Question, when the 737 is cold & dark in real life.How do the pilots enter the aircraft? Is there auxilary power for the airstairs & door's?If it is,is it modeled in this 737?

I believe the doors are not electrically powered and they can open the door manually, and as for the the airstairs I believe there is an auxiliary power for them.

Thanks for the answer Sloshypage23.Is that auxilary power available in this sim?, meaning is there a button on the fuselage or key assignment to simulate that?(shift-e for door airstairs -- ?)

I suspect you'll find it's generally not the pilots that open up a plane and power it up. By the time they get to it, it's been powered up and towed to the gate. If you've got GSX you could call up a truck stairway thingie if it's not at a bridge.

Question, when the 737 is cold & dark in real life.How do the pilots enter the aircraft? Is there auxilary power for the airstairs & door's?If it is,is it modeled in this 737?

 

Pilots show up to the plane with it usually in the RW equivalent of the Short or Long states (and which one is dependent on how long it's been sitting - thus "short" and "long").

 

Cold and dark is rare.

 

As far as getting power to the plane, I thought the main cabin door was manual, so power doesn't matter (could be wrong).  I know the airstairs are powered, though.  If any systems are required to be powered to be opened from cold and dark, maintenance usually does it as part of their morning run.

Cold and dark is a lot less rare in the 737 than it is in the 777, though. Our pilots encounter a cold & dark cockpit pretty much every single morning, for the first flight of the day. Of course, the plane ends up in a "long" state (or a state comparable to it) for the flights after.

The cabin doors are indeed fully manually powered, no electricity needed there. Not sure about the air stairs, since we never had them.

Thank you everybody for the info. I always see 737 bbj's parked at my local airport (KMRY), and was wondering if they used thier airstairs to enter cold & dark. The airport does not have jetways an they park in the GA. parking. Never seen one boarded first thing in the morning. Thanks Again Everybody !

Pilots show up to the plane with it usually in the RW equivalent of the Short or Long states (and which one is dependent on how long it's been sitting - thus "short" and "long").

 

Cold and dark is rare.

 

As far as getting power to the plane, I thought the main cabin door was manual, so power doesn't matter (could be wrong).  I know the airstairs are powered, though.  If any systems are required to be powered to be opened from cold and dark, maintenance usually does it as part of their morning run.

Hello scandinavian13, seems like you work with aerosoft. I was wondering is there a button or activation system modelled in this pmdg 737 that lets you open the airstairs like if you are at a remote location or light facilaty airport or private airport cold & dark ?

Thank you everybody for the info. I always see 737 bbj's parked at my local airport (KMRY), and was wondering if they used thier airstairs to enter cold & dark. The airport does not have jetways an they park in the GA. parking. Never seen one boarded first thing in the morning. Thanks Again Everybody !

Hello scandinavian13, seems like you work with aerosoft. I was wondering is there a button or activation system modelled in this pmdg 737 that lets you open the airstairs like if you are at a remote location or light facilaty airport or private airport cold & dark ?

 

Just so you are aware, Aerosoft has nothing to do with PMDG... apart from distributing some of their products I believe.

 

Out of interest for you:  http://www.b737.org.uk/aircraft_general.htm#Airstairs

Pilots show up to the plane with it usually in the RW equivalent of the Short or Long states (and which one is dependent on how long it's been sitting - thus "short" and "long").

 

Cold and dark is rare.

 

As far as getting power to the plane, I thought the main cabin door was manual, so power doesn't matter (could be wrong).  I know the airstairs are powered, though.  If any systems are required to be powered to be opened from cold and dark, maintenance usually does it as part of their morning run.

 

Finding the jet cold and dark isn't that rare in reality.  If you are doing a kickoff flight from a non-hub station you will probably find the jet with everything off and only the ground services bus being powered from the GPU, if it's plugged in and on.  It's our normal procedure to power the jet down for overnight terminations.  If you are kicking off from a hub then maintenance has probably been playing with the jet and it will be powered up.

 

The door is manual.  There is a button on the forward flight attendant's panel to power up the ground service bus from the external power so the cabin lights are available and I assume the airstairs, if they require power, would be available as well.  Our airplanes don't have airstairs installed so I couldn't tell you for certain.

If the airplane would be left in a Cold and Dark. The airstairs should be deployed. How else is the last crew member going to get out? 
If they dont have stairs on a truck on that airfield?

So I suppose the first crew member arriving to a cold and dark airplane would find it with some kind of stairs attached.

Having researched it a bit more:

 

 

 

 

Forward Airstairs

May be operated from either internal or external panels. The internal panel requires the forward entry door to be at least partially open. Both panels have NORMAL and STANDBY systems. Normal requires AC and DC power, standby only requires DC. External standby system power comes from the battery bus and so does not require the battery switch to be on.

from: http://www.b737.org.uk/aircraft_general.htm#Airstairs

Really..it depends on the airline,to save on power and fuel,some airlines may have the aircraft in the cold and dark state(The APU guzzels down quite an amount of fuel too...and its noisy),most of the times however the aircraft is powered up to a certain extent,i think maintainence engineers also have an hatch under the aircraft to enter the cockpit...not very sure if it leads to the cockpit..as for the APU shortcut,you might have to assign a new key for that.

Shift e opens the main door ,not the airstairs..that can be accessed in the CDU.(in the doors page,i think when you open the left entry forward.)

Hope this helps,

H.Mahesh

 

 

,i think maintainence engineers also have an hatch under the aircraft to enter the cockpit...not very sure if it leads to the cockpit.

 

It does not.

It does not.

righto...sorry i mixed that up with another aircraft my grandfather used to work on,please disregard the above statement ^_^

It does not.

sorry....i mixed that up with the E and E bay,very sorry.

It does not.

Out of interest - I am sure I read somewhere that on the 747 the Avionics bay can actually be accessed via a hatch in the first class area near the nose.