What's up with Airbus?

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by Dago
If memory serves me right, the A320 that went into the trees had not just taken off, but rather was making a low pass.  The pilot wanted to illustrate the fact that Airbus would accelerate the engines and climb when he pulled back on the stick, but he failed to understand or remember that when you get below 200ft AGL with the gear and flaps extended, the aircraft thinks you are flaring to land, and it will not accelerate the engines and fly away.  He pulled up, but it didnt accelerate until he pushed the throttles forward, too late.

Yes, more than one Boeing has been recovered from an extreme high speed dive by lowering gear and flaps.  A China airline I believe it was did it once in a 747 over the Pacific after the pilot let it get into a high speed stall, if memory serves me right.

Here is the differance, the Airbus A320s and A330s wont allow you to stall it, high speed or not, but I do believe it will allow flap and gear extension at overspeed, but I might be wrong on that.

Actually, the A320s and A330s wont allow you to loop it, dive into an overspeed,  wont allow a stall, wont allow you to roll past about 65 degrees.  It will limit the aircraft to maneuvers that are inside the design flight envelope.  It helps protect your from pilot error, not prevent pilot correction from pilot error.  Not that any airplane is perfect, but this does a pretty good job of keeping you as safe as it can.  Most all of this is done through the Flight Management Guidance Envelope computers (FMGECs). (two installed for cross monitoring and system reduncancies).

dago

So you're saying that Tex Johnston won't be able to fly an airbus in a slow roll to sell more aircraft?

[Dago]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
So you're saying that Tex Johnston won't be able to fly an airbus in a slow roll to sell more aircraft?

heheh, not normally no, Tex would not be an aerobatic airliner pilot in an Airbus.

[ravells]

The really interesting thing about this post is that Rip (who as I recall helps design boeing aircraft) hasn't responded to FTJR who actually flies both aircraft.

FTJR: One of my best mates is a QANTAS pilot who swears that airbuses are 'japanese' in that they are built of inferior quality components and thinks its only a matter of time that an airbus will suffer a catestrophic failure once they've been through enough cycles. He is definitely a 'If it's not Boeing I'm not going kind of guy' (he's flown both too).

I don't have enough knowlege to comment but all I can say is that I have a real fear of flying but the only time I felt really safe was when I was 14 years old and we picked up a brand new Boeing 737 from Seattle and did the ferry flight from there through Gander to Shannon and Heathrow...I've never felt safer in my life: there were no seats fitted in economy so we played football in the space at 30,000 feet: good fun.

Ravs

[mora]

Originally posted by Chitownflyer
The was an incident, awhile back, involving an Boeing 727.  A pilot by
the name of “Hoot Gibison” had to “put it in the red” in order to save the plane
as a consequence, due to a highly non-standard procedure, he was able to
lower the landing gear, even though the plane was diving at supersonic speeds,
slow up the plane enough to allow the plane recover from an other wise
”lawn darting” is famous.

The upset was caused by an assymmetric leading edge slat extension. A possible cause was that he tripped the CB of the leading edge slats on purpose, in order to set the trailing edge flaps to 1 independently. This was supposed to make the plane perform better. He did it while the FE was in the lavatory, and when the FE came back he reset the CB. The other slat extended but other failed to do so and that caused the upset.

[Scootter]

I posted this to point out that the complete faith and total reliance on electronics can be taken to what is in my opinion an extreme.

I use a PC every day as does everyone here  and frankly they do weird things (thanks Bill Gates) and had what I shown in the PDF file happened in heavy weather on short final things would have been hairy.

I know my Cessna has cables and pulleys as well as ancient things called magnetos for ignition and is in the dark ages. But is using all the high tech. stuff really making things better and safer when an unexplained bug can take away EVERYTHING in the cockpit and leave the pilot with an un-powered, unlighted attitude indicator that will spool down in less then 5 minutes really right?

The good old DC-3 (Douglas product not Boeing) is still shouldering on and I would not hesitate to go on a long trip in one, given the time.

I like my computer but trust it with my life at night in heavy weather at minimums with low fuel nope.

I think Airbus is the cats butt with their electric jets and I know Boeing is also going down the same road as well, I just want nothing to do with them if they start using Microshaft for software.

As for the TU- products they will fly forever if anyone can afford the fuel as from what I understand they are built like a truck and have avoided the glits and glamour of the high tech electric jets.

I have and will fly Airbus, I like Boeing for emotional reasons really but I prefer my Cessna when simplicity is safety.

my two cents.

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by ravells
The really interesting thing about this post is that Rip (who as I recall helps design boeing aircraft) hasn't responded to FTJR who actually flies both aircraft.

FTJR: One of my best mates is a QANTAS pilot who swears that airbuses are 'japanese' in that they are built of inferior quality components and thinks its only a matter of time that an airbus will suffer a catestrophic failure once they've been through enough cycles. He is definitely a 'If it's not Boeing I'm not going kind of guy' (he's flown both too).

I don't have enough knowlege to comment but all I can say is that I have a real fear of flying but the only time I felt really safe was when I was 14 years old and we picked up a brand new Boeing 737 from Seattle and did the ferry flight from there through Gander to Shannon and Heathrow...I've never felt safer in my life: there were no seats fitted in economy so we played football in the space at 30,000 feet: good fun.

Ravs

My specialty before doing what I do now was tool design,  not mechanical engineering or aircraft design. But I've seen my share of drawings that I've had to use to get my job done, and I've seen comparisons of the Airbus wing and the Boeing wing. I know enough that both will fly, but one is built like a B-17 while the other is built to lower costs.

As for FTJR's post, we already discussed on this BBS the Airbus mishap in France years ago...don't feel much like getting back into that again..besides, Pilots fly planes, they don't design them. Most wouldn't know the process for assembling a Krueger flap.

Your cycle time on airframe analogy by your friend is spot on. Lets wait until these airbuses have 30 years on the frames, then we'll see who has more airframe failures.

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
but one is built like a B-17 while the other is built to lower costs.

Hey rip, isn't a B-17 a 1940's era bomber with a very old tech wing, with poor high speed and high altitude performance?

[ravells]

Rip what I didn't tell you was that my mate who is the pilot has a friend who works on maintenance and agrees with him about Airbus aircraft. Hell what do I know, I'm no specialist but my view is that 'if it's not boeing I'm not going' but 'If I'm going to miss the bus then I'll take an Airbus'

Death is such a random thing, so I'm prepared to take my chances, because in this conversation we are much more likely to die in car accidents than plane accidents so it's really like counting angels on a pinhead.

Ravs

[Dago]

Dont get me wrong, I prefer to ride Boeing myself for all my own reasons, I just think you should know the truth about both.

dago

[ravells]

Me too, but aircraft design and safety is such an opaque issue we will never know.

Ravs

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by Vulcan
Hey rip, isn't a B-17 a 1940's era bomber with a very old tech wing, with poor high speed and high altitude performance?

I feel sarcasm in your post

Seriously though, Boeing has always prided itself for redundency, if X breaks, Y holds it together, if Y breaks, Z holds it together.  A good example is when the corroded frame of a 19 year old 737 ripped off over the Pacific in Hawaii, the plane was landable...had that been any other aircraft I'm afraid all would have perished. (And that accident was due to airframe negligence.)



After the accident, a full-scale investigation was launched by the NTSB. It concluded that the accident was caused by metal fatigue and stress fractures exacerbated by crevice corrosion [1]. The age of the aircraft became a key issue (the aircraft was 19 years old at the time of the accident and had sustained a remarkable number of takeoff-landing cycles - in excess of 80,000). Consequently, all major United States air carriers decided to retire their oldest aircraft to prevent a recurrence. Also, aircraft now receive additional maintenance checks as they age.

In addition, Congress passed the Aviation Safety Research Act of 1988 in the wake of the disaster. This provided for stricter research into probable causes of future airplane disasters.

[ravells]

The americans build things with lots of over engineered and inefficent redundacy (Cadillac) the Europeans build them with panache (Ferrari) ... if there was a collision, I'd want to be in the Caddilac.

Ravs

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by ravells
The americans build things with lots of over engineered and inefficent redundacy (Cadillac) the Europeans build them with panache (Ferrari) ... if there was a collision, I'd want to be in the Caddilac.

Ravs

Yep. Thus my reason for rather flying a truck/tractor

[ravells]

You shall not rule the world!

but....

I'm inclined to make you my second in command!

Ravs

[Dago]

Oh yeah guys, dont bring up maintenance, because nobody asks about who maintains a plane when they are buying a ticket, they just ask who has the cheapest tickets.  

The American public would rush to buy tickets on "Jihad Airlines" if they would save $5.

dago