Flight engineers

In pioneering days, by necessity the pilot also served as navigator and engineer. With increasing range, speed and complexity, these tasks became specialist roles and accordingly the flight deck grew in size to embrace a full complement of crew. For QANTAS, the first use of Flight Engineers was on board a fleet of Catalina flying boats that were ferried from Pearl Harbour to Sydney’s Rose Bay in 1941. Destined for the RAAF, these aircraft bore civil registration and civil crews to maintain the sensitivities of the United States neutrality at the time.

Prior to this, QANTAS had frequently carried licensed ground engineers to perform maintenance on the ground. However, by distinction, this group of operating from Pearl Harbour marked the beginning of a new era that saw the engineer have specific in-flight tasks and assume the role of an integral flight crew member. Now, nearly 70 years later, the days of the Flight Engineer are drawing to a close in Australia.

The Flight Engineer.

From the Catalinas and Constellations, Australian civil skies became filled with aircraft types that called for the skills of the Flight Engineers, through the Electra to the jet era of the Boeing 707, 727 and ultimately the ‘Classic’ 747.

QANTAS and other Australian airlines drew their Flight Engineers from their stocks of willing ground engineers. Many of the applicants had served as apprentices and notched up a decade of service as a ground engineer. Even so, the selection process was stringent and very competitive.

Training involved passing the Flight Engineering exams of the Department of Civil Aviation, or CASA as it became known, having undertaken a substantial ground school course. Specialist courses were also required. For some it was a 707 technical course, or perhaps a 6 week course on the engines and propellers of the Electra. When finally freed from the classroom, the candidates then completed one to two hundred flight training hours before being checked out and assigned to crew their particular type.

Preflight, the Flight Engineers role included everything from preflight inspections to navigating through the Technical Log of an aircraft’s maintenance history. On the flight deck they were central to engine starting and systems monitoring, thrust, cruise and fuel management as well as playing an integral role in emergency procedures when the situation arose. They would achieve these tasks from a complex work-station on the flight deck surrounded by gauges and indicators that displayed the health of the aircraft systems. Throughout, they were another set of eyes and a wealth of experience to monitor the overall operation. Furthermore, they proved a lifeline at ports away from base when maintenance issues would arise down line. It was demanding profession that called for regular simulator currency and licence renewals in the same way that pilots are called to demonstrate their proficiency.

Gradually, the Flight Engineers witnessed the encroachment of technology and automation upon their realm. To many, this signaled the beginning of the end.

Two Crew or not Two Crew? That is the question.

The growth of computer technology and automation, coupled with a cost-cutting agenda by airlines saw a thrust in airliner design towards a two-pilot operation. When QANTAS introduced the Boeing 747-400 ‘Longreach’ in 1989, the Flight Engineers’ work-station and role had been removed. The flight deck had become a place of CRT screens and automated EICAS systems messages with hardly a round dial to be seen.

Earlier in the decade Australia had been central to the battle for the Flight Engineer when Ansett ordered that their new Boeing 767-200s be configured with a Flight Engineer’s work station. This had been at the insistence not only of the Australian Airline Flight Engineers Association (AAFEA), but their colleagues in the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP). The problem was that the 767 had been specifically designed as a two pilot aeroplane and it was at great cost that the Ansett aircraft were produced in the non-standard configuration. These aircraft were operated for more than a decade with a Flight Engineer, but ultimately the 767 design philosophy won out and the work-stations were removed one by one. The final Flight Engineer crewed flight in the Ansett 767 saga took place in 1998.

Where to now?

QANTAS realised that the requirement for Flight Engineers within the airline was set on a path of reduction and as the first 747-400s arrived, moves were already afoot to accommodate the anticipated surplus. One such measure was to retrain Flight Engineers as pilots.

The candidates underwent the full pilot selection process of psychological assessment, skills testing and medical examination. If successful they undertook a flight training course through a nominated flying school over a period of twelve months before re-entering the QANTAS system to train as a Second Officer. For many, the years already spent on the flight deck proved a great asset in settling into their new role, however, the training as a pilot called for a totally different skill set and it is a credit to these individuals that they adapted so readily.

Conversely, raw intake QANTAS Second Officers who were assigned to crew the 747 “Classic” were required to undertake limited Flight Engineer training to provide crew relief in the cruise for the sole engineer on longer sectors. The trainees undertook their simulator sessions to qualify as pilots and then flew all of the sequences again in the role of Flight Engineer. At the end of this extended course of training the Second Officers received an additional restricted Flight Engineer’s licence that also required ongoing renewal in the simulator. Enroute they would be called upon to look after the aircraft’s speed and thrust, review the current speed schedule and ‘engine out’ altitude as well as manage the fuel and pressurisation.

For these Second Officers and their pilot comrades, the passing of the ‘Classic’ will call for a conversion onto a different aircraft type. Commonly, this will be a world away in the form of the technology-rich Airbus A330 or A380. But for the Flight Engineers, this will prove to be the end of the line. For all but a handful, they have served for at least twenty years as a Flight Engineer and generally ten to fifteen in the ground-based role prior to that. They are very senior, very experienced crew in a much specialised field of expertise. For a majority, retirement was already looming; the loss of their trusted steed has moved the schedule forward.

For Better or Worse?

The demise of the Flight Engineering role can generate some heated debate. Some Flight Engineers believe that two crew operations are not as effective and that the removal of the engineer is purely fiscally based, motivated by cost-cutting airlines. Yet others within their group, who admit to early apprehension about the absence of an engineer, now regard the advent of technology as an effective means of performing the duties that were once their domain.

Whichever stance is taken, perhaps the most objective viewpoints come from their crew-mates; the pilots. Without exception, the pilots who have operated ‘three-crew’ sing the praises of the Flight Engineer on the flight deck. They are seen as a valuable source of experience and insight, particularly when things are going wrong. Their depth of knowledge of the aircraft is greatly respected by the Captain and reduces his workload in a non-normal situation, allowing the senior pilot up to manage the situation more freely.

The Final Curtain

When the last QANTAS ‘Classic’ disappears from Australian skies, there will still be a few remaining Flight Engineers practising their trade. They will be found in visiting international freighters, or one of the locally registered 727 freighters. The RAAF still possess a variety of aircraft crewed by a Flight Engineer, though for the C-130 Hercules the new ‘J’ model has done away with the role in the same fashion as their civil counterparts. And of course there are the classic examples lovingly maintained such as the Lockheed Super Constellation, operated by HARS.

For the most part though, in civil aviation, this is the end of an era. Inevitable, perhaps, but most definitely a loss to aviation. The Flight Engineers were of the ‘old school’ when knowledge of your aeroplane, not systems redundancies, was the key to an efficient operation.

The origins of bestowing the honour of ‘Royal Purple’ upon the engineering brotherhood may be buried in history, but for the Flight Engineers it is an honour well deserved. Like the aeroplanes they flew, the Flight Engineers were undoubtedly be remembered as ‘Classics’.

© Owen Zupp 2008
The author would like to thank the many flight crew that assisted with this article, though special mention must go to Colin Lock, Brian Hill and Mal Shipton.