A 320 bleed fault, OEB and modifications

[Jimmy Hoffa Rocks]

1) Do any engineers have any information on the bleed problems infecting the older A-320´s.?
If someone could provide information on the modifications available to solve bleed faults ?

How difficult is it to repair bleed faults ?
They appear to be deferred for too long, ?
Are your bleed faults solved quickly, and closed from the deferred list in a short time at your airline on your old A-320´s ?



If you could let us know more about replacing thermostat solenoid, and solenoid controls, and checking sense lines, and troubleshooting bleed problems ?



2) The OEB40 for Bleed Fault and Bleed Abnormal appears not to be sufficient in preventing dual bleed failures ?

What solutions are Airbus working on on the old A-320´s for bleed faults ?

Thanks a lot for your input, cheers

[vilas]

JimmyHoffaRocks
Airbus safety Magazine issue 13| Jan 2012 has an article on this subject. Too big to reproduce fully. Important things below:

TheFlight Warning Computer (FWC) F6 standard, planned for certification beginning2012, will include a new ECAM AIR ENG 1(2) BLEED HI TEMP caution that triggerswhen one engine bleed is OFF and the temperature of the remaining engine bleed

exceeds240°C. The associated ECAM procedure calls for one pack or the wing anti-ice tobe switched OFF (fig. 4).Embodiment of the FWC F6 standard will cancel the OEB 40

The consequences ofDual Bleed Loss occurrences range from in-flight turn backs to cabin depressurizationevents followed by flight diversions.

Technical solutionshave been devised, which are summarized in this article. They include new

maintenance andoperational procedures as well as redesigned components available via retrofit.

These solutions haveproved efficient as the number of events has started to decrease, both for the

A320 Family as forthe A330, in the face of ever increasing fleets. The handling of DBL events,should they occur, will now be made easier.

A single and simpleECAM procedure will cover all cases of Dual Bleed Loss. This will assist crewsin the identification and management of these events in the most appropriate manner(recovering bleed system when possible, avoiding excessive

cabin altitude,continuing the flight to destination or to a most suitable diversion airport).An updated QRH procedure will be published pending the retrofit of the new FWCstandards.

[Jimmy Hoffa Rocks]

Thanks Vilas,

Interested if other operators have had a lot of bleed faults ? And the time to resolve their deferred bleeds ?

The practise of packs off on take off may contribute to bleed problems, no ?

Cheers

[vilas]

Jimmy
I don't fly anymore so won't be any help on that. Packs off TO has become a routine now. Doesn't seem to have caused any problems.

[nnc0]

Re the OEB - After the first bleed failure you really need to reduce pack flow on the remaining bleed or it will overheat faster than you can reach for your QRH and then find the OEB, especially in climb.

Make the LO/ECON Pack flow selection a memory recall action with no delay even before actioning the OEB.

[Fly3]

Although some airlines do packs off take offs to save fuel it's not entirely true to say that there are no problems with that procedure in use. I flew for an airline who did packs off for a year but they found that the extra maintenance required due to pack faults over the year cost more than the fuel savings and so they reverted to packs on take offs again.