In part 2 at ~4:55 you turn on the battery master after turning on the other battery switches, yet in the Q400 tutorial flight which can be downloaded from Majestic's website, that pilot who wrote the article says to turn on the battery master first and then the other switches. Which one is it?

 

Thanks,

 

Mike

Mike - Josh did not specify to me the order of turning on the batteries. That isn't to say there isn't one, but if there is then we'll put an amendment in. I'll ask the question. 

Cheers

Ben

Thanks a lot!

Mike, got your answer from an airline bod:

 

'No it's different, the principle is left to right for power on and off so it's stby, aux, main then master last and then the same order for power off'

 

I guess that the airline SOP we use is different to the one Majestic's tutorial uses. This will happen a lot - as you see, we don't use VNAV much, we don't use RTOP, RNAV, we tune the nav radios manually, lots of differences to other airlines using the Q400. This is the way Josh was taught to do it, so that's what we teach you. There's no right and wrong way but this is our SOP and there will be differences from time to time. 

 

Hope that helps!

 

Ben

Thanks a lot. It is funny how airlines have completely different SOP, even going so far as to contradict each other (you would think Bombardier would have some rule about the best way to turn on the batteries but maybe it just doesn't matter).

Why does it matter what order is used when switching on the batteries?

 

My understanding is that the

S/by & Aux batteries power the left bus (when switched on)

The main battery the right bus (when switched on) , but in both cases, unless the Battery Master is on Master the circuit is not completed. Could be likened to switching on/off all power in the house by using the main fuse panel switch

 

 

just curious to know why the difference

Good question. My colleague Jonathan is working out of a Q400 engineering base today so we'll see if we can get a spanner monkey to answer the question....

Gee that was quick.  Can I add another question?  What are the consequences of not following the factory recommendation ie. the Master sw being the 1st On when switching on the batteries & the last Off when turning off the batteries?

Ok guys, fired Josh an email, will let you know what he says.

And the answer is - it doesn't matter. Nothing happens with the battery master off, regardless of what you press. So do the hokey cokey, press them until they fall off - whatever you fancy, the thing won't come alive until you power it with the battery master.