Well, any time I have been a passenger boarding or disembarking an airline flight without a jetway, there have been a fair number of employees around to keep passengers moving in the right direction, and not wandering off, and frequently there's those temporary standards holding up tape as sort of a fence/guide. There are necessarily more people involved than boarding/disembarking with a jetway, when passengers really can't go anywhere but into the terminal or into the plane. An outstation which normally boards flights via a jetway, may simply not have enough employees on hand to get the passengers off and on the plane in accordance with whatever guidelines apply to that procedure. Also, if the outstation normally uses a jetway, theres' a good probability they do not have a passenger bus.

On the contrary, it makes perfect sense.

A towbar incorporates a shear pin designed to ensure that should anything go wrong it will, at worst, be the towbar that gets damaged and not the aircraft's landing gear.

Different variants of the same aircraft type may well require towbars with the same dimensions and physical characteristics, but differently rated shear pins to take account of different TOW ranges.

To be candid, I also was scratching my head about how a A340-500 towbar woudn't work on an A340-600. What you say makes sense.

And if the towbar pin doesn't shear, there is something in the nosegear that will, at least I've had it happen on a Boeing that was forced past the nosewheel steering limit. Not sure what maintenance has to do to fix it but for us it was an aircraft swap on an outbound pushback.

If the towbar comes off the plane you need to get back on the brakes lest you roll into the tug or something else. We had the towbar come loose in Cairo on a slope, by the time we realized what had happened and put on the binders we were inches from a piece of ground equipment. Many planes now have cameras to see the nosewheel area during pushback but on the legacy aircraft you need to really be careful when coordinating the brakes and taxi during the pushback procedure. I've found some of my ground colleagues in the U.S. to be very casual about standard voice calls over the interphone during the push and disconnect. Gotta sound cool I guess...

For the non-towbar aircraft positioning discussion, does anybody know where this widely published Caravelle picture was taken? India or Thailand perhaps?

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5856abef88.png

Actually, the E175's door sill is slightly higher than that of a MD-80. And as A^2 properly notes, slides always seem to be hazardous -- especially given the collection of geezers and their shoes that pax on the typical flight.
See: http://www.zodiac-equipment.cz/web/admin/fckeditor/userfiles/image/jm/STAIRS-DOOR-SILL-HEIGHTS.pdf

Isn't it the same towbar for A340-500/600 but different towbar for A340-200/300 ?

It is the first Thai Airways Caravel in a publicity photo so Thailand would be the answer.

Perhaps they should have taken the train. The Chattanooga choo choo?






I'll get my coat.

"Pardon me boy?"

It is. I park at that airport regularily, and the stand is about 45 deg towards the terminal, and then you leave in a tight 180 to the right. No reverse necessary.

"The main problem is to control some super soft force application at the right spots (senior engineer advice needed) and to have wingwalkers plus somebody in the cockpit listening and ready to brake and stear as things can get very expensive in a second. Plus some aircraft wheel chocks and somebody ready to position them. Once it gets moving it is hard to stop."

Howzabout using the appliance of science and avoiding the use of sensitive body parts? Try getting the group of strong men to push the tops of the tyres thereby getting the maximum mechanical advantage and avoiding the need to consult engineers regarding delicate bits of 'frame which should not be pushed?

The tyres have to cope with far worse than a few hoary hands pushing the top surface and it is surprisingly easy to get the beast rolling.

For the unbelievers, try pushing your car by the bodywork only, on a piece of level ground, preferably handbrake off and out of gear and note effort versus progress. Then repeat using the top of any tyre and compare.

Obviously before you try this with your car, you must perform a full risk assessment and check ElfinSafety requirements and post lookouts etc, but the principle works just as well with any wheeled vehicle.

For those of us who have worked for small charter outfits with minimal engineering & ground handling support it was frequently necessary to improvise, safely, to get the crew, the craft and the passengers to destination. Note the priorities in the listing!!

Of course now with regulations and regulators who've never sniffed Avgas nor kerosene one has to be VERY careful in getting the task safely accomplished in the absence of a piece of paper/laptop which says you may or may not exercise initiative and common sense.

Aaaah, common sense and airmanship!! Don't hear much about them these days? And don't get me started on RAW flying....................

While I don't doubt that the mechanical advantage may be better from pushing the tires, do do so with your hands requires your feet to be very close to the tire. And sometimes a pushed vehicle reverses its roll due to wind or built-up torsion in the axles, etc. I'll keep my body well away from the underside of a tire thank you.

If figured that by now we'd all agree that what-about-this or what-about-that ad hoc solution that opens up more non-immedely-apparent problems that are worse than the original one to be solved, are not the way to go. I was wrong.

You probably should have seen that coming from a long way off. No offense intended, of course.

Oh dear, further proof (if needed) that common sense, airmanship and ingenuity are not as common as they used to be.

Common sense, airmanship and ingenuity (resourcefulness) is trumped by the ominous threat of litigation. Every time.

By the way, "common sense" (intuition) is over-rated, as all too often an intuitive response proves to be wrong. i.e. In a skid on an icy roundabout? Hit the brakes! Or perhaps you are in an aerodynamic stall-spin? Pull up! Common sense, right? Not right.

Or by the good old Law of Unintended Consequences.

For the record, the C-17 has cascade reversers. It can self back up a 2% slope at MTOGW into a 20 knot tail wind. DC-10 and MD-11 have cascade reversers on the wing engines. Both can self-reverse at high weight, but it is not a recommended procedure. Exhaust re-ingestion is possible which can cause severe engine surging and FOD ingestion is also a significant concern. The C-17 cascades are specifically designed to prevent re-ingestion and FOD ingestion so it is not only authorized, but a routine procedure for C-17.

Besides the almost certainty of injuries using the slides to disembark, there are the following issues:
1. Carry-on luggage which cannot go down the slides. How many passengers would be willing to leave their carry-ons behind in a non emergency?
2. The aircraft is grounded until they obtain and install new slides. If they don't have a towbar for this aircraft at this location, the chances that they'd have spare slides for this aircraft are essentially nil.

Modern times for you. And it is getting worse by the minute.
Pilots unable to fly without autopilot.
Planes impossible to move without towbar.

What ever happened to knowing your job?
Ever heard of pulley's?
Give me one ( yes as in 1) brick, some pulleys and rope, and I"ll move whatever you want me to move.