gettinbumped

I've done this as well. It seems to work well. Puts the A/C situation on the front burner. Pardon the pun

SpecialTracking

It does work well, but should we let the situation escalate to that point? I remember an Airbus at FLL years ago that had a nasty ground incident with heat as a contributing factor.

I'll give sleeves the nod to find someone on the ramp to shut it down.

Deafguppy

Honest question, can you run the packs and external air simultaneously in the A320? I fly the 737.

worstpilotever

AOM says packs with low pressure air at the same time is prohibited.

azdryheat

I don't leave the cockpit. I call on the radio and advise them we are deplaning. I think in every case, a person with a radio showed up and was coordinating the air while asking me what needed to happen to keep everyone on the aircraft.

This is our job.

APC225

I hate being too particular but even if you are qualified on the equipment, if you aren't assigned to operate that flight, you have no business. Maybe the logbook says don't start APU, or maybe the fire detect is inop, or maybe there's a discrepancy between logbook and the flight plan, maybe the captain is discussing it now with maintenance, maybe there are tech folks on ladders working on it. It sux in that we're only trying to be helpful, but the FAA isn't very concerned with customers being too hot or too cold.

azdryheat

That's what I meant to write. Thanks for fixing that. If you are not the crewmember on the flight and something happens because of it, there will be trouble. I know people mean well, but you have to go by the book on this.

APC225

Agree. Some have reported instances of "helpful" nonrev or DH pilots "setting up the cockpit, doing the walkaround for ya" I order to keep things moving. Not a good idea. If that happens to me it takes longer now because I first undo everything they did, and proceed much more methodically looking for errors they may have introduced.

XHooker

An anecdote from the "learn from the mistakes of others" (in this case me) category. Years ago, I was a wide body FE assigned to deadhead across the country to pick up a major sports team after winning a championship. A high profile charter to say the least. I get there before the working pilots, but the flight attendants were onboard and wanted heat, water and coffee, and asked if I would fire up the APU for them. No problem. I crank the APU, put air on and the next thing you know, water is being sprayed in the back of the cabin. Turns out maintenance was working on the water ducting, needed to keep bleed air off the plane, and hadn't tagged any cockpit switches. I suppose my first clue should have been the logbook was missing, but that wasn't all that unusual. Maintenance eventually finished their work and since there were no pax, we flew the plane with the heat on high in the aft cabin and it dried out before we got to the opposite coast, so no big deal, but I'm definitely more cautious about "just helping out" if I'm not assigned to the flight.