Evan's Cold Fuel Post

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3WE
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Evan's Cold Fuel Post

Postby 3WE » Sun Jan 17, 2016 4:41 pm

I was surprised to read that "cold fuel" was something that would affect airliners.

Cold weather happens every year, and you're always seeing artic operations and crazy- north "circle" routes- so "really cold" is kind of the norm, and planes have heat all over creation on lots of airfoils...I was surprised to read that "freezing" is something that would affect your fuel supply.

I guess your walk-arounds need to be more like those of the 172-P with the 27 different drain sumps and a little cup!

Have you personally ever seen such a thing- that cold air at the flight levels kept you lower?
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Re: Evan's Cold Fuel Post

Postby flyboy2548m » Tue Jan 19, 2016 2:43 pm

Haven't seen it yet, but it's a consideration. Always has been.
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Re: Evan's Cold Fuel Post

Postby Rabbi O'Genius » Tue Jan 19, 2016 4:51 pm

I haven't seen Evan's post, but FWIW....

The low fuel temperature and the design of the fuel heat exchangers for the Rolls Royce Trent engines were the root causes of BA 38 "landing" short at Heathrow in 2008 (and at least a couple of other incidents)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38
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3WE
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Re: Evan's Cold Fuel Post

Postby 3WE » Tue Jan 19, 2016 5:51 pm

...I haven't seen Evan's post, but FWIW....
Someone was crossing the pond in an area of no-radar coverage. After low temp warnings, they had to declare an emergency to get 'ATC' to allow them to descend.

On the one hand, I can see where that's 'more interesting than average' given the radar and radio limitations, then again, it would seem that there are robust procedures in place that allowed it to happen without too much follow-up paperwork :shock: :o .


http://avherald.com/h?article=49277d93&opt=0
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Not_Karl
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Re: Evan's Cold Fuel Post

Postby Not_Karl » Tue Jan 19, 2016 6:01 pm

Haven't seen it yet
I haven't seen Evan's post
I thought everyone here was subscribed to his posts :?

http://forums.jetphotos.net/showthread. ... -cold-fuel

Edit: Oh, Threewee beat me to it.
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Re: Evan's Cold Fuel Post

Postby 3WE » Tue Jan 19, 2016 6:19 pm

...I thought everyone here was subscribed to his posts :? ...Edit: Oh, Threewee beat me to it.
I did fail to mention that it Evan said it was caused by El Nino (again, my bad Spanish and the ability to add those extra thingies like ~) which was caused by increased CO2 levels which was caused by arrogant xenophobic US use of fossil fuels from cars and aircraft both...

...thus, I blame the Americans.
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Not_Karl
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Re: Evan's Cold Fuel Post

Postby Not_Karl » Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:56 pm

El Niño
Fixed.
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Re: Evan's Cold Fuel Post

Postby flyboy2548m » Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:40 pm

On the A320 family we don't actually have a minimum bulk fuel temperature limitation nor even one for the temperature at the FOHE. On airplanes with inner and outer wing tanks (which would be 319s and 320s, but not 321s) we do get a LOW FUEL TEMP ECAM message when fuel hits -43C or colder. However, this is a crew awareness only message, the book says only to "consider descending".
"Lav sinks on 737 Max are too small"

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Re: Evan's Cold Fuel Post

Postby flyboy2548m » Mon Jan 25, 2016 4:46 am

This was on a very cold night. As you can see, fuel temp is not an issue.
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