Aircraft Parts - Understanding Aircrafts Part By Part

There are many airplane parts that do not worry me too much. But all matters and parts related to safety better be safe. 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.

We have all seen a plane. So let us start at the front. 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.

Then of course, there the body of the plane, called the fuselage. 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 of course, there is the very heart of every airplane, 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, you guessed it, 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. But the end results is a mass movement of humanity from one point to another.