New Delhi: Boeing's snag-ridden Dreamliner is now giving a taste of its vagaries to the top VVIPs of India. Last Sunday (July 12), former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh flew from Amritsar to Delhi on a schedule flight of Air India on a Boeing-787 along with other passengers that had all its wheels jutting out throughout the flight!
Ironically, the trouble with landing gear retraction happened on AI's newest Dreamliner (VT-ANV) that had joined its fleet only last month. Shortly after take off, the pilot of AI 113 realized that the landing gear had a snag and the wheels were not retracting.
According to senior pilots, such an aircraft cannot be taken to higher altitude of beyond 20,000 feet as the landing gear out means the cabin pressurization and effectiveness of ACs is way below desired level — making the flight very uncomfortable for passengers. Also, "wheels out" means that drag on the plane increases significantly that leads to a spike in fuel burn.
"In normal circumstances, such an aircraft does a 'gear down ferry' — usually — without passengers as the plane has to be filled with fuel to reach its engineering base. If such an issue happens in a hilly terrain like while flying out of Srinagar, then the plane has to immediately return to the origin," said a senior commander.
16/07/15 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
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Ironically, the trouble with landing gear retraction happened on AI's newest Dreamliner (VT-ANV) that had joined its fleet only last month. Shortly after take off, the pilot of AI 113 realized that the landing gear had a snag and the wheels were not retracting.
According to senior pilots, such an aircraft cannot be taken to higher altitude of beyond 20,000 feet as the landing gear out means the cabin pressurization and effectiveness of ACs is way below desired level — making the flight very uncomfortable for passengers. Also, "wheels out" means that drag on the plane increases significantly that leads to a spike in fuel burn.
"In normal circumstances, such an aircraft does a 'gear down ferry' — usually — without passengers as the plane has to be filled with fuel to reach its engineering base. If such an issue happens in a hilly terrain like while flying out of Srinagar, then the plane has to immediately return to the origin," said a senior commander.
16/07/15 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
