Patent ID: 8915777

Claim:
An air conditioning system for an aircraft provided with at least one turbine engine, the system comprising: a hot air tap line that taps hot air off a hot stream from said turbine engine; a cold air tap line that taps cold air off a cold stream from said turbine engine; a main air conditioning device comprised of: i) a precooler in fluid communication with the cold air from the cold tap line and the hot air from the hot tap line, wherein the precooler discharges a heated cold air stream to outside the aircraft and a precooled hot air stream, with the precooled hot air stream being discharged from the precooler at a pressure reduced from that at the hot air tap off of the hot air tap line, and ii) a conditioner, which conditions the temperature and pressure of the precooled, reduced-pressure hot air stream discharged from the precooler and discharges, through an outlet of the main air conditioning device, conditioned air for supplying to at least one cabin of the aircraft; a distributing device that distributes said conditioned air to at least one cabin of said aircraft; an auxiliary air conditioning unit configured for tapping low-pressure ambient air from outside said aircraft at cruising flight and discharging compressed air at an outlet of the auxiliary air conditioning unit, wherein the compressed air is conditioned at a pressure and temperature for air-conditioning the at least one cabin; a switching valve, between the distributing device and the outlets of the main air conditioning device and the auxiliary air conditioning unit, wherein the switching valve is configured to supply the distributing device: with the compressed air from said auxiliary conditioning unit during the cruising flight, and with the conditioned air from said outlet of the main air conditioning device at a condition in which the compressed air from the auxiliary conditioning unit is not supplied to the distributing device; and a hot air open-close valve mounted on said hot air tap line and configured to close flow of the hot air at a condition in which the compressed air from the auxiliary air conditioning unit is supplied to said distributing device from said auxiliary air conditioning unit; and a cold air open-close valve mounted in said cold air tap line and configured to close flow of the cold air at a condition in which the compressed air from the auxiliary air conditioning unit is supplied to said distributing device from said auxiliary air conditioning unit.