I like to travel a lot, and use various different airlines with different routes and fare plans. For this reason, I’m always interested to note what’s going on with regard to airliner development so that I have some idea of what I’m likely to be flying in.
A few years ago, I watched a documentary in which the fly-by-wire concept was explored. Many people had had reservations about this since that airshow disaster with the A320 many years ago. But it seems the pros outweigh the cons, with airlines and even the pilots themselves favouring the fly-by-wire concept rather than conventional hydraulic controls. The documentary pointed out that once the fly-by-wire concept had been adopted, there would be no going back to conventional controls. However, I do wonder how the Gimlie Glider incident would have ended up had the plane involved been an Airbus, with little more than a Saitek EVO to control it.
So I wondered how fly-by-wire would be accepted in America, given that it was primarily a European development by Airbus, and might be eschewed by America under the mantra of “not invented here”. Well maybe by Boeing but not, it would seem, by the airlines themselves. Flying from Denver to San Francisco with United Airlines in 1997, I was surprised to find myself aboard an A320, developed in
France! (British Aerospace helped out with the wings) A few years later, I flew to the WB 2000 con with US Airways – not a Boeing, but an A330! One of the guys at that con was a 757/767 pilot with US Airways and asked me about the flight over. He said he had ambitions to step up to the A330, but that it was “way too senior” for him at present. (I think he’d done it within a year though)
Now it seems that F-B-W is moving on in leaps and bounds. Cut price airlines like easyJet, whose entire fleet used to consist of B737s, have begun moving over to Airbus – with cost being given as the main reason, but no mention of the flight control system. They have plans to buy another 240 Airbus aircraft…
Still, it seems that Boeing is catching up – the 777 is F-B-W with one important difference, if my sources are to be believed: The pilots can override the computers, the Airbus pilots cannot. I take it that all Boeing aircraft will, in future, be built with the F-B-W control system?
The 747-400 is, I am told, the largest airliner in service. A great aircraft, and yet American Airlines has no 747s at all. Apparently AA is not impressed with 747 fuel consumption when compared with that of other aircraft.
Soon, Boeing will be kocked off its perch as producer of the largest airliner when the A380 enters service in 2006. In a typical configuration the A380 will seat 555 passengers.
So it looks like Europe is carrying the torch for airliner development right now, and will continue to do so for many years.
Will Airbus buy up Boeing? Well… not yet. Besides, the spectacle of Ripsnort having to sell his guns so he can relocate to France to live and work is beyond my powers of imagination!
