4 hours on an Airbus with hydraulic issues

This sounds like the time I flew into Atlanta from Milwaukee. It was the most miserable flight of my life. We flew into a thunderstorm somewhere not far from Atlanta that threw the plane around like a rag doll. The storm was too severe to land, but we flew right into it and then had to get back out. We had to circle for about 45 minutes just being beaten up non-stop. That was the first time I have ever been truly nervous on a plane. I thought I use to get thrown around pretty good in the Cessna I flew, but that was nothing compared to how this thing was getting beaten up. It really felt like the pilots didn’t have control and could only react to the different attitudes the plane was being blown into.

There were a few times where the plane nosed down very hard and you could see stuff floating in the cabin. We hit the first pocket of wind shear that must have completely unexpected, one of the stewardesses got bounced around pretty good while she was up picking up garbage and then a very not calm, abrupt call from the cockpit came over the radio, "crew, sit down and strap in!" I'll never forget one particular wind that hit the plane; it felt like we were t-boned by a truck. It was a lateral force that I had never felt in a plane before. The poor women seated behind me was crying and screaming the whole time. There were plenty of other people screaming when we were hit by wind or wind shear, but she was the loudest and didn’t stop until we landed; I felt terrible for her.


Mark

 

Yikes. Not so good. Redundant systems...

 

Nope. Remember this one?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_Airways_Flight_292#section_1

 

The A320 cannot dump fuel. But it can land at max takeoff weight. There are procedures to follow to in order to not damage the airplane on landing, but it can land at takeoff weight.

With two hyd systems gone, depending on the systems your landing distance is greatly extended, so they may have had to burn the gas so they could stop on the runway despite Vegas having long runways. That said losing two hyd systems is a major emergency in the Airbus. There is only one system remaining which can handle everything just fine, you just would not want to lose that system. If that were to happen you would only be able to control the airplane with the rudder, trimable horizontal stab (trim wheel) and thrust levers. That is not a situation you want in the simulator, and certainly not in real life. Behind smoke and fire, there is not another problem where I would want to the plane on the ground faster.

 

The Boeing 777 has all of the above plus outboard spoilers for directional control. I can not believe that the inability to dump fuel is something good. If there were some other emergencies that necessitated an immediate landing, that extra weight with a combustable load coupled with higher approach speed, longer landing distance, and the possibility of a pilot error raises the pucker factor for me. Certainly you can raise the structural capability and landing gear to cope with the speed and loads but there is no way that you can predetermine the runway length. Okay if you can fly around and burn it, I guess.

 

That's just INSANE !!!

Jedi