Flybe Collapsed

[james42 257]

Very sad news indeed. This defiantly spells bad news for many of the smaller airports in the UK. I live in Exeter where Flybe was based and flew with them many times to European and domestic destinations, always with an excellent standard in service. Flybe accounted for 80% of passenger traffic out of Exeter meaning a very sharp decline in passenger numbers for the airport. Maybe Ryanair can step in and take on some of the old Flybe routes? Thoughts going out to the many employees that have lost their jobs, many of which i have become accustom to seeing over years.  

[Christopher Low 5,331]

I would have thought that this would be an opportunity for some other airlines to get a foot in the door where UK domestic routes are concerned. Loganair appear to have stepped up to the plate for some routes, so let's hope that other airlines can do likewise.

[GHD 21]

Eastern are taking over Flybe's Aberdeen-Birmingham, Southampton-Manchester and Southampton-Newcastle services from next week

 

[Chock 17,769]

9 hours ago, KevinAu said:

You don’t necessarily need an operating apu to operate the cargo doors on an airbus. You just need electrical power for the yellow electric hydraulic pump. So if the apu is inop or not running, you just need to have ground power available for the aircraft. I don’t believe the aircraft even has to be powered up as it looks like the pump is also connected directly to ext power by the maintenance bus switch. So as long as there is gpu connected, and someone has latched the maint switch, the cargo doors will operate powered even on a cold and dark plane. At least that is how our airbuses are configured. Maybe this will save you some some pumping away like mad in the future. Maybe not.

Yup, the door hydraulics are on the yellow system, so it is indeed the case that the yellow pump needs power to operate the cargo doors, although for at least a partial opening, even some residual pressure will open them a little bit. Normally that does mean that a GPU or FEP connection will do the trick, but as you say, there are some override switches on the starboard overhead which can stop that from happening; one of them I know will shut off the pump and not reactivate it even when power is restored without a switch reset. I think that is the issue we've had on occasion which required us to pump the doors even when we had ground power available.

I do recall this occurring once on an Air Baltic A320 which was on stand 23 at EGCC (that stand definitely has FEP). If I recall correctly, since it was a while ago, the A320 in question had a few issues besides the APU not working, since one would assume the engineer who was out with us would know about the maintenance switches and stuff like that.

Occasionally (as was the case yesterday with a Vueling A320 on stand 44L), we get an ACARS message or a radio call, advising us that something is amiss for an arriving aircraft, and on this occasion we were told that there was a problem with the forward cargo door, so all the bags would be in the rear hold upon arrival and the load up would be in there too. We were told we could open the front cargo door to check it (which is a requirement for security purposes), but that we might need an engineer out to get it closed. We were discussing hand cranking it, but as it turned out, upon arrival both cargo doors functioned normally and the bags were in the front in spite of us being told otherwise. So I'm not sure what they were on about with the message we received. I think this kind of confusion can lead us to doing things such as pumping the door when we (theoretically at least) should not need to.

Part of the problem (for us at least) is that obviously the hydraulic connections and electrical connections are, quite correctly, designed primarily with safety in the air as a priority in terms of what will and will not work when systems are down. Obviously the ability to open the cargo doors is way down on the list of priorities in comparison to ensuring things such as the control surfaces being operable and power for the instruments is available, since getting down safely is the thing; after all you can worry about the doors when you are safely on the ground. In an emergency, the last thing I'd be worried about is how soon my suitcase was going to be on the reclaim carousel.

I was discussing the priorities of the A320's systems with someone last year at work, concerning which control surfaces work on the last ditch manual reversion setting for the A320. Initially we were quite surprised to learn that you only get rudder and elevators, but upon thinking about that, of course we realised that whilst not ideal, you can control an aeroplane in all three axis with those two control surfaces plus use of differential engine thrust. And should one engine be shut down, you'd need the rudder to control the asymmetric thrust and the elevators to flare, so the two control surfaces you really need are indeed the elevators and the rudder.

We tried landing in an A320  simulator with that situation (only rudder, elevator and differential thrust)  and found that it can be done pretty easily as long as you get a good long run at being lined up for an approach, although having said that, it does make you appreciate what an absolutely outstanding job the crew of United Airlines Flight 232 (the DC-10 which lost all hydraulics and crash landed at Sioux City using only differential thrust to do so). The captain of that flight - Alfred Clair "Al" Haynes - passed away last year, and it is a testament to the man that in spite of the obvious skill on display from the crew and of course the excellent CRM going on in that flight deck under appallingly difficult circumstances, he shrugged off and dismissed the many who suggested he was a hero, instead attributing the survival of approximately two thirds of the people on board in spite of the violent crash landing, to the flight attendants, whom he repeatedly said did not receive the credit they deserved for their efforts that day.

[Chock 17,769]

Since you don't normally get to see this unless you are down on the ramp, here's what happens when an airline goes belly up. The aircraft are usually towed off out of the way somewhere, they are often blocked in with equipment to prevent anyone from pushing them out and getting away with them (unlikely, but it has happened in the past in some places). They then usually have these signs placed on them, typically near, or on, the main passenger boarding door:

At present, most of the FlyBe Dash 8s are in the Cul-De-Sac (some were towed there today) which is on Stands 5 through to 18, but others are on 66 and 65 and I think one is on 50.

Edited March 8, 2020 by Chock

[acev 1]

Very cool pictures, very bad for flybe.

It's a shame to see an airline that operated more local flights for a lot of us go down like this. I hope the trend doesn't continue as flying from smaller airports nearer to home is so much more convenient then going to London for every flight.

[Chock 17,769]

On the plus side, several airlines are jumping in operating more flights on routes which FlyBe covered, including Aurigny, Loganair, Aer Lingus, Vueling and Iberia. They are the ones I know of at the moment, I'm sure there will be others doing the same.

Edited March 8, 2020 by Chock

[FDEdev 955]

8 hours ago, Chock said:

I was discussing the priorities of the A320's systems with someone last year at work, concerning which control surfaces work on the last ditch manual reversion setting for the A320. Initially we were quite surprised to learn that you only get rudder and elevators, but upon thinking about that, of course we realised that whilst not ideal, you can control an aeroplane in all three axis with those two control surfaces plus use of differential engine thrust.

There is no 'manual reversion' on an A320.  Don't know where you've got that info from.

Without hydraulic power you are not control an A320. End of story. 

The RAT powers the blue hydraulic system and with that you have slats, flaps, spoiler pair 3, ailerons, rudder and elevator control.

Edited March 8, 2020 by FDEdev

[jon b 2,041]

I’ve often thought it was a bit of overkill putting snowploughs behind impounded aircraft, but of course if an aircraft files a flight plan and calls for pushback ATC won’t know anything different.

As an example,i remember as a young FO flying a charter flight with British aerospace personnel down to Heathrow under what was know as “ opportunity slots”. Basically you got airborne and headed for Heathrow and called the handling agents on the way in and they told you if Heathrow Airport limited  had decided to give you a landing slot or not, quite a ridiculous scenario.If they hadn’t you went to your designated alternate, in this case Farnborough 

Having arrived at the Bovingdon hold I called up the agents who said we had no slot. I told the captain, an old ex laker airways DC10 pilot that we couldn’t go to LHR. At which point ATC cleared us out of the hold towards the Airport.

See ! , he said, it’s ok we’ve been cleared in. I tried explaining that this was a separate issue but he wouldn’t have it.

Upon landing the airport authorities were sat waiting ,and took the captain into their car and threatened to prosecute him for trespassing on airport property!

[HighBypass 2,339]

11 hours ago, Chock said:

.......so all the bags would be in the rear hold upon arrival and the load up would be in there too.

Wouldn't that cause an aft CG problem and result in a tail-sitter? Or does the hold "bulk out" before the weight becomes a problem?

[KevinAu 441]

3 hours ago, FDEdev said:

There is no 'manual reversion' on an A320.  Don't know where you've got that info from.

Without hydraulic power you are not control an A320. End of story. 

The RAT powers the blue hydraulic system and with that you have slats, flaps, spoiler pair 3, ailerons, rudder and elevator control.

I think what he means is ‘mechanical backup’ as the ‘last ditch’ control means. And it does require hydraulics to be available. Mechanical backup is down to rudder and horizontal stabilizer as your only controls (not elevators). Direct the plane laterally with your feet, and vertically with the trim wheel and power.

Edited March 8, 2020 by KevinAu

[KevinAu 441]

11 hours ago, Chock said:

Occasionally (as was the case yesterday with a Vueling A320 on stand 44L), we get an ACARS message or a radio call, advising us that something is amiss for an arriving aircraft, and on this occasion we were told that there was a problem with the forward cargo door, so all the bags would be in the rear hold upon arrival and the load up would be in there too. We were told we could open the front cargo door to check it (which is a requirement for security purposes), but that we might need an engineer out to get it closed. We were discussing hand cranking it, but as it turned out, upon arrival both cargo doors functioned normally and the bags were in the front in spite of us being told otherwise. So I'm not sure what they were on about with the message we received. I think this kind of confusion can lead us to doing things such as pumping the door when we (theoretically at least) should not need to.

That sort of stuff happens if something gets fixed and is cleared from the mel’s but the notes to ops on the plane that were there from before don’t get deleted.

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, HighBypass said:

Wouldn't that cause an aft CG problem and result in a tail-sitter? Or does the hold "bulk out" before the weight becomes a problem?

It could be a problem if there were a lot of bags, but on this occasion I think it would have been fine if the bags had indeed been in the rear hold because there were if I recall correctly, only about thirty or so bags coming off and I think only about 20 going on (this is probably as a result of a lot of people not flying from Spain to the UK because of the COVID-19 virus).

A fairly typical load for an A320 is 30 bags in the front right up to the bulkhead, 70 in the rear up to the wing bulkhead (so both of those are close to the GoG), and maybe about 15 late bags right up in the tail or the doorway. Although I was speaking to an old colleague of mine yesterday who now works for DHL, which handles EasyJet, and he told me they'd just put 250+ bags on one of their A320s, which is a lot for an EasyJet flight and certainly getting to the point where the hold would be maxing out and you'd be stood on the belt shoving the last few in from there, particularly in that case because it was a ski flight, and so there's a lot of awkward ski bags to go on something like that. He told me they had eight trailers for all the bags, which is really a lot (frankly, four trailers is usually a lot for a medium range airliner, since you can fit about 50 bags on a trailer if you stack them well). So the issue with 'heavy' flights is often not the weight, it's the volume.

For those who like messing about with trim and loadouts in their flight sim, here's a bit about that which should help you understand what is going on and why you trim and balance the thing as you do:

Although tail tipping can be a concern when loading and unloading, so long as you watch the anti-torque scissors link on the nose gear whilst loading or unloading, to ensure it's not extending too much, it's not a big deal. The really critical thing with balancing an airliner load is to make sure that the CoG fits in good harmony with the centre of lift; this is really important. As I'm sure you know, the CoG is usually somewhere a little bit forward of the middle of the wing chord, whereas the centre of lift is well toward the back of the chord (pretty much at the leading edge of where the flaps start), but the long moment arm of the smaller tailplane means it can counter this, since the rear stabiliser is basically an upside down wing which counters the tendency for a wing to pitch forwards as it generates lift. The rear stabiliser can do this effectively even though it is much smaller than the main wing because it is placed right at the tail so it can impart a good deal of leverage, just like if you have a long spanner (wrench) which makes it easy to undo a tight nut because of the extra leverage it gives you.

The point where the plane balances not being exactly where the centre of lift is, is designed like that on purpose, to make the aircraft not too twitchy; if the CoG was right where the centre of lift was, that would be akin to trying to stand and balance on a football (if anyone has ever tried that) i.e. the tipping point either way is very close to the centre of gravity, so you end up wobbling about trying to stay stood on the ball.

So, on an aeroplane if you have the CoG on the centre of lift, it makes the elevators super sensitive which is not good, instead of that, what you want is the CoG to stay quite some distance away from the lift centre when it is loaded, but not too far as that would have the opposite effect and make the controls sluggish. Also, if you have the CoG a bit too far forward, the plane will basically want to nose dive all the time, and in extreme circumstances, it would mean you would not have enough trimmed elevator authority to get the nose up to about 10-12 degrees for the rotation to take off. Too far back with the balance on the other hand will make the thing want to pitch up all the time, so you'd have to be stick forward holding it down on the deck and then backing that off a bit to try and take off nicely and even then if you managed that, the plane would not be very inclined to fly nicely. So, if you've ;loaded an airliner correctly, it should be the case that your trim setting is within the green marker on the trim wheel, which tells you that it should not require an excessive stick movement to rotate for take off, and that once you are in the air, the plane will be easily controllable. for most airliners, this means the trim setting will be on about five for the take off. The one instance where you actually do want the CoG near the centre of lift, is with a jet fighter, since with twitchy controls, it can perform very quick turns. This is why such aeroplanes have a fly by wire system which constantly corrects the flight path automatically, but is ready to 'let go' when you move the stick. 

There are (very rarely, but it happens) occasions where you can load an aeroplane and the airliner EFB or the Ipad which is used for doing the loadout and such will not accept the load you have on board since it says the aeroplane is out of the recommended range. In these cases, you might sometimes have to use an external load planner to come up with the figure; one flight which often use to require that was the long-range (i.e. with extra fuel tanks fitted in the rear hold) A321s which Thomas Cook used to fly to North Africa. To make that flight, the aeroplane was often right on the ragged edge of being legal in terms of reserve fuel and take off weight and the FMC often did not like that, so you'd use an external load planner to suss it all out.

 

[fluffyflops 1,845]

On 3/7/2020 at 3:26 PM, james42 said:

Maybe Ryanair can step in and take on some of the old Flybe routes? 

I bet Oleary already has a couple of a/c ready to put into EXT.  However id guess hes not interested in domestic stuff out of EXT, and his other problem is youve got easyJet up the road in Bristol with a massive prescence with 15 or so a/c there all doing bucket and spade and domestics too.  When i was at easy ops,  Bristol was the 4th biggest after LGW,LTN,STN  not sure about now.

Edited March 8, 2020 by fluffyflops

[james42 257]

4 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

I bet Oleary already has a couple of a/c ready to put into EXT.  However id guess hes not interested in domestic stuff out of EXT, and his other problem is youve got easyJet up the road in Bristol with a massive prescence with 15 or so a/c there all doing bucket and spade and domestics too.  When i was at easy ops,  Bristol was the 4th biggest after LGW,LTN,STN  not sure about now.

Most definitely, im thinking maybe DUB,AMS and possibly open a new route to Paris (ORY or CDG not XCR) to fill the void left by Flybe.  EXT seems to be in a rather awkward place with NQY to the south and BRS to the north both served Ryanair. A lot of people i know are more than happy to take the drive up to Bristol to grab an Easyjet flight.