Well something has to stop some of this totally nonsense speculation, from 'forgetting to load meals' to the meals being 'in sealed cardboard boxes with dry-ice' to 'cabin temperatures being too warm' to 'galley load shedding'. If you don't like the style of delivery, I hate this pprune style of stating rumours and theory as 'fact' as in the foregoing nonsense.
If you have any sounding off to do on BA pilots, I suggest you start your own thread!
Why don't I start it here.... The following message I was going to post earlier, but decided that brevity was the soul of wit (much to my mistake). My comment about BA pilots was a question, not a statement.
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"My goodness me there are a lot of 'British Airways B747-400 Chilller Experts' on this board who have nothing to do with BA and don't know anything about -400 chillers!"
That's very presumptuous of you, Notso... I can't say I noticed your answer on the forum when this message was posted two weeks ago ???
I'll be sure to remember this next time I'm balancing one of your 60 lb chillers above my head.
"We managed to retrieve the situation......"
So next time one of your aircraft has a complete chiller failure at a line station, we call you, do we?
Or do we do what you probably did...and call your Maintenance Control Centre?
"...by a couple of visits and resets to the very unreachable circuit breaker that handles the system, but it was initially unco-operative. I don't want to give any further information, but it is not an easy repair and may well not work."
After insulting our collective intelligence, I did what your Maint Control probably did... looked at the BA manuals and found one circuit which controlled all chillers. The circuit includes a CB on Panel P180 (not easy to get to
in flight, especially if you've been indulging in those delightful complementary BA sweets/pastries for most of your career...and not legal either... as there are no emergency oxygen masks in that area).
To have
only the chillers affected
is an uncommon problem, so I'm not surprised there was some oversight by the forum participants. A more common problem is where the Door 5 Crew rest smoke detector circuit triggers the shutdown of the Recirc Fans, Chiller Boost Fans and perhaps even the chillers themselves. Normally the Recirc Fan EICAS messages are noticed first, and resetting the Door 5 Crew Rest Smoke Detector circuit reset button usually fixes up the Recirc Fans and the related items even before anyone is aware of a chiller problem. The reset button is part of the circuit with the CB on P180, so I hope this button was tried first before someone tried to squeeze through the MEC hatch?
For info: Just because a passenger hasn't the whole facts, it doesn't mean that one of the slandered/libelled experts in this forum can't walk onto an aircraft and figure out for his/herself what the problem is (armed with additional visual/aural clues). We're not getting paid, sitting at home to come up with advice....so the only real incentive to come up with answers is when someone does what you did... insult us
Q.
P.S. BTW, next time one of your pilots questions our resetting of a CB as being a "repair", can I quote you
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Re your latest message.... Believe what you want to. Cabin heat does cause chiller problems on many 400's. Dry Ice is used when chillers fail. Load Shedding (ELCU ops) does cause chillers to stop working. Ask your own engineers about it. Do you really think you know all about chillers just because you had a one-off fault with a chiller system?
'Nuff said, I think.
Q. (Engineer who is required to work on BA aircraft even though he's not paid any extra to do so...or to put up with this kind of sh#t from any BA pilot)
P.S. BTW,
have you seen a chiller?