A380 5hr circling
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A380 5hr circling
This story came up on my news feed and this bit thst caught my attention was the aircraft circling for 5hrs to burn/dump fuel.
I know SIN - LHR is a long distance flight and the A380 is on the 'likes a drink' side, but is 5hrs the norm? Seems a long time. Over to the A380 jockeys.
https://airlive.net/news/2024/04/23/british-airways-a380-ba12-circled-for-5-hours-following-a-technical-issue/?amp=1
I know SIN - LHR is a long distance flight and the A380 is on the 'likes a drink' side, but is 5hrs the norm? Seems a long time. Over to the A380 jockeys.
https://airlive.net/news/2024/04/23/british-airways-a380-ba12-circled-for-5-hours-following-a-technical-issue/?amp=1
Not sure about the techie side of the 380 but the comment in the linked article that “The typical flight duration is 10 hours,” SIN-LHR isn’t even close to being correct so is the claim that the flight “ started to circle over the sea to dump/burn fuel for 5 hours” accurate?
A380 dumps 2500kg/min but can only dump the transfer tanks so if the jet had say 140tons on board it would be able to jettison about 50 tons which would take 20mins. Can’t think of a failure (even loss of anti-skid on all gear) that would require the jet to burn fuel. You would have the performance to land immediately and after jettison with careful brake management the brake energy could be kept under control.
Ah, not a great thing to have on any route but certainly not on that sector.
As for the holding, I can now see it was indeed 4 hours plus…whatever the reason I suppose if circumstances permitted that gave time for a meal service before dumping people back into the terminal…
As for the holding, I can now see it was indeed 4 hours plus…whatever the reason I suppose if circumstances permitted that gave time for a meal service before dumping people back into the terminal…
A380 main landing gears are very precious spare parts these days.
BA had injured cabin crew due to turbulence on that route a few months ago so proceeding without the weather radar wouldn’t have been a good idea even if the OPS manual allowed it.
SIN - LHR is around 14 hours so lots of fuel onboard, even more if ME detours were needed.
The flight had already suffered a 4 hour delay to its departure due to a weather radar fault.
SIN - LHR is around 14 hours so lots of fuel onboard, even more if ME detours were needed.
The flight had already suffered a 4 hour delay to its departure due to a weather radar fault.
A380 dumps 2500kg/min but can only dump the transfer tanks so if the jet had say 140tons on board it would be able to jettison about 50 tons which would take 20mins. Can’t think of a failure (even loss of anti-skid on all gear) that would require the jet to burn fuel. You would have the performance to land immediately and after jettison with careful brake management the brake energy could be kept under control.
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