Chimes In Cabin
 

Hi,
In the very rare situation when more than one chime is played in the cabin (e.g. when a passenger calls and say when a member of the cabin crew makes an interphone call) do the two chimes get played simultaneously or does one get queued to be played after the other one has finished? Or does only one ever get played and the other is "lost"?

Can't speak for every aircraft type, as generally there are differences between them all, but on the type I work on (Embraer 190 series), chimes are played in sequence, with emergency chimes taking priority over all others. The system appears to work so that no two chimes occur together.

Not being an engineer however, as usual I stand to be corrected. :8

I thnk on the Airbus chimes sound in the order they were initiated. I am not sure whether emergency chimes, such as the one from cockpit to cabin would override, but I imagine it would only make a couple of second's difference.

Chimes
 

Otto Throttle...you are correct. Emergency communication/chimes are set up by priority. Flight Deck will always take priority over the cabin, and Purser/SCCM/CA1 what ever you want to call it...will always over ride the back end.
I have yet to come across and aircraft that is different.
Cheers

I have a question along similar lines, I fly with Monarch quite a lot and 10-20 seconds after rotation a chime sounds. Without knowing it, I am wondering maybe its a signal to the cabin crew that all is OK up front and if they need to leave their seat before they are released (i.e locker popping open) then they can?

If its an airbus you are flying with monarch, then its a feature that is standard to the airbus family that a single chime is played when the gear is retracted. The lighted EXIT placards will also extinguish.

Thanks for the reply friarkeasley, do you know what that chime is for?, its just a gear retraction signal?

It at most airlines would signal to the cabin crew the end of the no contact sterile flight deck procedures that occur at gear up - it then goes to necessary contact only until the airlines specific cut off for that.

Thank you for you replies, very informative.

Couple of questions, if I may:

1) does the 'gear retracted' chime on an Airbus also signal to the cabin crew that they are released, or does this come later? On the airlines using Airbus that I have flown, you normally hear the chime followed by the seat-belt signs switched off later. Is there an intermediate signal for the cabin crew?

2) does the sterile flight deck rule not apply right up to FL10? Surely it does not end when the gear is retracted soon after leaving the runway??

It doesn't signal to crew that they are released, just that the gear is up, I can't think of an airline that would release their crew at gear up - it's only a couple hundred feet off the ground.

Sterile flight deck comes in 2 parts - a no contact phase which at most airlines ceases at gear up and then a urgent/non-standard contact phase that ends at a later specified time - this time maybe when seatbelt signs are switched off, when crew are chimed, when a certain PA is made by flight crew etc - most airlines appear to be slightly different here.

i know at Qantas Cabin Crew aren't allowed to leave their seats until the seatbelt sign is extinguished, does the same go for all airlines?

At Monarch we generally call 'Cabin Crew released' over the PA once we have retracted the flaps/slats and are happy we aren't about to hit some turbulence. (Or as the captain said the other day 'Cabin crew GET TO WORK' :}). This would happen somewhere around 3000 feet + a bit above the ground.

We keep the seatbelts on until 18,000 (again if conditions permit to release the pax).

On a similar note, when on final approach, as the gear come down, there's a "ping.....ping..........................ping." I've noticed however when it's a somewhat less windy landing, I've only heard a "ping....ping". Is the amount of pings related directly to the expected hairiness of the landing, or is it just an automatic pinging brought about by the gear coming down? In which case why only two pings?

Heck, nothing gets past this SLF! ;)