For medium/long-haul pressurized airliners that are used on short routes.
How is a cycle calculated?
Wouldn't the short flights impact the maintenance schedule due to the frequency of pressurization cycles?
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Sign up to join this communityFor medium/long-haul pressurized airliners that are used on short routes.
How is a cycle calculated?
Wouldn't the short flights impact the maintenance schedule due to the frequency of pressurization cycles?
Much of the wear on an engine happens during startup, so while yes it does have a significant impact on maintenance costs, it's rather unavoidable unless the operator chooses to avoid shutdown between flights (as some do, e.g. skydiving and ag spraying)
A cycle is mainly based on the pressurization and depressurization of the cabin, during these stages the diameter of the fuselage increases and decreases (pressurization, increase in diameter, depressurization, decrease in diameter). The causes fatigue stresses in the material. For the fatigue it is less of an issue what the duration is of the cycle.
For the engines, before takeoff the engines need to reach operation temperature (about 3 minutes after start or faster for newer engines )For the engines the same hold as for the fuselage but here the temperature is responsible for expanding and shrinking of parts.