PickyPerkins,
I would hear several loud bangs each flight, most of the time it’s associated with cabin crew moving about carts etc. I have heard bangs also when going into turbulance, again this was found to come from the galley.
RRAAMJET,
Airbus does not do the public investigations, or the reports, they maybe an "expert" used for assistance, however they do not publish reports. Information from all reports I have shown here are from various government bodies.
They dont make engines either, something another manufacturer has been saying about the number of failures its had, including one on a demo flight for a customer.
In most cases Airbus do not even do the FDR,QAR,CVR analysis, they might get a copy of it, but don’t do analysis like in AA587 which the NTSB did.
I am not aware of any aircraft entering service that has not had it problems, including the ones you mentioned are good aircraft. Cracks in aircraft structures are not an airbus only problem.
The A330 crash during flight test in my view was due to people being a little to inattentive flying around single engine. From memory the aircraft did everything it was supposed to do.
As for aerospace engineers, like pilots they are industrial prostitutes working on contract going from A to B back to A back to B depending on who has the work on at the time. The software used at A and B these days for designing stuff (CATIA) is the same, it’s originally a French product. Most of the computers its runs on are American. If you trash one product your really trashing both, at the end of the day the same people design them, and the source from the same or similar sub system providers (i.e engines, wheels, brakes, tyres, avionics, FMC's, pumps, electronics etc)
By the way, I have never heard a pilot yet that cannot complain about something. Just ask them how much they think they are worth.
Ignition Override,
I would think they are, the fibers are essentially the same, what tends to vary if the epoxy matrix, and the process of curing the part, i.e., the temperature, pressure, and time required in the autoclave.
"Are the structural members all made of aluminum" if you mean the spar in the tail etc, no not metal, try and keep composite with composite, biggest problem with composites is how to join them to metal, or use of fasteners.
"spot tiny cracks in composite materials." Tiny cracks are not anything to worry about, you have tiny cracks in wodden aircraft, they are the first true composite material. You could say we are going around the full circle, from kittyhawk where it was mainly a composite aircraft to the 787 which will have a composite fuselage.
When you buy the rolls of the material, it already has broken fibers in it, where composites has its advantage over metal is that the expoxy matrix will transfer the load from the broken fibre to surrounding fibers retaining structural integerity, cracks dont propergate in composites like they do in metal, no grains in the metal for the cracks to develop.
planemad2,
Your jumping the gun a little, no has said that the rudder came off due to excessive force. Many ways to weaken a structure without people knowing about it, like lightning.