Fokker 70/100 Aircondition — Tech Ops Forum

Sponsor Message:


My Starred Topics \| Profile \| New Topic \| Forum Index \| Help \| Search

Fokker 70/100 Aircondition

XaraB From Norway, joined Aug 2007, 210 posts, RR: 0
Posted (1 year 6 months 2 weeks 1 day 10 hours ago) and read 1534 times:

Hello everyone!

I have gotten to fly quite a few flights on Fokker 70s and 100s the last few months, and I have picked up a consistent "quirk" with this aircraft (i.e. happens on every flight):

Is the aircondition fan speed somehow directly connected to the engine revolution speed? Especially during approach, when thrust levels vary gratly, aircondition fan speed seems to follow these variations closely rather than being at a constant level. What is the rationale for this system design anyway?

Any technical insight would be greatly appreciated!

XaraB

An open mind is not an empty one

1 replies: All unread, jump to last

tdscanuck From Canada, joined Jan 2006, 12709 posts, RR: 80
Reply 1, posted (1 year 6 months 2 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 1454 times:

Quoting XaraB (Thread starter):
Is the aircondition fan speed somehow directly connected to the engine revolution speed? Especially during approach, when thrust levels vary gratly, aircondition fan speed seems to follow these variations closely rather than being at a constant level. What is the rationale for this system design anyway?

Like most jets, the Fokker 70/100 uses bleed air from the engines to power the air cycle machine. As the engine changes speed, the pressure at the bleed air tap also changes. In most designs, a regulator prevents changes in pressure at the bleed tap from going into the ECS system. However, when you're close to idle as you are in descent, even the highest bleed pressure may not be at the regulator set point so the regulator is wide open. When that happens, changes in engine speed translate directly to changes in bleed pressure and air cycle machine speed.

What you're hearing probably isn't actually a fan, it's changes in the airflow and air cycle machine speed. It's also possible that the recirculation fans are tied into the pack flow to hold a constant re-circulation percentage, in which case the re-circulation fan speed would also modulate with engine bleed pressure when the bleed pressure is low.

Tom.