Short notice GLA meet

Originally posted by Selsport69
Yep that was right Ren mind you only when the engineers came on board.

There must be a gag in there somewhere ! 😉

Yep that was right Ren mind you only when the engineers came on board.

Come to think of it, at one point a tiny bit of paper or something seemed to come out from the door area as they were fiddling with it.

The slide is contained in a bulbous fairing at the bottom of the door called a bustle. When the door is in manual (sometimes referred to as disarmed) the girt bar on the bottom of the slide in the bustle moves with the door. When the door arming lever is moved to automatic (sometimes referred to as armed) the girt bar engages into brackets on the aircraft floor so that when the door is opened the door pulls away from the girt bar, the slide is pulled out and the firing mechanism activates.

Thanx for clearing that up 🙂

I knew it was to do with the engine start in some way 😉 honestly.

Interesting about the door too. Now I know exactly why the Captain says “Cabin crew, doors to automatic”.

Chuffed to bits about that

Yes Charley we were on 135.42 and routed right over my house at 5 past midnight before heading over Sussex. Quite often out of LGW you don’t always get your desired level straight away because the southbound aircraft from ooop north have alreay claimed the level! There is no normal pattern to my work which makes life very difficult. I cannot guarantee any commitment unless it is short notice. Long haul was much more stable and less tiring, despite the time zone chznges. Low cost has an advantage in that they work 6 on 3 off so you can work out whether you’ll be off on any day in the future. However the price they pay is that they are probably the hardest worked pilots in the industry.

Let me solve the door problem for you. The R4 door is a service door (like the R1) which is used by a catering vehicle to restock the rear galley. Therefore it is usually opened on every turnaround. The door is obviously closed for every departure and the slide is armed. The process of arming the slide causes a metal rod (called a girt bar) to engage into a track in the galley floor under the door. This is the attachment of the slide to the exit. Sometimes the passage of trolleys and people through the doorway causes crud and rubbish to collect in the track and the door arming lever will not travel to the ‘automatic’ position because of the blockage. The only solution is to reselect the arming lever to ‘manual’, open the door and clear the floor area which is what the girls are doing in the picture. I did like the suggestion that one was ‘blowing chunks’!

Also the reason for the change in noise from the APU – during boarding the APU is running (it lives in the tail cone) and it supplies electrical power and pneumatics to the aircraft. The pneumatic (air) supply is used to drive the 2 air conditioning packs. When we need to start the engine we need to use the pneumatic supply from the APU to power the air driven starter motors. However there is not enough pressure to drive the starters as well as the air con. Therefore shortly before starting the engines (in fact when we are doing the before start checklist) we turn the air con packs off. This reduces the load on the APU which makes it’s noise level change. Then, a few seconds later we’ll start the right engine which places a load on the APU making the noise change again. At 47-50% N3 the starter motor will cut out changing the load on the APU again and then once again we do the same thing for the left engine. As you can see there are plenty of reasons why the APU sound changes.

regards
wys

Glad you all had a good time!Lovely pics Ren!
Wys,
When you went outbound to Zante did you route over Sussex?I found Honiley right at the top of my poor old Aerad map and looking at it with ruler in hand it looks like you possibly did?Also would you have been on the high over flights freq by then—–135.42?We see lots go over very high and possibly these are from the north and Scotland!
Hope you had a good sleep last night ! didnt realise short haul was so hectic-how many days do you work normally and how many off?My friend tried short haul but got so tired she went back to Long haul-(not so much going up the M25,just once before her trip and once after) -she comes in from SFO today and goes to Hong Kong on Sat!
Take care
Charley B (Lynda)
PS We went to see Concorde last Thurs and I had a guided tour of where P works-the Compass Centreand lots of other places sadly BA002 was canx and BA 001 went tech with a hydraulic leak so we saw neither BUT we went to Myrtle Aveand watched a few planes and nearly got sucked upwards by a very very heavy BA 747 that just made it over the trees!!!!

Let’s get this door shut, it’s freezing out here ! 😀

Can’t see anything, can you ?

What’s jamming the door ?

?????????

Here’s the other pics from the back door sequence, Can you work out what’s going on ?

In principle I’m good for EDI on the 24th until Concorde leaves, then I’m hot footing it to Inverness to do some work. If anyone is up for a Scottish meet next spring (better weather and schedules) I’ll organise a combined GLA/PIK trip in one day. I’ll drive and if there’s enough takers I’ll rent a mini bus for the day to take us down to PIK and back to GLA. 😀

I’ll get those images to you tomorrow Matt if I find the appropriate cable for the camera. Taking Mrs Ren to GLA tomoz for her first leg flight to Sydney. Will be a bit busy as I’m also off to Oban for a week’s work at the end of the week. Loads of laundry to catch up on in the meantime. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Ren Frew
Ah… I see the discussion we had concerning avatars has borne fruit ! 😀

No sooner I mention it than it’s gone ! Oh well….. 😮

Ian it was good to meet you ( Iknow how you felt I was dreading being the first one and not knowing what you looked like) and our latest new member Sandy who I am sure is going to make a very good contribution to the forum.

Ah… I see the discussion we had concerning avatars has borne fruit ! 😀

Originally posted by Matthew Murray
Hey,
I don’t think it was the engines that were making the noise, rather the APU increasing it’s pseed to supply air pressure for the starters. Then I suppose, the start valve would be open and the engine would be rotating..but I don’t think it would make a noise…just the APU…

True… and come to think of it… didn’t I suggest that when we were there?

My swiss cheese memory is returning:rolleyes:

Great photos and accounts of the day. Glad you all had a great time.

I’ll definitely be up for a Northern Meet some time around Christmas. Keep us posted.

Great to hear you’re back safe and well.

Sounds very tiring indeed…. I bet the CAA wouldn’t like that 3 hours sleep in 36 bit….. I’d gladly go through that….if I could only get my foot in the door LOL.
I’m sure Matthew is of the same opinion.

Was great meeting ya Ian…. must do it again…. that is if I didn’t scare you off LMAO 😀
oh yeah… cheers for the little bits ‘n’ bobs… a brilliant start to my aviation collection, the wings currently taking centre stage 😀

Any chance you can get James the F/O to confirm what was going on with the rear aft door (R4?).
The seemed to begin spolling the No.1 engine twice and stopped boths time before finally pushing off after some activity in the rear and a ground personel boarding via driven airstairs.

Hi everyone, got home at 3pm today (Monday afternoon). I really enjoyed meeting up with you all and my wife is delighted I disposed of what she considers to be ‘my old junk’!

Ren – thanks very much for all your organisational efforts. I’d like to forward the pictures of ‘LJ pushing back to James (the FO in the pictures) as he will really appreciate them. His previous job had him flying a Cessna Caravan turboprop single aroung the world supporting a round the world flight by a microlight and a helicopter. You may have seen the documentary series about it on Discovery Wings! His more normal daily routine was ferrying large tanks of eels around Europe which is why the aircraft was registered G-EELS.

Selsport – The first person I met. I was quite nervous about walking up to a rugby style stranger and saying ‘hi, are you Kevin/Selsport!’. A pleasure to meet you.

Bmused – Glad you joined! I’m biased but I think this is the best forum around.

Matthew – Have you taken the hat off yet, Captain? As soon as I’ve had a rest I’ll get onto copying the data you need.

After we went our separate ways I grabbed a bite to eat before heading back to my hotel. I tried to get a few hours sleep but the maid kept banging on the door to clean my room, despite the ‘do not disturb’ sign. I got about an hours kip before reporting for duty at 2155. We pushed back at about 2310 and were cleared to Zakinthos (aka Zante) via a New Galloway 1H departure, then down through the UK via Honiley to the boundary with France at BAMES. We routed Moulins-MELEE through France before crossing the Alps with a direct clearance to Saronno then Pescara in Italy. Coming off the heal of Italy we were transferred to Athens Control and cleared to Zakinthos VOR via Kefalinia. We arrived overhead at 0245 but the airport doesn’t open until 0255 so we joined our 757 out of NCL and our A320 out of EMA in the hold for 10 minutes before flying a procedural VOR approach onto Runway 16 into a 20 knot headwind.
We had a reasonable (1 hour) turnaround in Zakinthos before heading back up towards Kefalinia for our inbound leg. From KFL VOR we routed through Albania, Bosnia, over Zagreb in Croatia and Graz in Austria before crossing the Alps into Germany. From there it was up through Belgium and Holland before crossing the North Sea towards Ottringham and Newcastle before landing on R23 at GLA at about 0810 this morning.
I then had a mad dash to catch my BA flight to LHR (I got off my aircraft before the passengers!) and had to endure the awful conversation of 2 old American ladies who wouldn’t leave me alone to sleep! At Heathrow there was a chauffeur driven Mercedes to run me down to Gatwick where I had to pick up my motorbike and ironically ride back to my home near Heathrow!
So to answer Matthews question about why pilots complain about the job – it’s a great job that’s marred by phenomenal tiredness. I have had 3 hours sleep in the last 36 (one 1 hour sleep before the flight and a 2 hour sleep when I got in because if I didn’t wake up I wouldn’t get to spend any time with my 2 year old boy), I shall try to get 8 hours tonight if my body will allow me to sleep bearing in mind I am completely out of a sleeping rhythm, but then tomorrow I can be called out with 75 minutes notice to do it all again. Bearing in mind I had been doing more of the same for another 3 days before this period you can probably see why it’s not all a bed of roses.
But would I change… would I heck!