Understanding Aircrafts Part By Part

Talk about car parts and there are many who will join you. But aircraft parts remain a mystery to most.

I am not too concerned about a shock absorber. On the other hand if there are any parts that can affect securit, I am gravely concerned. And instead of being paranoid, I choose to be informed.

Today I am going to introduce you to aeroplane parts. Knowledge and familiarity should clear some apprehensions that ignorance might create.

At the beginning is the beginning, so to say. To begin with, we have the cockpit. This is where the pilot sits and controls the craft. Hence, all navigational controls end up here. This is the heart of all avionics, which is a contraction for aviation electronics. Maybe, I should call it the brain of all avionics as only the final controls reside in the cockpit.

If you have seen the pilots cabin in a movie, you know that it is all about the controlling the flight. So, expect to see a lot of dials, knobs, screens, light emitting diodes, bulbs, and switches. If you have ever had an opportunity to look inside a cockpit, even if you were only looking at a photograph, you would certainly have marveled at the extent of gadgetry involved.

I remember hearing the word "fuselage" in a movie and wondered what that was. Turns out it is just a fancy word for the airplane body. All professions like to create words that make them exclusive. So, while an automobile engineer missed out on an opportunity, the aeronautical engineer chose to call the plane body a fuselage.

The body holds the structural integrity. But it is not a passive piece of equipment as in the case of a car. Instead, it has sensors for detecting what the outside conditions are like. Additionally, it has signaling and communication equipment connected to it.

Then comes my favorite region of the plane, the engine. It goes without saying that this is where all the muscle is. In addition to providing the rotors and propellers and thrust and torque, the degree of automation in an aeroplane engine is extremely high. Not just should a pilot as well as the auto-pilot, be able to constantly monitor the performance of the engine, they should actually be able to control and influence it.

Then come the wings. Any flying body needs to have wings, unless it is a projectile, such as a rocket. These wings provide balance, stability, and maneuverability. Since wings needs to be mechanically manipulated, they are full of control systems, valves, bearing, pressure points, buffers, and the like.

And this brings us to the end. We are now at the tail. Like the wing it provides stability and balance. But the tail, more specifically the rudder, plays a pivotal role in turning the plane. This mechanism is not like that of a rudder-based boat that has the luxury of traveling in a dense medium, water. But there are similarities.

All in all, the schema of the parts of an airplane is fairly obvious. That should not allow us to undermine the phenomenal outcome.

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