Grrr - Bombardier

1) When anti-ice is on and an minimum compressor speed must be maintained.

Yes. Thats an outstanding point that I neglected to mention.

In the Lear 31, for example, you have to maintain at least 60% N1 to keep the nacelles hot. Well, there's no way to have more than a 300-400 fpm rate of descent at 60% power down low, so no choice. If you're in icing, spoilers out, keep the power up, and descend.

Ya' gotta do, what ya' gotta do.
 
I dunno how other folks operate, but I don't know anybody that would put flaps 9 out until 180 knots (minimum speed for flight without flaps 9, the actual flap speed was 250 knots). I mean sure there were times when you'd be dropping the plane out of the sky like a fallen angel (coughSt.Louiscough), but unless you needed to get down RIGHT NOW, flaps 9 at the slowest possible speed seemed standard for most guys.

What's the point of trolling around at 250 knots and flaps 9 if you don't need it?
 
What's the point of trolling around at 250 knots and flaps 9 if you don't need it?

No point really. But (and this may be an indication of how absolutely terrible the airspace management in Charlotte is) it's relatively common to be slowed from 250 down to 170 in one reduction (or 210 to 150) while you are joining the approach. In that case you are descending (to stay on the glidepath) and trying to slow as to not run over the guy in front of you. At idle and on a 1000fpm descent it probably takes a good 3 miles to go from 250 to 220 (when we used to be able to throw out flaps). With flaps out to 20 degrees it would only take another 2 miles or so to get back to the required 170. Know, having to wait to 200 to get the flaps moving, it will probably add 2 or 3 ADDITIONAL miles to the equation.

Who knows, I may be Chicken Littleing this though.
 
That's fair, and I know what you're saying. Charlotte is kind of a weird piece of terminal airspace, and they're certainly not the best controllers in the world.

I'm used to the world of Newark, where you might end up with a 50 mile downwind, but you know your speed changes are coming 10 knots at a time, and altitude changes will come 1,000' at a time. I spent a lot of time going from Newark to fairly small airports where you know you're going to get slam dunked, which is a different situation entriely than the one you or me have described.

Makes sense now that you say that, though.
 
I think you might be getting a bit upset over nothing. I realize change to an established procedure is difficult, but the fact of the matter is that the CRJ is a relatively light airplane. There is other heavy metal flying into Charlotte that covers a lot more landscape while slowing from 250 to 170.

And, at the end of the day, if they can't run their traffic and they end up having to turn you off of the approach... CHA'CHING...VECTORING FOR DOLLARS! :)
 
Not a big change here, we've used 215 for 8/20 ever since I was hired and the manual "recommended" keeping it below 200 kts before putting them out.

I'd like to know what the FF difference in flaps 8 180 and flaps 0 180 is, personally I like having the flaps out, it feels a bit more comfortable with the nose down a bit.

On my last trip in and out of CLT we were slowed to 150 knots 15 miles out.
 
it feels a bit more comfortable with the nose down a bit.

I had a pilot tell me the other day that it "feels a little more comfortable" when he flies Vref + 15 on approach.

It is vexing to me that at this stage of our careers we must revisit slowflight.

When you fly slowly you have to raise the nose to maintain lift... there is less air across the controls so they may seem a little more mushy (or less crisp) than usual. The "discomfort" of that sensation should not be an excuse to fly the airplane a significant margin above Vref in my case... or to drop flaps beyond the manufacturer recommended speed in yours.
 
I had a pilot tell me the other day that it "feels a little more comfortable" when he flies Vref + 15 on approach.

It is vexing to me that at this stage of our careers we must revisit slowflight.

When you fly slowly you have to raise the nose to maintain lift... there is less air across the controls so they may seem a little more mushy (or less crisp) than usual. The "discomfort" of that sensation should not be an excuse to fly the airplane a significant margin above Vref in my case... or to drop flaps beyond the manufacturer recommended speed in yours.

By "comfortable" it had nothing to do with speed/weight issues but with the looking out the window, seat in the pants feeling. I don't like the feeling of looking and sitting at +5 pitch, that is all.
 
So basically, because several operators decided to take off with out first deicing the airframe AND neglected to use wing ice when the conditions required it AND rotated somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 degrees per second (3 is the recommended) we now get new ice procedures.

But it gets better. Because Bombardier used a cheap component in the flexshaft that drives the flaps we now are speed restricted 30 knots below the max operating speed of the flaps. The problem of course is the spoiler panels on the wings are so damn small that they really don't do much more than make some noise and are completely ineffective at slowing the plane down. Dumping the flaps to 8 degrees at 220 was the quickest way to start getting slowed down. But now instead of fixing the problem (with the flex shaft) Bombardier is putting a bandaid on it by creating this Vfo which is the max airspeed during flap movement and limits us to 200 knots.

GRRR.

Did they fix both the flap problem and the spoiler problems (make spoilers bigger) on the 700-900 CRJ's?
 
I had a pilot tell me the other day that it "feels a little more comfortable" when he flies Vref + 15 on approach.

It is vexing to me that at this stage of our careers we must revisit slowflight.

When you fly slowly you have to raise the nose to maintain lift... there is less air across the controls so they may seem a little more mushy (or less crisp) than usual. The "discomfort" of that sensation should not be an excuse to fly the airplane a significant margin above Vref in my case... or to drop flaps beyond the manufacturer recommended speed in yours.


I don't have the speed cards in front of me, but if I remember correctly the min maneuver speed for no flaps at close to max landing wt (we're usually pretty close to max) is pretty damn close to 180. If you are below that speed it is half bank turns only. Operating in the terminal area, you need to be able to make full bank turns all the time. Also, summer is almost over, but when flying through cumulus clouds can cause a decent amt of turbulence, I'd like a little extra margin for that. I rarely have any flaps out going faster than 200, but I guarantee if we are close to max landing wt, I'll have flaps 8 out by 180.
 
I find this thread very indicative of the differences in the airline vs. corporate operating culture. Airline guys tend to think that you NEED to put the flaps out right at 230 due to the way the airline procedures tend to be written. I've been on both sides, I have several thousand hours in the CL65 and I have several thousand hours in the Challenger series (mostly in the 604 but the 600 and 601 also) - the system is the same in the 604 as it is in the RJ yet we don't usually see flap fails in the 604 fleet. Why? Probably because the corporate guys aren't throwing them out at right at max speed. Should the component be able to withstand the repeated stress of operating the flaps at the published max speed? Yes. Without a doubt. No argument from me on that one but come on, 30 knots isn't that big of a deal. Having been based at DTW in the RJ, I've been slammed dunked with the best of them but flaps aren't the only way to manage the energy of the jet.

Or perhaps it's the fact that RJ's are being flown 6-8 legs a day, everyday. I doubt your 604, or 601 was being used near that much.
 
Personally, and this is just a guess, but I'd be willing to bet it's because the CRJ was never designed to be a part 121 aircraft. It's a stretched Challanger, and they didn't really make it into the airplane it was supposed to be until the -700 series.
 
Ethan,

Keep in mind we just need to slow to 200 to extend the flaps to 8 or 20 degrees, but theoretically we could then accelerate to 230.
 
We came up with our own o-ring/plug combo to restrict the freezing fluids from penetrating the actuator. It works better than the part installed by Eaton. We still have flaps fails, but not as many as we used to before the mod. All our actuators are moded with the new o-ring/plug. The reason you don't see this on the Challengers is due to flight cycles. CRJs are getting de-iced and flying more legs daily than a corporate Challenger.
 
Personally, and this is just a guess, but I'd be willing to bet it's because the CRJ was never designed to be a part 121 aircraft. It's a stretched Challanger, and they didn't really make it into the airplane it was supposed to be until the -700 series.

And your guess is....absolutely correct.

The most common description I hear for the 200 is...POS:D
 
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