NOTE-
• The brakes do not become effective until aircraft speed is below 100knots.
• Thrust Reversals are not getting enough air intake to be effective below 80knots. So they are used for the initial deceleration and then closed once the aircraft slowed down.
STOPPING THE A380
This aircraft weighing in at 1,265,000 pounds when fully loaded. With the braking system, thrust reversers are the least critical components. Only the two inner engines on the A380 are equipped with them. Manufacturers have not installed reversers on the two outer engines to save weight and lower the chances that those engines would be damaged by ingesting foreign objects, as they often overhang the edge of the runway. With these two reversers, it does help to slow the A380 but not by much. But these are useful when there is water or snow on the runway, which makes the runway slippery. Most modern airliners use reversers to redirect the airflow. The airflow bypassing the engine core is blocked from exiting and channeled through an assembly of vanes, called cascade vanes. In the A380, a pilot can deploy the thrust reversers only on the ground, and can select a range of thrust reverser setting from idle to maximum reverse, until the aircraft has slowed to below 70 knots, or 80.5 mph( 1 knot equals 1.15 mph). At that point, the thrust reversers must be set to idle. All airliner engines now have safeguards built in to keep the thrust reversers from accidentally deploying during flight. To stop the A380, enormous composite Honeywell brakes on 16 of the 20 main landing gear wheels do most of the work. As on most new airliners, the A380’ s brakes are anti-skid. They work like the anti-skid brakes in your car, responding to extreme pressure by automatically pulsing to prevent brake lockup and skidding. Almost as important is the aerodynamic braking of 16 giant wing top spoilers deploying upwards to create drag and reduce lift. Reducing lift improves mechanical braking by putting more weight on the wheels.
Written By Supun Nirmal
14 f / Supun Nirmal g /+ SupunNirmal
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