electrical work is useful, as is experience as a mechanic.
1.16.57 Clinton:
That was really fascinating. Lisa…the avionics engineers are obviously vital in keeping our Air Force aircraft and people safe….