Load Alleviation Function is accomplished by deflecting spoilers 4&5, and the ailerons, on both wings.

Capt Saleem Zaheer, Chief Pilot – Flight Operations at Indigo Airlines, sent out a mail to all Indigo flight crew describing his flight experience of the first flight of the A320 equipped sharklet, VT-IFH. Capt Saleem, and his senior first officer, flew the aircraft on the DEL-MAA-CJB-DEL pattern (Delhi – Chennai – Coimbatore-Delhi).

In course of their flight, the flight crew noticed no difference between the handling qualities of the sharklet-equipped A320, and their fleet of non-sharklet equipped A320s. The crew however noted the movement of ailerons and outboard spoilers when flying through turbulence, which is in accordance with a design by Airbus known as the Load Alleviation Function (LAF). The higher bending loads experienced by an A320 wing equipped with Sharklets, especially under conditions of rapidly fluctuating lift (when flying through turbulence), need to be alleviated. To accomplish this, the outboard spoilers (Numbers 4 & 5 on both wings) and the wing ailerons are deflected in accordance with the fall or rise in life.

VT-IFI landed in Delhi yesterday, and is the second Sharklet equipped A320 to join Indigo’s fleet.

Below is a video of VT-IFI’s first flight ever, which was on the 25th of January, 2013, at Hamburg, Germany.