Why are we going so slow?

Pilawt

Pilawt

Final Approach
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Pilawt
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-mid-air-fuel-crisis/articleshow/59747213.cms

"The fast rate at which the A320 guzzled fuel left the pilots with no option but to divert to Nagpur airport to refuel. [...] [H]alfway through the almost two hour, 45 minute flight, they were left with not enough fuel to complete the journey safely. 'The pilots began to prepare the aircraft for landing and it was only when they decided to put down the landing gear that they realised that it was down all along,' the source added."

:rolleyes:
 
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"both pilots were derostered"

Not "fired," "canned," placed on administrative leave," but "derostered."

I like it.
 
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A plane with auto-throttles doesn't have auto-gear? Air India must have bought on the cheap ;)
 
Were both pilots flying a fixed gear piston aircraft prior to this flight?

@Ravioli auto gear? That's got bad decision written all over it.
 
Once or twice I've come off the airport thinking "Man, this thing's climbing like a dog today". Then I look a the gear selector.....D'oh!
 
What's the speed restriction on an A320 gear? I'm guessing they must have overspeeded the gear. That's going to be one expensive flight after all the inspections that were just ordered!

Also, gear down is noisy as hell. Is the cockpit so much better insulated than the cabin that they couldn't hear it?

It wasn't clear from the article...did they continue the flight after the refuel? I would think such an error would mean the thing would need to go straight to inspection before another flight.
 
Someone used to think auto-extension was good. (PA32-300R)

My response was wholly sarcastic by the way.
 
Ravioli said:
Someone used to think auto-extension was good. (PA32-300R)

My response was wholly sarcastic by the way.
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Understood :). Auto extension I understand, I used to fly an Arrow and that had an "auto extend" feature when the MP/speed was too low and the gear up.
 
arnoha said:
What's the speed restriction on an A320 gear? I'm guessing they must have overspeeded the gear. That's going to be one expensive flight after all the inspections that were just ordered!

Also, gear down is noisy as hell. Is the cockpit so much better insulated than the cabin that they couldn't hear it?

It wasn't clear from the article...did they continue the flight after the refuel? I would think such an error would mean the thing would need to go straight to inspection before another flight.
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Looked it up... 260 KIAS for gear on an A320. I guess it's possible if they climbed straight to 24,000' and figured it out soon. That's 380 KTAS, or so. Slow for an A320, but maybe it couldn't get there with the gear down anyway.
 
arnoha said:
Looked it up... 260 KIAS for gear on an A320. I guess it's possible if they climbed straight to 24,000' and figured it out soon. That's 380 KTAS, or so. Slow for an A320, but maybe it couldn't get there with the gear down anyway.
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It's a bus so it wouldn't let them exceed gear speed. I wonder if it would struggle to hold altitude after it runs out of fuel. Seems to me that the software shouldn't let it descend.

(I made some of that up.)
 
12 posts in and no one has made a clever remark about fixed gear vs retractable gears? A la Cirrus vs Mooney vs TTx?
 
Tantalum said:
12 posts in and no one has made a clever remark about fixed gear vs retractable gears? A la Cirrus vs Mooney vs TTx?
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Goes without saying ;)


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As a passenger. I rather have them forget the landing gear during flight opposed to forgetting the landing gear while landing.
 
N747JB said:
Never happened to me, nope never!! :D:D
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Me neither. Well, once........ maybe twice.

I was climbing out of Albuquerque one night. I was thinking to myself, man, those three green lights are just too bright. Never noticed that before, but they are really annoying. Gonna have to write that up when I get back. I gotta find something to cover those three super bright green lights..... wait, why is this thing climbing so slowly?

&%$#.!!! Clunk, clunk. clunk...... That's better....
 
Bill Jennings said:
Once or twice I've come off the airport thinking "Man, this thing's climbing like a dog today". Then I look a the gear selector.....D'oh!
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And one of these days youre gonna be on short final saying 'man, I seem to be coming in faster than normal today..."
 
arnoha said:
Looked it up... 260 KIAS for gear on an A320. I guess it's possible if they climbed straight to 24,000' and figured it out soon. That's 380 KTAS, or so. Slow for an A320, but maybe it couldn't get there with the gear down anyway.
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You may have some outdated info here.
The Bus max gear extended speed is 280/.67 as well as 25,000 feet altitude. 280 wouldn't be hard to stay under but .67 might be. That said I don't know how fast the airplane will do with the gear down.
 
Clark1961 said:
It's a bus so it wouldn't let them exceed gear speed. I wonder if it would struggle to hold altitude after it runs out of fuel. Seems to me that the software shouldn't let it descend.

(I made some of that up.)
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There is no system in the A320 to keep the airplane from exceeding a gear speed.
 
Kritchlow said:
You may have some outdated info here.
The Bus max gear extended speed is 280/.67 as well as 25,000 feet altitude. 280 wouldn't be hard to stay under but .67 might be. That said I don't know how fast the airplane will do with the gear down.
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Huh. I saw 260 a number of times in my quick search, so I thought it looked trustable. Maybe that's the gear operation speed?

I wonder why the altitude restriction. What's going to break if you open 'em up at high cruise altitude? Or is it that it shrinks the coffin corner down to that altitude?
 
arnoha said:
Huh. I saw 260 a number of times in my quick search, so I thought it looked trustable. Maybe that's the gear operation speed?

I wonder why the altitude restriction. What's going to break if you open 'em up at high cruise altitude? Or is it that it shrinks the coffin corner down to that altitude?
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I show 220 to retract, 250 to extend, and 280/.67 for VLE. That said, sometime airlines make the restrictions tighter than manufacturer limitations (obviuosly never the other way around).

Not sure why the 25,000 limitation. My guess is because that's the highest altitude they put it down during certification.
 
Kritchlow said:
I show 220 to retract, 250 to extend, and 280/.67 for VLE. That said, sometime airlines make the restrictions tighter than manufacturer limitations (obviuosly never the other way around).

Not sure why the 25,000 limitation. My guess is because that's the highest altitude they put it down during certification.
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I wonder if that was all governed on the extend speed. I would guess they picked 250 KIAS as a design target so that the pilot could drop gear under 10K at any time without having to think too much about speed.
 
Surprised it took that long to determine the gear was still hanging down. Must've really been out to lunch.
 
How many hours to get into one of those cockpits?
 
I'm flying with a captain from India and he says all you need is a commercial multi and a lot of connections.
 
Timbeck2 said:
"both pilots were derostered"

Not "fired," "canned," placed on administrative leave," but "derostered."

I like it.
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Indian airlines / air India is operated by govt of India, forget about firing, even if u put someone on suspension, the workers union will be up in arms. Derostered essentially means they are not flying and enjoying life on ground. Same as suspension with pay, but I guess the union don't like the word suspension

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
mkosmo said:
It won't move the redline? Or will the AT not honor the redline?
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As far as I know, neither. I will double check tomorrow but I would be surprised.
Its *possible* that it's masked by the barber pole because gear usually comes after flaps 2 which puts it much further down than the gear speed. So... no way to really test it under normal flight situations.
 
Kritchlow said:
As far as I know, neither. I will double check tomorrow but I would be surprised.
Its *possible* that it's masked by the barber pole because gear usually comes after flaps 2 which puts it much further down than the gear speed. So... no way to really test it under normal flight situations.
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Put it on your list for next sim session.
 
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