need evidence Taxi at Idle

[demolish56]

The A-10 should be able to taxi at idle engine power. Some posts surgest it may have been implemented at some point however I am not sure. Please could this be fixed/implemented.

idle.trk

[BIGNEWY]

Hi, 

 if you have any evidence for the behaviour please PM me. 

 

thank you

[jaylw314]

At precisely 11:19, the pilot mentions "at idle you need to stand on the brakes the whole time"

[BIGNEWY]

we will try to find out more, however we need to see more evidence before we would consider a change. 

The examples being shown are from an airshow configuration, we do not know the weight of the aircraft for example. 

thank you

[jaylw314]

2 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

we will try to find out more, however we need to see more evidence before we would consider a change. 

The examples being shown are from an airshow configuration, we do not know the weight of the aircraft for example. 

thank you

Yeah, there's not much in the way of specifics, but it's at least one public mention I could recall.  Of note, he does go into at least a little detail around 13:30, noting that without brakes, taxiing might get up to 40-50 knots, but that's not terribly specific either.

Still, at least a reasonably good guess that with less than 4000 lbs of fuel and no armament, there should be at least some movement at idle on the ground.

LOL, I'm not actually trying to break the record for the most "at least's" in one post

Edited June 8, 2024 by jaylw314

[ASAP]

On 6/8/2024 at 1:20 PM, jaylw314 said:

Yeah, there's not much in the way of specifics, but it's at least one public mention I could recall.  Of note, he does go into at least a little detail around 13:30, noting that without brakes, taxiing might get up to 40-50 knots, but that's not terribly specific either.

Still, at least a reasonably good guess that with less than 4000 lbs of fuel and no armament, there should be at least some movement at idle on the ground.

LOL, I'm not actually trying to break the record for the most "at least's" in one post

 

I've always consistently heard that the "The only thing this jet does fast is slow down, and taxi". As a piece of real world evidence, they definitely taxi around at idle after a sortie. They need to have their engines in idle for at least 5 minutes prior to engine shutdown and they always idle into the chocks. You can tell by the sound of the engines, and the fact that you see the nose constantly dropping indicating brakes are being applied. On taxi out too for that matter, A lot of pilots clearly just release brakes and the plane starts moving slowly at first and accelerates without any increase in engine noise.

[Lord Vader]

Hi all.

Again, in order to make any changes, we need to have publicly available, non-classified evidence that it is indeed possible to perform a taxi in the conditions you present. We cannot base our changes on "what looks like", unfortunately, and "engine sounds" are not really a good measure, especially from a video. What is the sound difference from idle to, say, 10% throttle just from sound in a video? Also, what's the aircraft weight? Is there a slope on the apron? Etc.

We cannot commit to such changes without factual data indicating so. If this is a procedure, surely it's documented. So, please, if you can get it, PM it to @BIGNEWY.

Thanks for your support. 

[Yurgon]

On 6/10/2024 at 1:06 AM, ASAP said:

As a piece of real world evidence, they definitely taxi around at idle after a sortie. They need to have their engines in idle for at least 5 minutes prior to engine shutdown and they always idle into the chocks.

Actually at least the very old manual states that taxi times may be included in this 5 minute timer if core RPM doesn't exceed 80%. With this limitation, the aircraft will easily taxi in DCS and the taxi time can be included in the 5 minute timer prior to engine shutdown (I'm not sure if there are any virtual pilots who actually wait for this... but we can stick to proper procedures if we want to ). Did anything change in this regard over the last couple of years?

[Snoopy]

On 6/9/2024 at 7:06 PM, ASAP said:

I've always consistently heard that the "The only thing this jet does fast is slow down, and taxi". As a piece of real world evidence, they definitely taxi around at idle after a sortie. They need to have their engines in idle for at least 5 minutes prior to engine shutdown and they always idle into the chocks. You can tell by the sound of the engines, and the fact that you see the nose constantly dropping indicating brakes are being applied. On taxi out too for that matter, A lot of pilots clearly just release brakes and the plane starts moving slowly at first and accelerates without any increase in engine noise.

The A-10 absolutely can not maintain taxi speeds at idle.  She can creep slowly at idle depending on the aircraft weight and the slop of the ground but to say she can taxi at idle is wrong.

12 hours ago, Yurgon said:

Did anything change in this regard over the last couple of years?

Nope

Edited June 22, 2024 by Snoopy

[jaylw314]

3 hours ago, Snoopy said:

The A-10 absolutely can't not maintain taxi speeds at idle.  She can creep slowly at idle depending on the aircraft weight and the slop of the ground but to say she can taxi at idle is wrong.

Nope

Argh?  Too many double negatives?  I THINK I understand what you're saying

[Snoopy]

3 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

Argh?  Too many double negatives?  I THINK I understand what you're saying

Fixed lol

[ASAP]

9 hours ago, Snoopy said:

The A-10 absolutely can not maintain taxi speeds at idle.  She can creep slowly at idle depending on the aircraft weight and the slop of the ground but to say she can taxi at idle is wrong.

 

I realize this can't be used as the evidence that ED is looking for, but literally every A-10 pilot I have ever spoken with has said the opposite of what you are saying here. They have to fight the tendency to ride the brakes to keep it under the 25 knot taxi speed. They pretty much all say that the A-10 will taxi at 40 knots under idle power if you let it.

 

17 hours ago, Lord Vader said:

What is the sound difference from idle to, say, 10% throttle just from sound in a video? Also, what's the aircraft weight? Is there a slope on the apron? Etc.

I get what you are saying and I fully appreciate that you need fact based evidence before committing to a change. Grand scheme of things, this is a really small thing that doesn't really effect anything...

But the sound difference between idle and even slightly pushed up is significant and noticeable, as any maintainer who has done an engine run could tell you. The aircraft I see do it routinely are on a level flat apron and their taxi weight is around 41K.

[demolish56]

9 hours ago, ASAP said:

I realize this can't be used as the evidence that ED is looking for, but literally every A-10 pilot I have ever spoken with has said the opposite of what you are saying here. They have to fight the tendency to ride the brakes to keep it under the 25 knot taxi speed. They pretty much all say that the A-10 will taxi at 40 knots under idle power if you let it.

I have heard similar from a crew chief friend of mine and the above video also agrees. Also supposedly a parking break was a heavily requested feature,  something very few A-10s recieved.

Link to a Quora post discussing it.

[Thamiel]

Section 3.2 Page 43 - Aircraft Configuration and Fuel requirements

 

20160719 AFI_11-246_V1.pdf

[demolish56]

2500lb minimum fuel for air shows is more than I had in the plane during the track above (1600lb).

[Snoopy]

17 plus years A-10 crew chief experience so my post was based on 17 years launching, fixing, recovering, and managing the flight line and hours of conversation with ops.
 

Out of all the hours talking with ops you often get answered that aren’t the same when talking to different pilots.  Like I said a low weight A-10 maybe but normal ops not in my experience. Take it or leave it.  
 

PS…ED coding missing HMCS or TAD symbology would be a much better value than this IMO.

Edited June 22, 2024 by Snoopy