ratpoison
Question 1: Did Rat say in any part that "cold soak is ONLY an Airbus problem".
A/C cold soaks during 14 hour flight, lands, and expected to turn around in 1hr 20min in temps below 10deg. This is a world renown problem with the Airbus.
OK you’re splitting hairs here. Maybe I should have said Cold soak leading to ice build up on the ground isn’t only an Airbus problem with short turn around times. It’s a problem inherent in every long rang aircraft ever built. The airline I work for has a large fleet of A330/340, B777 and B747. All seem to suffer from cold soak causing icing while parked to the same extent. Most of our turn around times are in the order of about an hour and a half. Almost without except after the aircraft is refuelled, the ice and frost melts. I have never experienced a delay because of it and I have been flying them for 5 years.
Please advise me how many times the 777 has sat on the ground in the morning when "it used to do the AKL".
I have no idea. All I can say is that maybe EK are tankering around fuel in the bus but weren’t in the Tripler? If carried to the extreme this can cause a problem in any aircraft.
Question 2: Was the renown problem stated, a problem with "cold soak" or was it (hint hint) about exceptional amount of ice that builds up on most of the upper surface of the A330/340.
The ice is only going to be there because of cold soak and humidity in the air. The amount of ice that builds up on the upper surface of the wing is a function of both these and the amount of cold soaked fuel still in the tanks. Again I haven’t seen or heard of anything in our company that suggests one is worse than the other and we operate our aircraft to some pretty harsh environments.