Originally Posted by
Qotsaautopilot
Company wants the brakes hot. They’ve communicated such. Says they wear better and reduces wear and tear on the engines and reduces fuel burn.
Never understood the screens off thing. Refused to turn them down when everyone did.
I’ll admit it’s much quieter and more comfortable in cruise without the vents blowing on me. I sometimes forget to reopen when I park the plane, sorry. I will not turn the APU bleed off until external air is hooked up and will stay until that happens, and that probably does more to keep it cool anyway.
Show me where the company “wants brakes hot”
We received one email from Ryan saying that not using full reverse, instead using brakes more often will help warm the brakes up, causing less tear on the brakes. He said more information would be provided as to where the company wants to go for technique. Nowhere does this mean brakes should be “ECAM Worthy” at the gate. In fact, our AOM still states that brake applications should be limited to reduce brake wear, as well as using full reverse with auto brakes, to reduce time brakes are used, reducing brake wear and temperatures. That’s our current braking techniques, right from AOM2
And of course; if the company wanted brakes to warm and then easily cooled, we would have brake fans like every Airbus operator. They didn’t want to spend the money. They didn’t want to invest in their brakes.
Even with that, I’m not going to leave brakes hot for any crew. If the “ding” goes off at the gate when I finish the parking checklist, I did not manage brakes well.
The company also wants to not use the APU to cool the plane and use the gate air; 2 years in and how many gate air units actually produce comfortable air? Seems we have two camps; those who let planes get hot, brakes get hot, and pilots happy to dispatch with 5500 landing fuel because “this is what the company wants”. Others seem to take Captains authority differently and keep the brakes cool for the next crew, use the APU any time the cabin gets over 78, and has common practice to add fuel while the company wants to live in a fairy land where 5500 landing fuel won’t result to something into the 4000s.