nose cones

[yorky drifter]

just a couple of easy questions!

why do many ba a/c have their nose cone a different colour to the rest of the fuselage? many seem to be white with a black stripe around it.i seem to have noticed more on 75's than anything else but this could just be me.

also

why do u hear "chimes" in the cabin when an a/c is starting up? by chimes i mean the same noise as the cabin crew call buttons.

also (last one dont worry)

why are the left hand doors usually used to board slf? is this purely down to the fact that most boarding gates are configured this way,or is the a more cunning reason?

just curious!

yorks

[sixmilehighclub]

Black circle nose cones on BA are on the B757s. Why? No idea!!

IFE system and cabin electrics cut out on engine start up, the lights may go off then on and its actually the seatbelt signs/ no smoking signs you hear coming back on. Its like if you have your lights on in your car and start the engine, they dim. This can happen when switching from ground to aircraft power.
The same thing may happen when engines are switched off, you can lose cabin lighting and sign illuminations. This is when the aircraft switches from its own power supply (APU) to the supply from the ground (GPU).

Left hand passenger doors are bigger than the right hand ones which are used for servicing the aircraft (catering,cargo,etc). Also jetbridges worldwide are angled to fit to the doors on the left, if they were for both sides it would take longer, be more tricky to manouvre and would cost more to manufacture. If pax boarded from both sides, the cargo, catering, water and fuel vehicles would be dodging around on the ground, and may cause delays or are more likely to collide with pax steps, etc. (well thats my theory!)

[ATCO Two]

I was told the black and white nose cones were painted on aircraft involved in MLS trials. Maybe to assist in assessing track keeping accuracy and telemetry from a ground station?

[Old Smokey]

Why are the passenger doors on the Left side ? - because it's an old nautical convention handed down over the centuries and passed on to aviation.

The Nautical convention was to dock ships with the Port, i.e. the quay, on the Left side, hence this became known as the Port side. The brothels, with their distinctive Red lights, were lined up along along the quay, i.e. the Port side, thus the position lights on the Left / Port side of the ships were Red. Don't know how the green lights came about, sorry.

It seems that the Russians didn't follow that convention, their brothels must have had Green Lights.

Regards,

Old Smokey

[Mode7]

Old Smokey says..... 'It seems that the Russians didn't follow that convention, their brothels must have had Green Lights' - that should have been "Allegedly........":oh: