Just to elaborate a bit more…

The (anti-collision) beacon is the (usually) red thing on the top and bottom. This is usually turned on immediately prior to engine start/push back and turned off after engine shut down.

The strobes are very brilliant dazzling white flashers usually located on the wingtips (on large commercial aircraft). Boeing ones tend to do a single flash while Airbus ones generally do a double flash. These are usually turned on when entering an active runway and remain on until vacating the runway after landing. They must not be used on the ground as the energy levels involved are very high and represent a risk around things such as fuel bowsers. They can also bring about epileptic fits in certain individuals and have been known to cause such distraction to other taxying aircraft that their use on the ground tends to increase ground collisions!

Nav lights are the red, green and white steady lights. They are only legally required for flying at night however most airlines SOP’s suggest using them at all times, The red light is located on the left wing tip and is visible from the front and left, the green light is on the right wing tip and can be seen from the front and right. The white light(s) are usually located on the tail (although the 757 had them on the back of the wingtips) and are visible from the rear.

Hope this is of interest.

Can be either red or white and there is no requirement for multiple ones to be sequenced afaik. I’ve only ever seen installations where one switch turns on all…however on the A340 if you turn on the taxi camera system the lower beacon will switch off so you don’t blind yourself!

Tenthije – you’re mixing a bit of beacon, strobes and nav lights all together with your answer!

Advert for flightcrew in Flight was for LBA basings…but that could easily be changed.

When are you going? I’m rostered a NRT later this month…on the A346.

EDIT – just seen in your sig that you aren’t going until Aug.

Further to the EPR thing –

With both aircraft at MTOW the B752 and the A346 have similar power to weight ratios (I mention this purely to show that neither is underpowered). Today I have just flown a 346 in the cruise across the pond at FL370 and M.83 with the autothrust commanding a target EPR of 1.03. Now If I was in a 752 at FL370 doing its typical cruise speed of M.795 and set the EPR to 1.03 I’d be going down at a couple of thousand feet per minute!

My assumption (which correlates nicely with RB211 operation but not with the Trent) had always been that an EPR of 1.0 represented an engine producing as much thrust as it is producing drag. More than 1.0 meant that thrust was winning the battle and less than 1.0 meant drag was the winner.

Vortex, I spent a fair bit of time today looking further into the shaft protection thing in the books. Sensors monitor fan speed compared to LP shaft speed. If the fan speed is slower than the shaft speed then the fadecs read this as a sheared shaft and will auto-shutdown the engine. Unfortunately the system seems to be prone to sensor faults.

(Edited to correct FL470 to FL370)

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!