"...a replacement rudder is being fitted..."
Good grief - I hope they do a thorough inspection of the fin structure and aft fuselage, and particularly the engine mounting lugs, before it's flown again. There is surely no rush....
Zeke, I have read with interest your postings on this topic and hope I have learned from your technical briefs posted here. I retain an open mind into this rudder failure until the facts are known.
My concern is Airbus' past history of dubious investigations....
I was at CX when we had all manner of problems with the intro of the 330, to the extent that we had to ground them
voluntarily because Airbus would not admit a problem with the gearbox scavenge system design. Other problems at the time plagueing the aircraft were well known ( including the wreck of the demo example during an engine-out climb involving the test pilot and a dodgy altitude capture, mismatched ADC's on another involving conflicting warnings during the cruise, the radar-reflective paint coating used on the radome by mistake, etc ). Then there's the A-320's early history and Airbus investigations.... Let's not forget that the 340 currently has upper-wing crack problems, less than 10 years into service.
These are aircraft designed in the age of C.A.D - not slide rules such as the 747 and 737.
There simply seems to me no excuse for these problems. How many serious technical probs have there been with the introduction and structures of the most recent new designs from Boeing, ie aircraft designed post-formation of Airbus Industrie? 757? 767? 777?
Very few.
Why is that, Zeke? You've worked on both.
When you speak to pilots around the world about Airbus products, they are very, very polarized: they either love 'em or absolutely hate 'em. Odd....
Every pilot I've met who flies the new Boeings absolutely loves them. No complaints.
Why is that?
Airbus' behaviour, rightly or wrongly, always seems to reek of extreme protectionism of future orders foremost, rather than honest factual reporting. This may not be true, but it's the way it comes across. It's bad
PR, and it probably could be avoided.