Airbus A319 - a question?
 

Sitting in seat 15A enroute Stuttgart [ 1 Hr late Oct 30th 08:30 GMT ]with BA, Airbus A319 at around FL 300 I noticed the [ PPL A strictly VFR - technically impaired diagnosis] inner Port Flap Track fairing was missing revealing a horizontal tube and below a large piece of steel [presumably] with bolts and various and at the aft tapered end, two female bearing sockety things with nothing attached [ presumably the rear fairing attachment]
Question
How many aerodynamic fairings have to fall off before someone says maybe we should replace these before the passengers start worrying about how well maintained BA aircraft are? And this is
purely based on hearing absolutely non aviation minded passengers sounding worried about a bit of the wing missing and what will happen when we try to land? Etc. A passing Steward said " Oh it's been off for some time" and walked/minced away.....

Aviate1138 Private Pilot Single Engine VFR only but all fairings intact.

I've paxed a couple of times on BA 757s with flaptrack fairings missing. On neither occasion was anything volunteered by the crew, and both times a number of passengers told cc that "something had fallen off".

Since the majority of pax will have neither the maintenance or aerodynamic knowledge to know that a missing fairing is not a problem, I would suggest that a simple announcement by the Captain before engines start would be a good idea. Standard jocular BA "Bigglese" would work quite well for this, methinks....

To the best of my recollection, we were only allowed to have one missing and it incurred a 5% fuel-burn penalty. (A320/ 321, admittedly, but it's probably the same)

:8

Seloco

I have flown those 757s with the missing fairings and it is a difficult decision over whether to tell the punters or not.

Usually it comes down to the fact that only a few people can actually see it from their seats. In a classic case of "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" telling all the passengers tends to scare them and the fear of flying passenger wants to get off.

Best bet is to explain all the details to the crew, so they can sound knowledgable and convincing when asked by a passenger.


Worked for me :ok:

T'bug

I have another A319 question.

I was recently a passenger on an A319 and I noticed during the cruise that the plane was gently oscilating in the roll axis. One complete oscilation took about 3 seconds and the amplitude was a few degrees - hardly noticable unless you watched the wing against the horizon. I then checked the ailerons and you could see them working.

Is this a common thing to happen or was it caused by odd winds ?

Cheers