Originally Posted by TA
can any aircraft geeks here provide interesting information on this situation that happened last night?
The captain comes on PA shortly after door closes last night, A319 SFO-EWR, and says that we need to wait a few minutes for an engine start unit to arrive, and apologizes for the lack of aircon. My question -- does this mean the APU is inop? And are they relying on the other engine to restart in case anything goes wrong in the air? And what exactly is the ground cart supplying to start the engine? Air? Hydraulic? I saw the cart outside my window, like a large generator truck -- it must be pretty powerful!
thanks!
Yes on all counts. APU is most likely inop. 2nd engine can be started from the 1st engine. The truck provides air (commonly refered to as an "air start".)
Big Diesel "fan" on wheels can be moved to different aircraft and runed on to procide the required compression to start the engine. Used to be very common when the last few years of the DC-10 as to buy/install a new APU for only a few months of use vs use an airstart must not have been a good trade off fog the APU sales people.