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They are crashes waiting to happen.

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ORIGINAL: Johng

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ORIGINAL: William Robison

Grant:

For the most part I can't disagree, but

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...the tail on the A300. Well actually the failure was due to the pilots overloading the tail due to repeated rudder inputs.

is so much bull.

If a control surface can be broken or destroyed in normal flight regimes it is faulty.

"Repeated rudder inouts?" Are they supposed to count, and only kick the rudder pedals 15 times in a flight? Maybe 20? The FAA would never allow such a limitation,

I have no idea who put the pressure on who in this investigation to call it pilot error, but was it really pilot error? No. Not when the vertical fin breaks off in the climb out.

Bill.

Sorry Bill, I think you a quite wrong. Apply the same thinking to elevator, on any plane. You say "normal flight regimes" , well get that puppy in cruise flight and pull yoke full back, and assuming you are still conscious, push it full forward as fast as you can. Get out the abbacus , cause you will be counting the parts that fall off. The guy that broke that plane was stomping pedals like there were roaches under them, without good reason. He was going from left stop to right stop at a speed such that the plane was swinging to full yaw one way, just when he was applying full rudder the opposite way, creating higher forces than anyone anticipated. And it wasn't at all necessary. And while it wasn't in cruise flight, it was doing around 200 kts, in much thicker air than typical cruise, so the dynamic pressure (equivalent airspeed) was in the same league.

No plane, no part of any plane is beyond over-stressing, from Cessna to Lockheed, without having a FBW to take control away from the pilot. Your comment "If a control surface can be broken or destroyed in normal flight regimes it is faulty." cannot be lived up to by any manufacturer. That's like the old - make the planes out of the stuff they make the black box out of. You could, but you wouldn't have a very good plane. Same with this issue.

As I said before in this thread, 3 parties share responsibilities for that crash. The pilot for doing the mambo on the pedals, the airline for incomplete upset training, and Airbus for making the rudder much easier to move with a smaller travel than other models of the A300. But mostly the pilot for doing things to the airplane that made other pilots wonder what he was thinking. What wasn't a problem is the strength of the vertical surface. It withstood force equivalent to hanging two max gross semi trucks from the side of it.

But that Airbus that flew into the trees was a poor flight control design. If the airplane can get into a mode where it won't obey the pilot, it needs to have a little robot that taps the pilot on the shoulder and tells him what the plane it doing.

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ORIGINAL: Willdo

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ORIGINAL: vlizard

At the present rate of loss Airbus will catch Boeing in about 7 years best I can figure.


At the present rate of loss of what? - passengers? profits? aircraft sales?

Ok, as if you didn't know I was talking planes. If the numbers I get from the U.S. and European Gov "saftey" sites are to be believed. In Airbus's first 4 years of opereation they lost more passenger aircraft than Boeing, McDonnel Dougless and Lockheed did In 15years just prior. To put this in perspective. The 3 American manufactures mentioned in the times mentioned flew over 100,000 miles to Airbusses 1. In other words for every 1mile traveled by an Airbus the each of the three American Manufacturers traveled 100, 000. The U.S. grounded the entire dc 10 fleet for two crashes for heavens sake. I still wanna know how much the french and brit govs are bribing U.S. officials to let airbus fly their crap over my home. Here is where it gets real good. In the days before there was radar and planes were flew "seat of the pants" Boeing lost less aircraft per year than Airbus does now. No other Major manufacurer even comes or has came close to airbuses losses per aircraft built or miles flown. These are facts. Check the stastics for yourselves. There is a reason that when I fly I will not ride in a 737. They have lost two or 3 to a rudder failure! To put this in perspective. If the Boeing 737 was part of the Airbus fleet it would be their safest plane!!! I repeat I will not fly in any airbus for money. I have flown in ww2 vintage AC that I feel safer in. They are the equals of most of the cold war era Russian aircraft at best! Most are far worse safety wise.

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(in reply to Willdo)

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The second one took off last week...

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I don't know who started the comparison

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ORIGINAL: blwblw

The orders for the Boeing 777 are kicking the crap out of Airbus 340 project. Airbus made repeated mistakes and Boeing went the other direction with the 777. Airbus pretty much alienated potential customers with their schizophrenic design process. The 777 will be all new, without sharing from other projects. The design is all modern since they basically started from scratch. It is way cheaper for carriers to operate. The biggest thing with operators is that engine changes on the 777 can be made in a day or two. Not swapping a bad engine out, but swapping engine types as when the big carriers sell off the aging fleet to smaller carriers who use different brand engines. I may be behind some of the latest news on orders, but last month Boeing had something like 330 orders for the 777 and Airbus had 30. The 340 and 777 compete for the same haul market, so Airbus is the big loser.

This whole thread started from envy, pure and simple. Once again, Boeing kicks butt without government bailouts/subsidies/kickbacks/political arm twisting/white flag waving/UN interventions, etc

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ORIGINAL: William Robison

This is indeed the "Full Scale" forum, and there is no requirement for a tie-in to r/c modeling.

Strykaas has trumpeted the superiority of French aircraft, proven (he thinks) by the new white elephant known as the A-380 from Airbus.

Fact: Airbus is a government owned corporation no matter how they try to disguise it, it will not be allowed to fail no matter how great the cost to the European taxpayers.

Fact: Boeing is a true private corporation that competes successfully in the world market without subsidies.

Bill.

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