Xtra knowledge about aeroplanes

Busy Busy Busy! It's the end of the semester, finished all classes, having a so called study break for a week (but i call it HOLIDAYS!), week after having final tests for a week, and then, i'm free for 5 weeks til Jan 15!!! yeay yeay!

Today's post is about aeroplanes, AGAIN. I guess some of you are dead bored of this by now, thousands of apologies! (kneals down and serve u chinese tea to apologise. Or u prefer teh tarik? ahhaha) Nah, it's not that i'm an aeroplane fanatic (a lil actually), but i just feel like sharing my knowledge with u guys. It's fun to know more about aeroplanes. It's huge, it's gigantic, it's heavy! but still, it flies... ain't that amazing?

Oh yea, before i proceed with the post, i would like to convey my condolences to the family of the demised new student who was involved in a road accident (he was on a bike) on wednesday night. And also, i hope the other guy who was involved in another different road accident on Monday(he was motorbike racing and paralysed waist down now) to get well soon, and I really hope a miracle will happen. To whoever who rides motorbike, PLEASE be a safe rider and make sure your bike is road-worthy. And for mat rempits, think twice before racing, is it worth using your flesh as your motorbike's protection? No.

Hey, bring the happy mood back! Let's learn more about aeroplanes! So, what do u know about aircraft's fuel and the storage tank(fuel tank)? It uses Diesel? Petrol? Liquid Hydrogen? It's stored in plastic bags under each seat? Circumfuring the fuselage(body)? Tail section? At the nose? No no no, the fuel tanks are here...


Fuel tanks

See the 3 red arrows? yea, that's where all the fuel are stored. The middle arrow is called the center belly tank, then the inboard wing tank, and the outboard wing tank. So, there are 5 fuel tanks in all with 2 on each wing, and the center tank having the biggest capacity. How big? I'm pretty sure u can play squash in there!

What type of fuel keeps the engine moving? For these big turbine powered engines, we use Kerosene. But we dun call it Kerosene in the industry, it's called Jet Fuel. There are 3 type of Jetfuels, namely Jet A, Jet A-1, and Jet B. These fuels are not colored blue or green or red like our Shell V-power or Unleaded'97 used by cars, but rather transparent of slightly yellowish (straw). Jet B fuel has a blend of kerosene and gasoline, whereas Jet A and Jet A-1 is pure kerosene.

Knowing that turbine powered aircrafts cruise at an amazingly high altitude of 30,000-40,000ft, the temperature up there must be freezing, not to forget the speed of aircraft of more than 900km/h! Though the freezing point of Jet A fuel is -40 degree celcius, yet ice can form and cause the engine to starve from fuel. Therefore, these fuels are added with inhibitors(some sort of chemical) to prevent fuel icing.

U might be wondering: "The most dangerous part of the plane must be the center, cos there's where all the fuel are" hahaha... Well, i guess so?! But hey, how often do planes crash? And till today, MAS' flights are pretty safe! hahaha... Dun be scared of flying! OUR LIVE IS FATED is my favourite sentence. That's what i told my parents when they disallowed me from applying for Cadet Pilot (they were worried that I might die in a plane crash).

Refuelling process is done most of the time when the aircraft lands, and normally it is refueled to FULL. Why? Just in case some emergency happens or the airport has heavy traffic and thus needs the aircraft to go for a few extra rounds, and that is when extra fuel is needed. So, it's a good practice to keep the tanks FULL, u dun wanna see the red warning light blinking in mid air rite?

The next time u board a plane, get the window seat slightly ahead of the wings, then u can view the refuelling process going on. You'll see a truck just underneath the wings with big pipings. And there will be this refuelling man walking down there (might be me! hahhaha!) opening up a cover on the floor, and connecting that big pipe into the ground at 1 end, following by the aircraft wing on the other end.

Wear this before entering the fuel tank for maintenance, cute leh?


This is cuter!


Albert - My mate, preparing to enter Boeing727 fuel tank


Did he notice that his flyer has burst?!


Believe me, people with more than 40in waistline, stay out!


Now you see me, now you don't !


Dun forget to wear the respirator (fumes can cause impotency)


Now i know when the respirator comes to full use! ewww...

Enough of fueling. Now we'll talk about lightings. I'm sure it's easy to identify a plane flying during night time, having the blinking white, blue, and red lights standing out in the pitch black sky. Just like cars, aeroplanes have head lamps too! It's positioned at the inboard side of each wing. As for the tips of the wing, that's where the blinking lights will be. Left wing is for RED, and right is for blue/green. Therefore, if u see a plane in the sky, and the red light is on the RHS, blue is on the LHS, it means that the plane is coming towards you. If the plane is heading away from you, u won't see either of the red and blue lights, but rather a single white blinking light only. There are exceptions however, some manufacturers put so many lights on the plane, that it is almost impossible to fly into another plane without noticing it. That whole freaking thing in the sky is BLINKING!!!! hahaha...

Have a wonderful week ahead guys!

Airbus 380 in KLIA hangar

Wednesday, 16 November 2005. A memorable day for lots of us in the aviation industry here in Malaysia. The world largest aircraft, the Airbus 380 has finally arrive. Around 2020hrs, it touched down in KLIA. Unfortunately, all of us had exams till 9pm, and thus after finishing the paper, everyone jump into any cars available and headed to KLIA for the sight.


The magnificent 555 seater aircraft


They should name it AIRBUS FLOWERHORN instead


The rival that is going down - Boeing 747


Looks small? It's 7 floors high!


Port side, outboard engine.

Normally, an aircraft's engine cost about 30% of the selling price. So for this case, this A380 cost RM1bil. After doing calculation, 4 engines will which are mounted here cost RM300mil, and thus 1 engine here in this pic cost RM75mil. Say, how many Ferrari is that?


Engine cowling (cover) opened up for inspections and maintenances.


See how small the man is! the engine air intake is at least twice the length of a man.


What's the fuss all about this plane? It's double decker.


See that yellow thing on top? That's a suspended platform for maintenance high up there, where ground platforms aren't high enough

17 Nov. Accepting VIP visits

18 Nov. Bye Bye A380. Took off at 10am and turned back, flying pass the airport at a low altitude of 5000ft(1.5km) before heading for Dubai (Please check airbus.com for the plane's whereabout)

After all these happy moments, the thought of my company being on front page of papers saddens me, sigh! God knows what will happen to us - Trainees. Will they stop our studies and cancel out contract? will they cut my allowance from RM450 to Rm45? I dunno. As for the 6 A380 that MAS reported to buy, rumours are running around that they might cancel half the orders to 3, or maybe to neil? b'cos 'boh lui liao'

And the new sales team that set the new pricing for 1st class seat, are u nuts?! one way 1st class ticket from Kuala Lumpur - Stockholm - New York cost RM27,000? (the previous price was RM10,000) That's a 170% increase! So how bout a return ticket? Sell off a Proton Gen.2? I understand that MAS is suffering losses from cheap airticket and the ever increasing jetfuel, but dun u think RM27k is kinda ridiculous? No doubt that the pruchasing price of 'a' full spec 1st class seat by the airlines might cost bout RM100,000 each (whereby MAS is chnaging all their 1st and business class seats in the 17 B747 and 17 B777 available), but i do think that there are other better marketing skills than raising 170%.

On TV, i see MAS sponsoring Malaysian Idol, being the official airlines of STOMP, this and that performance, but what do they get by doing so? fame? nah, i think more on money wastage. And they can't even take care of their internal problems, like improving the training department condition, thus producing more productive engineers and mechanics, which then helps strengthens the company. However, the fact is that they rather be beautiful on the outlook, and have bleeding internal organs on the inside, which slowly is going to die painfully.

I guess, 1 day, the only ppl boarding MAS' planes will be their own staff.

p/s: feel free to condemn MAS, cos i'm on your side! anything from online/phone ticketing, checking in, boarding, in flight service....to toilet bowls.

Pomelo Faces

It's end of the year again, every1's busy. We students will be studying for exams which is coming in 2-3weeks' time, parents will be thinking of which country to go for holidays, and those who just graduated, continue shaking legs while waiting to get a job.

Living in MIAT (my institute) is really boring. Being surrounded by palm oil trees is bad enough, to make things worst, the nearest supermarket (no no, minimarket is a better word) where u can lepak in is like 10km away. Therefore, no car = no life. Having a positive thinking to cheer ourselves up, we always imagine the palm oil trees as coconut trees by the beach and swaying as the breeze blows. Not bad huh? But still lack of girls in bikini, we're working on it.

On one of our 'nothing-to-do' nights, we did something to the pomelo. We revived it!


1.Smiley 2.nyek nyek nyek...


3. Argh, a scar on my face! 4.BLuekkkkk!


5.Cari gaduh? 6.Yeay, i have hands!


7.My teeth are the whitest 8.My gf scratched my face


9.Hey, i'm half-naked! 10.Fully naked, sexy huh?


The Sifu who revived them (he likes being half-naked, that explains why...)

Never seen such beautiful way of peeling pomelo skin before? To tell u the truth, it's my 1st time seeing this, it looks really nice and neat. Normally i would just stab the knife into it, and pull the skin off like a barbarian, thus injuring the beautiful white skin. Sometimes if i have the patience, the i would slice every 2 inch interval, and make a crown out of it (i use to wear it when i was young haha)

Later on, the pomelo rebelled, tried to kill his Sifu with his pair of small red hands (refer pic 6). The Sifu was dissapointed and regretted reviving it. So, the sifu called upon his 'heng dai' and killed it without mercy. It's in my tummy already...

Cameron Highlands Fun 5

At last manage to get the pics of my Cameron Highlands trip during the Deepa-Raya holidays. May the pics explain my words... Enjoy!

Thursday, 27th October 2005. The 5 of us left Nilai and headed for Cameron Highlands right after class. Wuuhooo!!!

Land Cruiser II 2400cc (Thanx to Joanne's Dad for lending us his precious 4WD)


Crews of Land Cruiser II 2400cc
1st row: Albert, Joanne
2nd row: C.S, Eric
3rd row: Me (as in 'me', but my name is not 'me')


playing guitar singing songs during the 4 hours journey


Biggest guy forced to the tiny back seat Q@#$(^&#!!!


Reached at 6pm. Star Regency Room 212. Super Big Room. 2x double bed and 2x single bed and 2x balcony AND BREAKFAST FOR 5 for only RM109!!! hahaha cheap huh? We actually sweet talked with the receptionist, praising her high&low, telling her we come from all over Malaysia, to get this room which was supposed to be RM190. WAHAHAHA! i think because we(the 4 guys) are too handsome, she got electrocuted! :P


The room where u can play badminton in.


Foursome... Cough cough!


Brinchang town restaurant. How can u not have steamboat at such cold place? The soup is so sweet because they throw in tonnes of fresh vege. No matter how hot or how spicy it is, no sweat. For only Rm12/pax, u'll have a mouth-watering dinner. Lovely!


We call this: Super Metal Guan Yin Tea


Joanne, what's with that face? hahaha!


Ouch! Burn my fingers while holding the HOT tea cup (well, thinking it was cameron highlands) Just for your info, if you burn your fingers, quickly pinch your ear loops. It feels so comfortable and the pain will just soothe off. Try it!


Cheers! Bought 3 big bottles of 'ang mo tea'. Played cards, chit chat, eat kacang, twisties, cheezels, rota... while enjoying the natural air-conditioning. Had a nice sleep after that...


Day 2. Checked out because the room is expensive on weekends. Drove down to Tanah Rata and started walking around town with map. Trying to look for cheap lodging. Ended up in Hillview Inn - RM92 with 1 double bed + 1 single bed. Very nice place, sort of house turn into inn type. have to take off shoes when going upstairs, sharing a common toilet, feel so at home.


U definitely won't miss this school when u r in Cameron. Convent Cameron Highlands. It was just after school when we visited it. Most of the kids were wearing a sweater, and they all have rosy cheeks! it feels so overseas where u gotta wear few layers of clothing just to go to school, syok rite? Imagine having P.E without dripping sweat and stinking the whole classroom.

Next destination... the all famous 'Ye Old Smokehouse'


Very british like house. Will stay there 1 day when i can afford it. It seems expensive.


Very classic, antique menu. Turn the page carefully, u dunwanna rip it off. After being so careful, the numbers printed on the menu makes u wanna rip the book off! See this pic of the table with cups and saucers? All in came to RM77! It was only tea time snack! 1 scone RM6, Milo RM8, and see the apple pie at the bottom of the pic? That cost Rm20. (swallows saliva) Maybe cos i'm still not earning money, that's y i feel that it's so expensive. However, it tasted good. Everything was fresh and right out from the oven.


The red stainless steel British phone booth. Dun even try to move it, cos it will crush u like a pizza.


Eric was sentensed to death for being handsome. However, his head couldn't fit the hole, so he was released for that.



Yummy! it's not strawberry, but Chocberry... hahaha!


Dun they look adorable?


Doesn't he look like a monkey? or is it a donkey? haha!


Puncak Brinchang Corner 6666 Dari Paras Laut. Did u know that this is the highest road in Malaysia??? which means our LandCruiser II was the highest car in Malaysia on that day hahaha why am i feeling so proud, it's just a car.


At 6am with a temperature of 15 degrees centigrae and wind speed of 40km/h, 4 nut heads stripped half-naked and posed as body builders. Priceless pic. (btw, how come the photographer didn't join us?)


While trying to strip naked, the Police arrived and we were busted. Police yelled "both hands on head! open up the legs! and stand facing the fence!" i nearly peed in the cold.


After Joanne bailed Albert out, they hugged. That bastard, he left us behind cold bars for the next 24 hours!


Then Albert hugged me.... (uek uek uek vomit)


Finally, the sun came out and heat me up. Dun u think i'm as red as the sun? *wink wink.. U see the telecommunication towers on the background? That's where telekom or maxis or celcom or digi place their tower for transmission. And for sure, at that point, we had full coverage. For my hp, i could see the covorage indicator overshooting out from my screen, cos the reception is too great haha! crap...


The stairs leading up to the tower, it's very steep - 50 degrees?


They are attending a funeral, while I'm celebrating CNY - red!


It's fun putting 1 leg on Pahang, and the other leg on Perak. What do u call it? Perakhang? hahahha


Of course, how could i forget the driver and the navigator?


Award-winning post card


On our way down to Tapah, we stopped at BOH Tea's factory and tea shop for cuppa tea. Sip sip.. oooo, ada ohhmmm! U can also see the man cutting the young tea leaves and gather it at a station where they are packed into gunny sacks and transfered to the processing factory using the tractor.

Hope u enjoyed the pics. It was a real fun trip. In fact, we thought of making it an annual trip hahaha! some people say Cameron Highlands is boring, well that depends on how you enjoy your trip. If u hav a bunch of nut heads like the 5 of us, it'll definitely be an unforgettable trip that will be full of surprises!