CRJ air cond w/huffer cart?

[Palomino]

as I sweated in an APU-inop CRJ this morning it got me thinking...

...can you run an air conditioning pack with the airstart
(huffer) cart as the pneumatic source? We can do that on the 737 and I seem to remember the ERJ also capable of that setup.

Thoughts/input?

Thanks

 

[wmuflyguy]

yes you can

 

[Oakum_Boy]

You can, but it depends on the airline. At my company we can't because this one time, when a huffer went to 'low' the packs burned up I guess due to less than adequate bearing lubrication or something.

 

[MusicMan]

It will run the packs, but more often than not, the cabin will fill with fumes.

 

[Soverytired]

It will run the packs, but more often than not, the cabin will fill with fumes.

Yep. And when you finally apply take-off power, the ducts purge into the cabin and it smells like something is burning, big time.

(so I've heard)

 

[sweptback]

I've done it several times before ASA said not to do it any more. You just need to make sure the huffer is on high and not idle. If it's idling then you'll get the fumes.

 

[Kream926]

why not just get an air cart? or is this just a hypothetical question?

 

[kf4amu]

Theres a sign in the CLT ops crew room that says not to do that. So apparently its possible but not allowed at some airlines.

 

[yournextFO]

Depends on the huffer. Some do it quite well, others overheat after a couple of minutes. Generally speaking, at one regional carrier based in southeast, the huffers are not maintained nearly well enough to run the packs reliably.

As for why...well, often an air-cart is unavailable or does not work very well.

 

[Hovernut]

Never had a problem, except for clueless rampers who don't know how to run the thing!