Hello everyone, as soon as I saw this title, I knew we were going to talk again, and it was still familiar. However, Visual China is closed, and my cover image has a little less material.
In this issue, I originally wanted to talk about the air freight rate system, but many friends said they wanted to know more about the plate type. I heard it, but the head is actually quite big. Because this topic is very big, it is estimated that I can’t explain it for a few days and nights, let alone write it down in organizational language for everyone to see. Moreover, playing the board is a technical job that requires a lot of practical experience, so we will not go into depth here, just briefly talk about some basic knowledge. I hope it can help you better understand this industry.
When it comes to playing the board, what impressed me is that I was in a certain airline and was preparing the cargo for the flight in the early morning of the next day. After making a plan, the board king of the board company glanced at the goods and said that it could not be beaten. I was amazed at his mental arithmetic ability. It was only later that I figured out that this was because Banwang already had a lot of experience, so he probably knew what was going on at a glance at the goods, which was really awesome. However, it is also reiterated that this attitude is not desirable. Because you just said that you can’t beat it, and then the entire team did nothing. This approach is extremely irresponsible. At least you type it out, and then tell me how many pieces are left, and what else can be loaded, so I can tell you what to do with it, right?
Just because playing boards requires long-term work experience, no matter how accurate we are sitting in front of the computer, it is impossible to fully grasp the scale of playing boards. You have to go to the scene to see this in person to know what happened. This is the truth of the so-called lack of power. So, today we will briefly discuss the problem of the lower plate type.
First of all, we all know that the fuselage of the plane is round. If you cut the plane horizontally with a knife, the cross section will be purple in the picture below.
Cross section of an Aircraft (The picture comes from the Internet)
Because the shape of the fuselage determines the shape of the cargo loaded on the aircraft, the cargo must also be stacked only according to the shape of the inner wall of the cabin. Recalling that our first article mentioned that the cargo of all narrow-body aircraft is loaded on the plane by hand, so you can imagine how hard it is for the porters. Taking this opportunity, I would like to thank all our handling and ground staff. It is precisely because of their hard work that the normal shipment of the flight and the safety of the goods during transportation are guaranteed.
Of course, the work of various positions in the cargo station is also indispensable. What each position of the cargo terminal does is to ensure the normality of the flight and the safety of the flight. Everyone who contributes to the cause of air transport is great, because they sacrifice their time for everyone’s convenience. It is very popular recently to say 996, in fact, the airlifter does not have 996, we are 007. Because as long as the flights don’t stop, our work doesn’t stop. It is precisely because of the efforts of small partners in various positions that everyone can obtain a comfortable logistics experience. Airlifters, hard work!
Okay, back to the shape of the board (it feels like I’m going to digress every time…). The picture above is a cross-section of a passenger plane (do you see that there are seats on the upper level of the cross-section), all planes, whether passenger planes or cargo planes, will be separated into upper and lower floors. Generally, these two floors are not connected (of course there are also connections , that is, there is no movement). The upper floor is called Main Deck – MD for short, and high board in Chinese. The lower deck is called the Lower Deck – LD for short, and the Chinese is called the low deck (please don’t ask me why the upper deck is not called the Upper Deck, because this is the industry standard). It is not difficult to see from the picture that the shape of the ULD placed in the MD is definitely different from the ULD placed in the LD. The ULD of MD should be narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, and LD is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. Click here to review the first article for a brief introduction to ULDs.
The picture is taken by me from the book
Emm… This picture seems to have been cut by someone, yes, that’s because this picture was taken from the data and cut by hand.
Now everyone knows that the shape of the high board (MD) and the low board (LD) is different. In addition, if you usually pay attention, you will find that the height of the nose of the aircraft is actually different from the height of the middle and tail of the aircraft. This difference leads to the fact that even if they are all MD boards, there will be different height restrictions. If the plate type is wrong, it will not fit on the plane, which will lead to pulling the goods, which is already a very serious mistake. Because the plan for hitting the board will clearly write which goods are hit on which board and which board is hit. If the wrong type leads to pulling the goods, then the plane may fly empty, and if the board shape is modified on the spot, it may cause delays. Generally speaking, after the board-making company is finished, it will be checked by the cargo station and checked by the airline company, and finally it will be pulled under the plane. Of course, an experienced board king would not make such a mistake, unless that day, he fell out of love. . . .
In the first article, I said ULD, remember? Among them, we talked about PMC, PAJ and the like. In fact, these P prefixes are just one board. The board itself can be placed in MD or LD. The real decision of where the board is placed is determined by the shape of the goods on the board. If it is marked as wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, it is MD, otherwise it is LD. MD is called high board in the industry, and LD is called low board.
Let’s go back to the picture above. Why are the numbers 1, 2, and 3 marked on it? What does it mean? Emmm….that’s what I marked, that’s the next question. 1 and 2 represent where the corner of the board closes. So what is a corner? Why close the corner? If a board does not close the corners, and the square goods are stacked on top, then the shape will be a rectangle, right? However, the cabin is round and curved, so it cannot be rectangular, so it requires the MD board to slowly shrink from bottom to top, so the width of the board is bound to reach a certain height after hitting a certain height. began to narrow. Because if you don’t accept it, this board will be hit all the time, won’t it exceed the shape of the cabin? Then it can’t fit.
What about 3? Let’s talk about 3 later. Basically, 3 is an area that can be divided or not.
The picture is taken by me from a book
The picture above shows the shape of the ULD partially placed in the MD-11F, inside the upper cabin. It just explains the concept of the corner, from C1-C4 (all the names of the board types) are placed in the MD. As can be seen from the picture, C2 is closed at 1.74m or 2.05m. If the board is a 96-inch board, it will be closed at 1.74m, and if it is an 88-inch board, it will be closed at 2.05m.
In other words, when the bottom layer of the board reaches 1.74m or 2.05m, the width will be narrowed. Otherwise, it will be beyond the scope of the cabin.
Careful friends may ask: Didn’t I say last time that the size of the 96-inch board is 244×318? Why is there no 244 in the picture above? Friends who have this question, you are great! Not only good memory, but also will be integrated. The reason for this problem is because the data of 244 is the width of the entire board, and the edge of the board reaches the area where the board can really be used, and no goods can be placed because there are board buckles (about 7-10cm). Plate buckles are used to buckle net ropes and bandages (commonly known as aircraft belts), and their functions are all used to fix goods. Then the edge of the board should leave a position for the board buckle on the aircraft floor. In this way, the cargo is fixed to the ULD, and the ULD is fixed to the aircraft. This is relatively safe.
B777-200F loading process. Pictures are taken by me.
Below is an actual picture of the board for everyone to see. The red place is the customer information, and I covered it. We can’t leak customer information. This is a matter of professional ethics, and it is also a place where everyone should pay attention to protecting themselves.
“Glutinous rice chicken” type. Pictures are taken by me.
In this picture, we can see a pile of goods on top of an unfinished PMC. This kind of packaged goods, commonly known as “glutinous rice chicken”, is one of the most difficult types of goods…. Because this kind of shipment is very heavy and not square, the stability of the goods on the pile is extremely poor. What is the name of the hemp ropes tied to the outside of the goods in the picture? That’s called hemp rope. . . The role of the hemp rope is to tie the goods on that layer and make them stereotyped. If it is not shaped, the goods on the pile will be loose and fall off easily. If you want to pay more attention, you can add paper corners on the edge of the goods to increase its stability. And the layer of plastic film on the board….er… Please don’t call him plastic film. There is a special term for it. It is called rain cloth. The reason for laying rain cloth is to prevent moisture from rain or other reasons. resulting in damage to the goods.
After talking about so many board types, let’s take a break first, so that our friends have time to digest. Next, let’s talk about another very important concept: ULD Combination – board and box combination.
There are only so many positions on the plane, and the crates placed on the plane must also have several fixed arrangements. For example, the xx model, the high board can have 20 PMC + 2 PAJ, and the low board can have 8 PMC + 6 AKE. This is what we call Combination. Each ULD corresponds to a location inside the cabin. Usually the position of high board is represented by letters, such as AL, AR, BL, BR, etc., and the position of low board is usually represented by numbers, such as 21P, 22P, 22L, 22R, etc.
The picture is taken by me from the book
The picture is taken by me from the book
The above two pictures are the combination of LD of A330/340 and the combination of MD of B747. As can be seen from the figure, the arrangement of ULDs on the aircraft is well-founded. And this basis, together with other content, will be published in a volume. In addition to being provided by the aircraft manufacturer, this brochure may also be issued by various airlines. The actual loading should be subject to the AHM (Aircraft Handling Manual) published by the airline.
The above is some basic knowledge about ULD board type. I hope everyone has to help. Since this topic is really very broad, what I am talking about here is only the most introductory and most basic content. For more in-depth things, let me organize the language and talk about it, but more importantly, it should be obtained in practice.