Comair flight 5637, irate pax, watch the video

[SKYW Pilot]

You say that the company backs you up, yet if an incident ever happened something not related to this or even this situation, you wouldn't be protected.

Do you work at Skywest? Then you have no idea what you're talking about.

You are protected in a situation like this because it is a safety of flight issue! You're the PIC and it's your responsibility to protect the safety of your passengers both in the air and on the ground. Having no air conditioning during a hot humid summer time day is dangerous... period. I wouldn't want to work at a company that doesn't back you up in a situation like this.

 

[SKYW Pilot]

no, the captain would be hard pressed at just about any company. It would be pretty hard to justify an APU as a safety issue during any carpet dance - everyone here saying he should have done this or that is full of crap - I have never seen a Captain refuse an airplane because of an inop APU. I call BS to anyone who says that they would.

I've turned an aircraft down three times at Skywest because of no APU/air conditioning. Never heard a word about it.

 

[PCL_128]

If I have an inop APU then I start running the packs off the huffer while they disconnect the A/C.

They usually don't start the huffer until it's time to start the engines. In other words, sometimes they'll pull the a/c and then you'll sit there for 10-15 minutes while you wait for them to decide that they're ready to crank the engines. Besides, huffer air is usually horribly polluted and will make the pax sick rather quickly.

I then start both engines at the gate with the huffer.

I don't recall a CRJ checklist in our CFM that allowed for this. Maybe I'm just forgetting. Either way, it won't make a difference as I point out below.

This allows both packs to be operating during taxiing which should cool the plane back down to a reasonable temp fairly quickly. If the packs can't get the temp down below 110-120 then I would taxi back to the gate and write up the packs.

Have you ever flown a CRJ-200? It takes a minimum of 45% N1 on both engines to keep the PACKs running with sufficient pressure to even begin to cool the airplane. You need about 55% N1 to provide the same amount of cooling power as the APU provides. The engines on the CRJ provide very little bleed air at low power settings. Besides, you keep mentioning "below 110 degrees" as if that's an acceptable temperature. I would never subject my passengers to that sort of heat for any length of time. Anything over 85 or 90 in that little cramped up CRJ tube is unbearable for more than a few minutes.

 

[igneousy2]

They usually don't start the huffer until it's time to start the engines. In other words, sometimes they'll pull the a/c and then you'll sit there for 10-15 minutes while you wait for them to decide that they're ready to crank the engines. Besides, huffer air is usually horribly polluted and will make the pax sick rather quickly.



I don't recall a CRJ checklist in our CFM that allowed for this. Maybe I'm just forgetting. Either way, it won't make a difference as I point out below.



Have you ever flown a CRJ-200? It takes a minimum of 45% N1 on both engines to keep the PACKs running with sufficient pressure to even begin to cool the airplane. You need about 55% N1 to provide the same amount of cooling power as the APU provides. The engines on the CRJ provide very little bleed air at low power settings. Besides, you keep mentioning "below 110 degrees" as if that's an acceptable temperature. I would never subject my passengers to that sort of heat for any length of time. Anything over 85 or 90 in that little cramped up CRJ tube is unbearable for more than a few minutes.

I didn't bring up 110 degrees...someone else did.

Anyway...This horse is dead as far as I'm concerned.

Later