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Glite Dictionary
flight line

flight line

3 6.0
An area at an airport where planes are parked and worked on before flying
  • noun
  • /flaɪt laɪn/
  • Specialized
translation icon : línea de vuelo
  • U.S. Air Force personnel walk the flight line at Luke AFB once a year to clear foreign objects.
  • flight line hangars

Examples

  • It's about 7:45, I've got my checklist in hand, and I'm out at the flight line looking for the aircraft I'm supposed to fly, wondering if I've really forgotten what I used to know.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • You got a point, sir, but just the same, you mind walking down to the flight line?

    Fortress (2012)

  • U.S. Air Force personnel walk the flight line at Luke AFB once a year to clear foreign objects.

    Blog text (1)

  • Moving swiftly across the flight line, passing hangars and military aircraft.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • RUNWAY - KEY WEST NAVAL AIR STATION - DAY: A cart speeds down the flight line past the waiting F8U-1P Corsairs.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • To focus attention on the dangers posed to aircraft and their engines by foreign object debris (FOD), Luke Air Force Base in Arizona holds an annual walk along its flight line in which personnel clear anything they find.

    Blog text (1)

  • The maintenance squadron commander, Captain Libona, was also wide-eyed and enthusiastic as Colonel Tamalko made his way out to the flight line to inspect his jet and brief Borillo.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • Virtually all of the Marines working on the flight line at the time responded to the attack, as well as personnel with 3rd MAW (Fwd.) living on a nearby portion of Bastion, Sturdevant said.

    Blog text (28)

  • Men and women on the flight line will have more say in how they work.

  • We expect to be back on the flight line in six months.

Surface Forms

flight line singular
flight lines plural

Morphology

flight + line

The parts 'flight' and 'line' together suggest an area related to flights where aircraft might be lined up, so a learner could infer a general spatial relation to aircraft. However, the specific technical sense (the parking/maintenance area at an airbase excluding runways and taxiways) is specialized aviation jargon and not fully predictable from the constituents alone, making the expression only partially transparent to B1 learners.

Etymology

Flight line may come from the simple picture of many planes parked in a long line ready for flights at an air base. So, flight line now means the area where planes are parked, checked, and prepared for flying.