Water on hot brakes!?

Well Yorkshire people are known for their moaning 😀

(That Mahon flight originated from LBA 😉 ).

It reminds me of the MyTravel incident in Mahon a couple of seasons ago where the skipper went beyond the call of duty to try to resolve a problem with the nose gear air/ground logic switch and just got himself in a whole pile of do do as reported by the press. He tried to do right by his passengers but their lack of knowedge resulted in the fact that he’ll never try to help again. If in doubt, leave it to an engineer to take the blame (sorry Matthew)!

Yes, that was a particularly disgusting case of a$$hole SLF over reacting and the media juicing it for its every worth.

It reminds me of the MyTravel incident in Mahon a couple of seasons ago where the skipper went beyond the call of duty to try to resolve a problem with the nose gear air/ground logic switch and just got himself in a whole pile of do do as reported by the press. He tried to do right by his passengers but their lack of knowedge resulted in the fact that he’ll never try to help again. If in doubt, leave it to an engineer to take the blame (sorry Matthew)!

Tabloid field day!

and of course, they’ll have Joe Public beleive it was an Airbus A757 with 500 passengers on board, all of whom are quoted as saying the ordeal began on take off and that the crew were flying recklessly.

Tabloid field day!

I can just imagine the scenario…

Hauled up in front of the AAIB – ‘so let me get this right, you landed at Zakynthos with max reverse and a required autobrake setting of * which required a Boeing mandated brake cooling period of 1 hr 15 mins. You then got out of the cockpit, poured water on the brakes and departed after 45 mins…’

Draw your own conclusions as to the wisdom!

hung drawn and quartered and for desserts your picture in The Sun newspaper with a witty putdown

I can just imagine the scenario…

Hauled up in front of the AAIB – ‘so let me get this right, you landed at Zakynthos with max reverse and a required autobrake setting of * which required a Boeing mandated brake cooling period of 1 hr 15 mins. You then got out of the cockpit, poured water on the brakes and departed after 45 mins…’

Draw your own conclusions as to the wisdom!

Yes, I am well aware – Hence the tongue-in-cheek comment 😀

he he

Airbus and Boeing manuals contain guidance for brake cooling involving passage of time and use of brake fans (if fitted). At no point is any other technique (such as pouring water) taken into consideration. Any operator encouraging this sort of thing is substandard and worth avoiding. This is ‘hung out to dry’ stuff if it was followed by an accident.

Obviously hot enough to boil water. Must be some reason they want to cool them down quickly with water?

water will begin to evaporate before it reaches boiling point 😉
Watch a kettle boil… long before it boils up, you see steam.

Yet, the picture quite clearly shows ‘a pilot’ pouring water onto the landing gear/brakes. :rolleyes:

Assumpution is the mother of all…

….which leads to complanacy, which leads to errors… :diablo:

Yes, the picture show him doing so.

But what the picture does not show is is how hot the brakes are.

Really?

It is what brakes fans are for, either installed or as ground equipment. I wouldn’t want to be pouring water on hot brakes, especially the older steel-type. Do you pour water on your car brakes? No! I doubt very much water from rain/spray will ever get to the brakes – most likely just a mist that would be easily evapourated buy the heat generated by brakes.

That’s why I started the thread, I thought it was somewhat strange…!

And how can you tell that? :rolleyes:

Again… I can’t see a pilot pouring could water onto breaks so hot they could crack.

I’m assuming the pilot knows what he is doing.

Really?

It is what brakes fans are for, either installed or as ground equipment. I wouldn’t want to be pouring water on hot brakes, especially the older steel-type. Do you pour water on your car brakes? No! I doubt very much water from rain/spray will ever get to the brakes – most likely just a mist that would be easily evapourated buy the heat generated by brakes.

I can’t see a pilot pouring water on his planes brakes when there is a danger of cracking them.

I meant in this particular instance there was no danger.

Remembering the difficulties we used to have with brake cooling on the 757-300 on a typical charter turnaround I’d suggest that if it isn’t recommended in the flight manual I’d leave well alone. About as sensible as peeing on an electric fence IMO.

This will probably be a very minor overheat as the crash crews who attend a major wheeloverheat do not put water or gas on any hot surface in case of fracture or explosion of parts due to supercooling….will check with my firey mate on this.

A225HVY

no, not at those temperatures anyway.

you CAN crack any hot part, especially if its a cast part (as all major aircraft parts are) by too rapid cooling.

the landing gear manufacturers (not boeing) would take this into account when stressing the components.

747 brake disks are a tad different from your average LGV 😉

This is perfectly fine. No real danger at all.

Ah good, just checking. 😉

THere is the possibility of cracking the brake disk,
As a LGV driver I’ve had the problem over overheated brakes on more than one occassion and unless the brakes or hubs are on fire ,we would never pour water on them as the disk could warp or crack , I have seen it happen
Kevin

747 brake disks are a tad different from your average LGV 😉

This is perfectly fine. No real danger at all.

RIP prbably is thinking about the metal super cooling and then weakening. Not trying to criticise but i think boeing factored in water from spray on land or whatever.

THere is the possibility of cracking the brake disk,
As a LGV driver I’ve had the problem over overheated brakes on more than one occassion and unless the brakes or hubs are on fire ,we would never pour water on them as the disk could warp or crack , I have seen it happen
Kevin