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- Today, I'm making an engineering video,
it is all about behind the scenes.
What's happening in the engineering world of aeroplanes
during the Covid.
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I come to Ethihad engineering, but this is not Ethihad.
This is another Dreamliner Latam from South America,
in Abu Dhabi, very rare.
- [Ahmed Elgendy] Yes, another surprise,
we are not serving only Ethihad,
We're serving customers from all over the world,
from all the continents, Latam is one of our customers.
- [Sam] Ah huh.
- And many other customers coming here for servicing
their aircraft's and now during the pandemic,
we are doing storage service for them as well.
- But I want to understand what did you do?
How did your store a plane?
You know, what's all this process behind the scenes
and how long it takes.
- As you can see Sam, we're, everything that's any system
is exposed has been protected.
Pit to system, angle of attack,
landing gears are protected and well wrapped,
and as you can walk, you can see the protection,
which does not allow any dust to go inside.
The leading edges are protected
with a special material to prevent corrosion.
- Yeah. I can see this a green liquid here.
- [Ahmed] Yes.
- [Sam] That's avoided corrosion.
- That's to avoid corrosion when they come back to service.
- That's side because here in the middle East
is also very humid.
- Yes, and this is an engineering solution.
We used it to boost relation with Boeing.
And when you have a look at the engines,
the engine's are off in the shop for the preservation,
but we have to protect the nozzles and all the equipment
until the engine is back in place.
- You see the windows are actually individually wrapped
because you know, Dreamliner, if you've flown it,
it's a dim-able window.
There's no actual window shade
to shove it down from inside.
So you guys have to have to create
a solution to actually seal the window.
- [Ahmed] You're 100% Correct.
Because the windows on the 787 are electronic.
So they have to be powered, so there's no power.
So we need to protect the cabin interiors
and the window itself so we cover it with brickette blanks
and when we cover it and make sure there's no heat effect
will happen later when return back after service.
- How long it takes to completely store 787 like this?
- Actually a 787 takes around four to five days
to prepare the aircraft, test all the systems,
make the, everything is ready for the preservation.
We technically put all the system into sleep,
de power the aircraft and then we start
preserving the aircraft,
protecting, sealed it up.
And then we put it in the configuration.
What we will be there for a year or more.
- But how often you need to come back
once the plane's stored,
you need to kind of check on the plane right?
- Due to the pandemic with the new programme
we work with the OAM's.
We're doing this every 30 days,
so every 30 days we come to the aircraft,
we unwrap it, we powered it up,
we test the systems,
service it and then we put it back again.
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- Ah, that's crazy heat outside,
much cooler insider here in the cabin.
- You're right, your right.
- Here a 767 haven't been inside of a long time.
- As you can see Sam, this is the 767 from the time
it was a new configuration of business class, 121.
- [Sam] Yeah look at this marble table,
new business class configuration.
- Exactly, magnificent.
And our engineer came this morning as part
of the seven days inspection to monitor
the humidity and do the inspection checks every seven days,
differently from what we have outside from the 787.
It's a different programme.
We've lessened the desiccant bags here inside the aircraft.
- Ah.
- To check the humidity and to...
- This is to take, yeah to suck all the moisture,
just like the corset.
- So if we saw every sitting there and when we come,
we check if there's any humidity we know what that,
and then we would do control measure for it,
- And you just put it on the ground like this too.
- Well you can see the humidity indicator cards are placed
everywhere to monitor the humidity and give us indication.
If it dries for any reason,
we need to take the maintenance and control measure for it.
(dramatic music)
As you can see Sam we are inside the 767 cockpit.
We are replacing all the humidity indicators everywhere
from the desiccant bags to the humidity indicator,
just to, as well to make sure there's no humidity
going to the cockpit and ruin out
the expensive electronic component.
As you can see the cockpit is blanked up in the unusual
situation because of the storage.
Usually the sunlight will be coming in.
Most of the, a lot of the systems are deactivated
or a stored, but we power up the aircraft every seven days
to make sure that the systems are working fine.
And then we make sure that the aircraft,
it is already in shape.
Whenever we do the deep reservation and back to service,
everything will be functioned properly.
(dramatic music)
The situation is improving and more aeroplanes coming back
and more people start to fly,
and this aircraft is a reverse
of the storage which we've seen before.
This aircraft now coming back from the storage,
we're doing the reverse of the storage.
We are the, de-storage the aircraft, uncover it,
flush all the systems,
clean everything,
and start to testing on the system and put it back
in operation so it can start to fly again.
- How long would it take to the point from storage
back to service?
How many hours of work it takes to do that?
- It would take around three to four days of,
with a crew of 15 people working 24 hours
to bring back the aircraft flying.
- It was great to see one by one,
some aeroplane coming back from storage,
flying back into sky again.
I mean, that's just a lot of work today.
What's your show me under 50 degrees of heat.
We seeing how to store the plane,
and also how to check the plane during the storage,
and then how to reactivate the plane,
lots of work.
Hats off to your team to keep aviation
going during the Covid time.
- That's correct and thanks for the team
who helped to make the aircraft protected 100% (mumbles)
in order to fly back in the sky.
(dramatic music)
- Hi Sam, welcome to the operations control room.
This is where all the planning and preparation happens
so that we make sure when the aircraft come in,
we are ready to start working.
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- It's huge.
- Yeah, it's great.
Got a lot of aircraft here.
We are going to go up there.
- We're going to go up there?
You know, anyone who thinks YouTuber's life is fun,
have to think about it.
Whether experienced are not, going up there,
going in the water, going down,
50 degrees heat, experienced it all to show you the reality.
Ready? All strapped in.
- Let's go. - Let's go.
(rock music)
Big boys toys in engineering isn't it?
(laughing)
- Big boys toys.
And this way we get a different type of aerial view.
- [Sam] Yeah.
- Not what you normally see from a plane
or looking down on the blades.
- I feel like going to a theme park, a Six Flags theme park.
(rock music)
- This is the view from the top, what do you think?
- This is really a daunting view.
Like you got to appreciate how huge this engineering hanger
it is, from a chair lift through like this probably 50 metre
now looking down amazing, really,
it gives you the whole perspective.
- Pretty amazing view.
(rock music)
So Sam, want to do a skydive now?
- Skydiving here?
Ooh.
(rock music)
This is an A330 right?
It's all, got a paint stripped off,
you can see the metal here.
- [David] Yeah, it's stripped right back to the bare metal
so we can do the inspections,
we can look at the skin,
we're doing the complete check on it,
and then it will go into the paint shop
and it will be repainted,
ready to go back in the air.
- [Sam] It's this a ABC check?
- [David] This is a heavy C check.
- [Sam] Heavy C check.
- A heavy C check
and it's also part of an end of lease transition.
So it's moving from one operator on to another operator.
Aircraft maintenance checks are broken down
into A, B and C checks.
A checks are small, small checks carried out overnight.
B checks are intermediate checks
and C checks are what we carry out here in the hangar,
which are the heavy maintenance intervals
carried every 12 to 18 months,
up to a C check which is sometimes called a D check.
And that means everything comes off the aircraft
and everything is rebuilt again.
- This is really interesting.
You see the gear is completely jacked up from the ground.
It's not very often you see a aeroplane checked out
like this in the B check.
(rock music)
- You can see here, Sam,
the engineers have spotted some damage.
They've mapped it out.
They're going to blend it all out and make it nice and ready
so it can be repainted over.
- Wow.
- So this is what the aircraft looks like
with no seats on board.
- Yeah, it's really different to the aeroplane
we normally see.
Wow, different, very different.
(rock music)
- It looks like this window is damaged Sam,
it's been flagged up,
some scratches and some damage to it.
So it looks like that one will have to be replaced
and this is probably the new window here.
- Oh, that's also what you do in your heavy check.
You check through all the windows and replace damaged ones.
But this one looks pretty good to my collection.
If I can take it?
But David, you said this aeroplane is under a C check,
a heavy C check.
How long it takes?
- A heavy C check would take between three and six weeks,
depending on what the findings are.
Sometimes a little bit longer,
but hopefully we can keep this one under control.
(rock music)
- Hey, Hi Sam how are you? - Hey, how are you, man?
- Welcome to the cabin shop.
- A cabin shop.
- Yes, it's cabins...
- Oh, I see.
This is the furnishing, the interior.
- Yes, so we do headrest and backrest and bottoms.
- I remember the old style Paris, I love this one.
The seat cover, it is a new style.
- Yes.
- Can't imagine an airline, you know,
you have to cover every single detail.
There's so much, there's sewing machine station here.
- [Ali] Yes, so we do a here fabrication of covers,
backrest, headrest, leathers,
Sam, what do you think this is?
- I don't know. It's a nets.
Some sort of cover right?
- [Ali] Yes, engine cover. - [Sam] Ah, it's engine cover
- [Ali] So yeah, unfortunately we have to cover some engines
because of the parking.
- [Sam] Yeah.
- [Ali] But yeah, this is the current situation.
- Yeah, I mean you are making a lot of discovery right now.
There's so many planes stored.
- [Ali] That's true yes.
- I saw them this morning.
I hope all the planes will be flying
back in the sky very soon.
(upbeat music)
It's really interesting to relate the thing
we see on the aeroplane in a workshop like this.
These are the triple seven first class seats, leather seats,
and look at all these headrest cover, seat cover,
leather seat cover too, look at this.
It's actually really interesting.
You know, often we don't actually think,
where does this come from?
It's actually all manufactured here,
locally in the shop, in the airline.
- We do everything in the back here of the galley parts,
toilets, sidewalls.
We do cleaning, refurbishment and putting it back
to the aircraft again.
So this is a sidewall on a triple seven.
So why it's in the shop for deep rework of the laminate
and cleaning of the windows, cleaning from the back,
you see it gets very dusty and back to the aircraft again.
- And this is actually interesting.
This is behind the skin of the aeroplane.
Then you have this board here where the window
is fixed on top like this.
- correct.
- This is repairing a toilet door.
- A toilet door, yes.
- My gosh.
- So we replace the plaque cards, we replace the locks.
- Let me take a photo, very interesting, really.
You know, you don't normally see this thing
behind the scenes.
- No. - And then this one also,
like doing something about the bulkhead.
- Yes.
Replacing the laminates, maybe there's some corroded locks,
plaque cards,
you see the guy replacing the plaque cards, brand new.
- Yeah, replacing the plaque cards, yeah.
Oh, it's all done here actually,
so then you instal them on the plane, I see how it works.
- Fresh and it looks like brand new again.
- Yeah.
(upbeat music)
- So Sam, you see here in our shop we also do repair
for cargo nets to avoid throwing them out.
Like ripping like this.
- Oh this is ripped, there's a hole here, yeah.
- So there's certain approvals or requirements
for stitching.
We can restitch, reuse back to the aircraft,
which is better than throwing it out.
- Oh, you repair them and then you reuse them again.
- Correct.
- Yeah, this is quite a special one for the pallets.
- Yes.
- For the covering the cargo pallets.
- That's correct, yes.
- I see.
- We have a small surprise for you.
Can you maybe just push that button for us there?
- Yeah, push the button?
- [Deon] Yes.
- Oh, is that cutting?
- Start cutting, yes.
- Wow.
- It's really interesting, I didn't know at the beginning,
but this is a machine that can cut different shapes
of the carpet because in the aeroplane you have different
areas you need to cover with a carpet,
not in a uniform shape.
So this takes care of those, all of that.
(rock music)
- Sam, welcome to Etihad engineering torture chamber.
Please have a seat.
- Whoa. This is some sort of torture your chair.
I'll have a seat and see what kind of torture I'm getting?
- Normally this is the cushion that you see.
Every time we change fabric or leather on an aircraft,
we have to do a flammability test.
This company she can take.
- So you will set the seats cover here,
the chairs on fire, the test.
- That is correct.
Horizontal and vertical,
to meet the regulation.
- Right.
So you're going to put fire now and then my bottom
and my back will be on fire?
- That is correct, this will go, automatic go back,
and the Sonic will start burning till it's finished.
Then after the set time is finished,
we will check and see if this meets the flammability
requirement for safe installation on the aircraft.
(rock music)
- Thank you for that huge eight hours tour.
I've seen a learn so much new things about engineering
that normally irregular fly would never think all this.
And hopefully people start to appreciate engineering.
Has engineering have a future in the wake of Covid?
- Definitely, as long as there are aircraft,
people need to look after those aircraft.
And that's where engineering comes in.
Aviation has always been at the forefront of technology
and it will continue to do so as we look to make more fuel
efficient aircraft,
aircraft that have less environmental impact,
definitely aviation has a strong future and engineering
will always be at the front of that.
(upbeat music)
- What's the advice for lot of young aviator
that want to be an engineer?
- There are lots of ways of entry into the aviation market.
There are graduate entry programmes.
You can go to university,
you can study aviation engineering
and come in at design level,
you can get an apprenticeship and start on the shop floor,
working through the licences,
becoming a licenced engineer through practical methods.
Lots of ways if you want to do it,
there's always a way to get involved.
- I know things are not great at the moment in aviation,
but I strongly believe aviation has a bright future for all
the young generation and engineering
will continue to drive to evolve.
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