Originally Posted by
Skyjob
This problem is clearly pilot induced behaviour of the temperature control switches for the air conditioning.
If they select a very low temperature in a warm/humid area, the water condensates and is shown as per video.
However, the cabin was perfectly acclimatised until landing and will remain to be so if they would leave the switches alone.
For some obscure reason, pilots are inaccurately taught (clearly shown in the example) to turn temperatures fully down after landing and opening door to keep cabin cool.
From memory I recall some older aircraft types requiring this action by pilots to cool the cabin sufficiently.
This is learned behaviour, relevant to a previous type of aircraft flown, having found its way into line operations on a different type, it must be unlearned.
For example, on smaller 737's there was a single temperature sensor in the cabin, but in the larger 737 there are two temperature sensors for cabin temperature, one forward and aft, the manual says so and all pilots can quote that.
Guess how many people know their location? Many can recall that the forward temperature sensor is affected by the forward door opening, but that is how far the knowledge tends to go.
If they knew their approximate location and combined with this information that the flightdeck air is taken directly from the left pack, then when cabin crew calls for heating up the front it becomes a matter of common sense, as the flightdeck is an integral part of heating the forward zone and keeping its temperature low as we have those awesome large windows with sun shining on them makes it favourable... to us, but not to the nearly 200 behind our flight deck door.
KNOW YOUR AIRCRAFT, and in some airlines, this includes knowing it better than the standard what is taught by a young aviation expert who came out of flying school months before you but started the job a year prior. These young SFI's need better knowledge gathering over time, and not be limited by some information learned by memory in a manual limited in quality by need to know information.
Thanks for the lecture Prof....
I get cabin fog all the time in my "perfectly acclimatised" A320 without touching the temp control. What does happen is that, while descending, we go from cold dry air to very hot, very humid air going into the pack.