Originally posted by Chairboy
It's so odd, there seem to be two main crowds posting here. The 'Boeing sucks, and I'll say/do anything to further that agenda' crowd, and then the 'Airbus sucks, and I'll say/do anything to further that agenda' crowd.
What's that? The descriptions are identical? Well yeah, no crap.
Reading these threads is like watching hardliner liberal Soviets argue with hardliner conservative Nazi's. Both of them abhor each other, but they both do the same stuff. It's funny, it's as if the partisanship actually WRAPS around and touches the other side. With just a little help, the Boeing and Airbus nuts would be bestesses of friends.
Fact: The A380 is neat.
Fact: The 747 is neat.
Like Skydancer, I agree with this - and the rest of Chairboy's post. Does the existence of one aircraft production company invalidate the existence of any other? No, of course not. But those rants are akin to people refusing to take a taxi in Paris if it's a Citroen, because their home country produces Fords.
The A380 will perform well in designated roles, but won't be suited to other uses. But to condemn it out of hand is as ridiculous as refusing to eat a meal cooked on an electric stove because your stove at home uses gas. In this analogy, "if it ain't Boeing, I ain't going" would become "if it ain't gas heat then I won't eat".
If making a trip by plane, I'll go on whatever plane is provided. I haven't seen anything to convince me that Boeing is safer than Airbus, or vice-versa. Both have taken me to the parts that other modes of transport cannot reach.
The fundamental difference between the two types is that Boeing has "conventional" controls, and Airbus uses fly-by-wire. According to a TV documentary I saw, the trend is a one way ticket towards the latter. (I think this is what rankles with the pro-Boeing/anti-Airbus guys) Thus the purists will argue that control is being taken away from the pilots. Some might argue that this is bad; those in favour might argue that 45% of all aircraft accidents are caused by pilot error as a means of justifying FBW.
Commercially, I think A380 will be successful, not as a continental USA city hopper, but for long range flights to remote destinations where airports are sparse - Australia, Asia - and with operators who fly to those destinations. The CEO of Virgin Atlantic is Richard Branson - a man of vision if ever there was one. (I wish he was running for PM in our election - I'd sure as hell vote for him) And he has ordered several of them. I think the gymnasium idea will be a short term marketing ploy, but a guy like RB would not be ordering A380 if he was unsure of its role in his airline.
