Airbus Drivers: Single-Engine Taxi 'n APUs

The electric pump on the Airbus is loud as all get out. If sitting in back near it I usually put ear plugs in. Passengers very much dislike it, I've heard many talk about how annoying it is. Yes that's the high pitched one not the PTU (?) running after shutdown. Oh which is also annoying.

Keep in mind my perspective is as a commuter typically on a midnight arrival...
 
This hasn't been talked about yet...

Another nuance is that in Le'Airbus if you taxi on two engines a lot of times you have to much power even at idle thrust and have to use the brakes to slow down. The brakes are the Achilles heal of Le'Airbus and then could be waiting for a LONG time down at the end of the runway until they cool, throwing any fuel savings out the window.

On the 737-800/900s you can single engine taxi, but it is a lot harder to get those things rolling if heavy. Another user mentioned weights their company has as a gouge. We have similar weights here in our gouge and they seem to work.
 
wheelsup said:
The electric pump on the Airbus is loud as all get out. If sitting in back near it I usually put ear plugs in. Passengers very much dislike it, I've heard many talk about how annoying it is. Yes that's the high pitched one not the PTU (?) running after shutdown. Oh which is also annoying.

Keep in mind my perspective is as a commuter typically on a midnight arrival...
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Easy to push it ON.
 
Seggy said:
This hasn't been talked about yet...

Another nuance is that in Le'Airbus if you taxi on two engines a lot of times you have to much power even at idle thrust and have to use the brakes to slow down. The brakes are the Achilles heal of Le'Airbus and then could be waiting for a LONG time down at the end of the runway until they cool, throwing any fuel savings out the window.

On the 737-800/900s you can single engine taxi, but it is a lot harder to get those things rolling if heavy. Another user mentioned weights their company has as a gouge. We have similar weights here in our gouge and they seem to work.
Click to expand...
Do y'all not have the break fans? I turn them on pretty much every landing. Rarely get overheat cautions. They work really good.
 
L-16B said:
Do y'all not have the break fans? I turn them on pretty much every landing. Rarely get overheat cautions. They work really good.
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Airways is pretty much the only company (other than maybe JetBlue? I'm not sure) that has them. With the number of delays our fleet takes out here due to hot brakes, I'm amazed more places don't invest in them.
 
Seggy said:
This hasn't been talked about yet...

Another nuance is that in Le'Airbus if you taxi on two engines a lot of times you have to much power even at idle thrust and have to use the brakes to slow down. The brakes are the Achilles heal of Le'Airbus and then could be waiting for a LONG time down at the end of the runway until they cool, throwing any fuel savings out the window.
Click to expand...

Yet we have those that schedule 38 minute turns in Orange County.

I did a charter and there were a lot of screwy turns so we burned both the engines in an empty 319 (literally me, the copilot and the charter coordinator) to bring it to a gate and that thing is like a dragster on two engines (at idle) and light.
 
skyw82 said:
I'm not talking about the ptu i'm talking about the high pitch noise the electric pump makes. I'm very sensitive to sound and when I commute the electric pump is worse than the ptu to me.
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Worse than the mad dog? That thing is crazy loud.
 
BobDDuck said:
Airways is pretty much the only company (other than maybe JetBlue? I'm not sure) that has them. With the number of delays our fleet takes out here due to hot brakes, I'm amazed more places don't invest in them.
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Cheap Ass Air has them in most of the 319 fleet.
 
JeppUpdater said:
Was doing a turn in the Dash 8 one winter afternoon time (sole airline at the airport) when the GPU crapped out immediately after shutting down.

Rapidly yank the QRH, do a battery start on #2.
Monitor battery temperatures as the passengers deplane.
Close the door.
Cross gen #1.
Shutdown #2.
Fuel truck shows up.
Fuel airplane.
Truck leaves.
Cross gen #2.
Shutdown #1.
Board pax and bags.

Then the deicing truck shows up and repeat the whole deice half, cross gen, shut down, deice other half, cross gen, depart.

It's a hard prop life sans APU.
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I've done the same thing on a DC-9. Taxing in to load freight, APU wouldn't come up. Shut down 1, load freight with 2 running. Cross bleed start, shut down 2 to put fuel in. Cross bleed start again to get out of there. The joys of flying transport category airplanes to GA fields in the middle of the night. No more, thankfully.
 
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