PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Setting Parking Brake On Runway Before Take Off
Old 30th Oct 2010, 20:57
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Loose rivets
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No clear-cut answer . . . unless you're flying an Airbus.

A long taxi. Tail winds. (Even slight) Down hill taxiway and an aircraft that wants to accelerate like hell with the taps closed, all makes for very hot brakes.


Pressures on the pads with parking brake set? Typical in my days, of half system pressure. So, quite a lot of pad pressure.

It's always been good practice to release the brakes as soon as the chocks are in. The reason I seem to remember is chemical bonding of pad material into the discs. I wouldn't be too confident that even modern materials would be totally immune.

These patches give varying grip as the wheel rotates, causing an old fashioned anti-skid type of vibration. They are very difficult to remove, and what's worse, protect the steel from normal wear. This eventually causes slight variations in the thickness of the disc. No need to say why that's not a good idea, but if the aircraft is at a complete standstill, there's no difference at pad level, whichever method is used.

Creeping forward might be okay for freight, but I doubt passengers would appreciate it.

One thing I didn't see mentioned above more than once, was a check just before standing the levers up. I have always relied on muscle-memory in situations like this, and would simply touch the parking brake handle on my way to the levers. Little habits like this are worth their weight in gold.
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