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Old 3rd Jan 2005, 10:39
  #26 (permalink)  
avoman
 
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Edinburgh, UK
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Ground spoilers will retract without hydraulic pressure. However spoilers deployed will catch the wind even more and cause more drag, you don't want that. A large aircraft like the A330 parked nose into wind, braked, chocked, trimmed nose down will ride out a 73 knot wind. Flap around a bit but stay put.
If the aircraft is sideways on to the wind, you have real problems.
The wind will get under one wing, tilt the aircraft over, which gets the wind under the wing even more etc. This is probably what happened to the ATR 42, I have seen this.
Meanwhile the big jets all have huge fins. Imagine the wind blowing on one side of this, literally tons of force and all acting twenty or thirty feet above the deck. Eventually something has to give and the nose wheels shift sideways. Brakes, chocks, nothing will stop the aircraft weathercocking into wind. Very scary, tons of valuable metal spinning round until it hits something.
Primary prevention is parking the aircraft into wind and moving everything well clear. Easier said than done at the airports I have worked at however. Small stands, equipment everywhere, obstructive airport management...
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