Airlines ~ and not least their pilots ~ are in my experience always bleating about something and principally how little money they're given. The cabin crew joke was the difference between pilots and jet engines being that the latter stopped whining at the end of the day.
The current groan relates to whether they should be allowed to use imported fuel from the US in Europe, the European Commission saying 'yes' and EASA, which like all aviation authorities is principally an arse-covering exercise, saying 'no'.
The debate is over the freezing point and this is the point at which you don't trust everything that AI comes up with, it effectively crawling the 'net for whatever's out there and regurgitating the most plausible; including everything that armchair pilots have to say about it.
BA have only really had two crashes anyone can ever recall, one to a Trident in the 1970s following on from a spat between an ex-military captain and entitled drongos of the sort worked for the airline as First Officers and probably still do.
The other was a 777 that crash-landed just clear of a threshold I knew and loved at Heathrow, and whose captain's career was cancelled for many years by the drongos that equally work as airline owners and managers.
And the problem relates to what happens to kerosene after many hours in the cruise and during which it forms what you and I would consider more slush-puppy than jet fuel. Water sinks in fuel, as the latter has a density of around 0.80 SG, and in light aircraft at the start of every day you go around with what looks like a urine sampler to drain the tanks and see how much has accumulated.
I don't recall having to do this on either Airbus or Boeing airliners, which must have a cleverer system altogether: but clearly not quite clever enough. The temperature that sticks in my own mind is around -65C as I used to dwell on how cold it would feel if the aircraft broke up, as very occasionally they have done in thunderstorms.
In fact one of the guys who started "Aunty Betty's" frozen produce was a co-pilot of mine at the time, and we enjoyed conversations in the cruise less about what we'd do by way of an approach into Leeds-Bradford and moreso how Yorkshire puddings were frozen. He told me the tricky part was the flash-freezing, when they went from not long having been baked to something more like a frozen mitten. We decided the best way of doing so might be to throw them out the side-window in the cruise.
For what happened in the case of the 777 flight is that ice crystals accumulated in the fuel during the flight and warmed as things do during the descent so as to block the fuel filters and thereby starve the engines, both of which practically quit during the approach. I recall, and could be wrong, the captain retracted the flaps to reduce drag and stretch the glide; but was criticised by the male Karens that emerged from within head office as invariably they do when the shit's flying faster than a 777.
In fact we'd do that in the simulator in similar sized aircraft following such incidents and I recall, if anything, that it did actually work.
The great thing about AI though is that it teaches you things you'd never learned in half a lifetime as a pilot, like how the tanks are insulated like your hot-water tank at home by spray-on foam, and how you're going so fast and the wings are so hot you needn't bother your pretty little head. This is possibly because for all I know, this is likely to be (and probably undoubtedly is) kerosone-lubricated AI slop.
The only airliner I recall that this became any sort of factor with was Concorde, that flew at a coincidental 65,000 feet where illogically perhaps, the air atmosphere does actually start to get a little warmer. But at twice the speed of sound things really do heat up, not the least of which is the alloy the airliner is made with, which starts to bend. Beyond these speeds it is strictly steel ~ as per the Soviet Foxbat as I recall ~ or else the more expensive Titanium the US was able to afford in its Blackbird.
What does keep aviation fuel snugly warm-ish is the fact it is used as a coolant in and around the engine's auxiliary gear-box, where things work both ways: you keep me cool, and I'll keep you warm to our mutual benefit.
Back then to a debate over whether Jet A might be used instead of Jet A1, one from the US and the other the Gulf? Well in the manuals and although I never had to use it, my longest flights being the six hours betwixt Shanghai and Phuket, a suggestion is that crews keep an eye on the outside temperature and consider descent to cruise at a lower and warmer level if they see fit. Problem is in a world stretched already, that might involve a higher fuel-flow, and the rate at which Euros are being burned.
Ed. Don't let this put you off that trip to the Costa Brava. Do think of the crushed-ice margaritas at the other end.
