You can whistle...
 

Sorry if this has been on before, but why does my airbus (320/1) whistle when we pass through a layer of cloud?

I wish someone could answer this one, I've been on the 'bus for about 3 years now and it does whistle when in cloud. Is it the ice probe on the front of the windscreen I wonder. There must be an Airbus expert out there somewhere who could sort this out, no one at work seems to know.

Must be the automatic digital water-vapour detector. When it senses a source of moisture, a warningtone goes off (sounding like a whistle).. . :)

Hmmm, this sounds like some kind of a vortice or something that only happens when hit by water vapour. Can ye tell where the sound comes from? Or it it al around? oh, and how loud is it?

The sound is not very loud: you barely notice it if you are chit-chatting or concentrating REALLY hard on the crossword.

It's kind of an ethereal whistle, not locatable particularly, but very definite when entering and leaving a cloud layer, i.e. it doesn't gradually gain volume, it is there (in cloud) or not (back into the blue). C'mon guys, someone must know!

At a guess, I would say that, as fair proportion of cloud at altitude is made up from ice crystals, the sound is from the ice crystals rushing past the cockpit.

Like sands through the hourglass....

It's probably just a little nervous at not being able to see the sky, especially if it's just been bullied by a Boeing, so it's whistling to keep its spirits up, People don't worry nearly enough about the feelings of their a/c...

R

Did you recognise the tune? That might help... Probably a French march it was taught in the factory!

Maybe it has ambitions to be a train when it grows up? <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

... Maybe it whistles because it doesn't know the words? <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

When the French developed the bus, they immediately realized they need plenty of computers and even more software development for those computers. So they went to who else but good old Bill Gates. Well you know Bill when he develops an operating system he always puts in a back door and some form of gimmick. So he figured that he will program the computer to whistle "Yanky doodle comes to town" whenever the thing goes through a cloud.. .In fact if you press simultaneously PROG, OVERFLY and 6 on the MCDU you get the lyricks of "Yanky doodle" on the MCDU so you can sing along to the music.

Dont know if its any help but the old DC-9 blokes used to tell me they could hear a whistle in the 9s cockpit when ice was forming on some particular antenna. Served as a good reminder to bung on the anti-ice.

[ 31 January 2002: Message edited by: Slasher ]</p>

Oh No I can see the next simulator Tech Log appearing as:

1) No whistling when passing through cloud

Engineers reply

Whistling permitted in all weather conditions

when you cross the mason-dixon line, does it whistle dixie?