737 Blown Across Ramp

Phil wrote in
:

On Dec 28, 12:23*am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Phil wrote
innews:549d11fb-44f9-414a-ac63-af2923f7
:

I know they call it the Windy City, but this is ridiculous...

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?C...161c7642-d205-
411d-
89

15-86c169181d87&

Happens all the time. The fins are huge and some airplanes
weathervane easily.
It happened to one of our airplanes (727) years ago unbeknowst to the
crew
.
The FE did the walkaround and noticed that the Radome had two
nostrils. Further investigations revealed that the airplane had
turned around in hig
h
winds and had ridden up on top of the GPU. The handling agent needed
their

GPU for another airplane, but found a 727 inconvieniently parked on
top of

it, so they lifted the nose of the airplane with a forklift in order
to ge
t
it out. They went right through the radome and into the forward
pressure bulkhead.
I've had two airplanes weathervane on me, though, both undamaged.

Bertie

Interesting. I've never heard of this before. When it weathervanes,
how does that work? Does it pivot around the mains and drag the
nosewheel?

Exactly. Chocks will ordinarily keep the airplane in place. Some outfits
don't chock properly and/or use crap chocks. A friend of mine ran up to
the flight deck of another 737 when he saw it crush the only chock it
had, a nosewheel chock on one wheel and roll towad the terminal. It
damaged it's airstairs, but that's all. They were lucky.

Bertie