ok...we really do need an airbus guy to tell us about the hydraulic system on the 'bus
I IMAGINE there is a hydraulic system with each engine (two) plus some sort of alternate system powered by some sort of electrically driven pump.
as we have all been told, the plane can get PITCH control in an emergency from manually moving the stab trim.
that the RUDDER can be used manually (but only with hydraulic power)...please correct me if I am wrong here.
and one CAN use differential engine thrust as well to sort of steer the plane.
BUT three hours of holding? While it is tempting to burn fuel down to landing weight TO AVOID an overweight landing inspection, this is a little much. AS most of you can imagine LAS VEGAS has nice long runways for stopping in this case. I would also like to think that airbus has brake accumulators to aid in stopping if hydraulics are lost. And even accumulators to deploy thrust reversers.?
An overweight landing is not dangerous if done properly (in most cases I think of one must limit descent rate at touchdown to less than 300 fpm....compared with 500-600fpm in a normal landing) I did an overweight landing in a 737 with no problem (I had one engine unable to produce a normal ammount of thrust...but I kept it running till we were on the ground)...and I didn't wait no three hours. IT was the time to do checklists and get vectored back for the apch.
Some questionable things here...MX to be sure has to be checked and a full explanation of why three hours?
I imagine too that the landing would have been no flaps without any hyd?
Last edited by sevenstrokeroll; 20th June 2012 at 13:41.