Is US doing new things to conserve fuel?

[SolidCactus]

Flew on a Dash 8 - 100 today, and my God was it freaking hot on this plane. Now, it is fair to say that we are having a heat wave in the Northeast, and it was 95 degrees today, but I swear - could they really have designed this plane with such a poor air conditioning system that it doesn't cool the plane? If the flight attendant had been selling battery operated pocket fans, I would have paid $20 bucks for one.

Are they skimping on the air conditioning to save on fuel? The temperature on the plane had to be 90 degrees at least. Everyone was fanning themselves with the safety card. The flight attendant said, "this is normal, its always like this". I've flown on the Dash 8 at least 100 times and was never this hot?

 

[Travelpro72]

I have been on a few Dash 8's to NE PA last summer that I swear I lost a few pounds of water weight. I just did a 4day on the 737 and we had to shut down the engines while trying to get into ORD. Remember last week all the tornadoes? Well he kept the APU going to keep cool. I think they want pilots to do the typical taxi on one engine, no APU unless necessary kind of stuff. I was on a crj too that I thought my uniform was going to burn on my skin.

 

[US1YFARE]

I thought my uniform was going to burn on my skin.

Well you do sizzle

View attachment 7608

 

[Sig]

Are they skimping on the air conditioning to save on fuel?

Not exactly, no. In PHL they hookup the rectal-fryers to conserve APU usage, but it is the flight crew's discretion to fire it up for environmentals.

The temperature on the plane had to be 90 degrees at least. Everyone was fanning themselves with the safety card. The flight attendant said, "this is normal, its always like this". I've flown on the Dash 8 at least 100 times and was never this hot?

Well, sort of. Last summer we simply started refusing to fly the very hot ones; in response maintenance started redoing the duct work and found several planes with the same problem. The fiberglass ducts in most of the fleet delaminated due to the condensation cycles (especially the PDT ones, apparently ALG watched this sort of thing and kept them in decent order). The air condeesh works fine, but the cold air wasn't making it to the cabin. This is not a simple fix, btw, and now that we have zero spares for the month of July.... gonna be a hot one in a few of the planes because you can't gut the interior and put it back on a simple RON MX package. It takes a long time that our fleet doesn't have the slack for.

Some of them just plain can't get cool due to other gremlins (jackass newhire running the APU bleed AND the #2 engine bleed tends to blow out the delaminated ducts). We feel your pain, trust me.

 

[SolidCactus]

Thank you for the explanation 🙂 Makes complete sense...

 

[Sig]

You're absolutely welcome! TRUST ME... as a Dash Captain, I don't eff around when it is a hot plane. But some other things make the dash hot, too.

If the plane sits for more than just 20 minutes with the APU and AC off, then it is nearly impossible to bring the cabin temp down and board the plane shortly after firing it up- even with both engines running I can not bring the cabin temp down. Think about it-- every person is several dozen pounds of 98 degree flesh! It makes a huge difference.

If the APU is broken anyway, you will hot soak the plane after engine shutdown. There is no getting around it. Since I fly fast as hell (smoker), I get in early. When I shut down a deferred APU plane and we're not out for another 45 minutes, I'll make sure I can fire up #2 for even 5 minutes to cool it down... unless the gate next to us is boarding or deplaning. Then I can't. Makes sense, but sucks.

It gets so bad I have to figure out where the cold spot is, with regard to the first rows or the last. In climbout or cruise, I will open the opposite pressurization outflow valve to move the cold air where it ain't. Lots of work when an FNG is involved, but totally worth it.

We're trying. We really are.

 

[SolidCactus]

You're absolutely welcome! TRUST ME... as a Dash Captain, I don't eff around when it is a hot plane. But some other things make the dash hot, too.

If the plane sits for more than just 20 minutes with the APU and AC off, then it is nearly impossible to bring the cabin temp down and board the plane shortly after firing it up- even with both engines running I can not bring the cabin temp down. Think about it-- every person is several dozen pounds of 98 degree flesh! It makes a huge difference.

If the APU is broken anyway, you will hot soak the plane after engine shutdown. There is no getting around it. Since I fly fast as hell (smoker), I get in early. When I shut down a deferred APU plane and we're not out for another 45 minutes, I'll make sure I can fire up #2 for even 5 minutes to cool it down... unless the gate next to us is boarding or deplaning. Then I can't. Makes sense, but sucks.

It gets so bad I have to figure out where the cold spot is, with regard to the first rows or the last. In climbout or cruise, I will open the opposite pressurization outflow valve to move the cold air where it ain't. Lots of work when an FNG is involved, but totally worth it.

We're trying. We really are.

awesome. Honestly, I'd fly a Dash anyday over an RJ. It is a great plane.

 

[700UW]

US Airways new fuel savings plan:

 

[PHL Approach]

AHAHA, That artist really nailed the drawing of DP!