Ground crew

In all forms of aviation, ground crew (also known as ground operations in civilian aviation) are personnel that service aircraft while on the ground, during routine turn-around; as opposed to aircrew, who operate all aspects of an aircraft whilst in flight. The term ground crew is used by both civilian commercial airlines and in military aviation. Dependent on the type of aircraft being operated, airline ground crew members typically include: airframe technicians, engine technicians, avionics technicians. Military aircraft equipped with either weapons and / or an ejector seat will also require a dedicated weapons technician ground crew member. Ground crew required for non-powered flight, such as gliders will include people who manually handle the glider aircraft from their storage location (such as an aircraft hangar) to their respective launch site, and then to return them at the end of flying. Aero-towed launched gliders will require ground crew commensurate with supporting the tow aircraft, which are typically single piston-engined general aviation (GA) small lightweight utility variants, often Cessna. For winch-launched gliders, ground crew will also include the winch-launch operator(s), and also a pay-out vehicle operator whose purpose is to draw or pay-out the winch launch cables (usually two cables per launch vehicle) which will be located at the far end of the upwind side of the airfield, to the gliders awaiting their turn to launch at the opposite end of the airfield. For those aircraft that do not possess any controls for changing the direction course of the aircraft, commonly known as hot-air balloons, these require particularly unique ground crew. Their roles include preparing the passenger basket (or gondola) with the correct amount of pressurized gas for the burners, testing of the burners, calculating the total mass of the balloon pilot and all passengers, calculating and applying appropriate ballast weight (fixed internal and releasable external).