Originally Posted by
TURIN
To read some of the posts here anyone would think aircraft only started to crash (or at least do something unexpected) when Airbus put their name on the side.
To say nothing of the belief that the introduction of digital flight management systems and the ability to misprogram them is peculiar to AI aircraft (Hint, guys : AA695 at Cali, which was a B757)
Originally Posted by
Unhooked
Although I admire the technical brilliance of the aircraft I dont like the fact that even when you disconnect the automatic's and fly you never really have full control of the jet. Every input is monitored and possibly modified by a number of computers if deemed nessasary.
The only time the computers "modify" the input is if you try to exceed 60 (IIRC) degrees of bank, or fail to increase power while pulling hard up in an evasive maneouvre - otherwise with the FMS disengaged, she's all yours.
I recall hearing about an incident with a A340 out of MRU where the AOA vane was damaged in the stand and went unnoticed or unreported. After take-off the aircraft was receiving erroneous AOA info and the more the PF attempted to increase pitch the more progressively the flight computers lowered the nose as the false AOA data was being received. I think the fast thinking commander switched off some of the PRIM's & SEC's (primary and secondary flight computers) and managed to return in direct law.
Which is the correct thing to do in any airliner, almost all of which have some digital automation these days. If the aircraft isn't doing what you want it to do, disconnect them and fly the thing!
(And yes, Rananim - I think that knowledge of how to do just that should be part and parcel of the FBW A3X0 pilot's toolkit. At the end of the day it's no different from switching out the Sperry on the old 727 and Jurassic 737)
Originally Posted by
DC-ATE
Ah.....but you forget DOUGLAS and LOCKHEED [the Cadillacs].
So the poorly-engineered cargo door locks and mismatched autopilot computers on their respective final-generation airliners - both of which were causal to fatal accidents - are figments of the imagination?
And.....you'll have to admit that if we never got into these "complex" systems, we would NOT be having these problems.
That's as maybe, but you'd definitely still have the odd augering into the ground when someone pulled a lever or set a switch they shouldn't have (see EAL66 and AC603 - both DC-8s).
Originally Posted by
arearadar
Additionally, a friend of mine, having been left without an aeroplane with the demise of Concord, was on an A320 command course. I asked him how he found it and his reply was `What the xxxxxxx hell is it going to do next.
To which the correct answer is "absolutely nothing other than what you tell it to". I'll paraphrase what someone else said earlier and say that if you don't understand what you're telling it to do, you need to do your bl**dy homework sharpish!
I suspect that as a former Concorde (just out of interest, was dropping the "e" intentional?
) pilot, understanding the FBW Airbus series is well within his abilities.
Originally Posted by
Clandestino
Regarding the Magic Bus and today's pilots: that Airbus is crash-proof and can cope with less skilled pilot than standard is misperception, promulgation of which is the fault of Airbus propaganda department...
Er, no - The AI marketing department set out their stall as saying that the A320 generation were *more protected* from getting into a dangerous situation than previous generations of airliners - and...
Originally Posted by
jcjeant
The probs is that Airbus planes (with all their rings and bells) were announced (or believed) to be protected of crashing .... you know .. like the Titanic can't sink ...
Pure arrogance ......
...it was the press of the time that paraphrased AI's claim of better protection as "it is impossible to crash this airliner", because it made better copy and - as laymen in aviation terms - they could not discern the subtle difference. It is true that Ziegler was something of a loose cannon in this regard, but I don't think that his word would have been the official company line. As an aside, it's interesting you mention the Titanic, as the phrase "practically unsinkable" was also an invention of the press (In this case "Shipbuilder" magazine), and not the official line of either White Star or Harland & Wolff.
Originally Posted by
jcjeant
Ziegler said to the press in a interview:
"This aircraft (Airbus) can be controlled by my concierge"
Did he actually say that his concierge wouldn't be able to crash it?
Originally Posted by
DC-ATE
There are just as many "incidents" [maybe more] now as in the past.
But how many more airliners are flying worldwide *every day* than there were then?
Originally Posted by
Captain-Crunch
Those of us who experienced this unsettling anomoly, would speculate that maybe the software engineers just never envisioned someone operating at over 250 knots below ten thousand.
So why didn't you tell them? Nothing us software engineers like more than fixing a problem!
And I take exception to use of the word "questionable" to describe the work done by AI's software engineers. I was privileged to learn from first-hand information (thanks to my Software Reliability lecturer who consulted with AI) just how much work went into specification, testing (both in the labs and in the air) and providing several measures of redundancy at multiple levels. I also know that they were happy to listen to any reports of a problem and work themselves silly trying to isolate and rectify it.
When Airbus flooded the market, a lot of us worried about the composite airframes but our suspicions about an aging vertical fin for example, inspected by an outsourced low-cost maintenance provider was dismissed as Old School paranoia. ... Next thing you know, one breaks up over new york and the pilot is blamed for using the rudder. A memo comes out telling me not to use the rudder if I can help it!
Here we go again... It has been proven that the vertical stab failed at a point way beyond it's ultimate design load - i.e. it handled far more strain than it was designed to take, so I think that fatigue caused by ageing composites can quite easily be ruled out in that case. More on your first point shortly.
Could you miss the mountains in a pull up with this type of g-limiting and bank-limiting A320 FBW sidestick?
No, I don't think you can.
I beg to differ, but for starters - how close are you to the mountains?
FADEC will slow spool the engines to save TBO but hit the trees as it did in Toulouse.
Again, the digital automatic engine controls were *shut off irreversibly* by deliberate pilot action - they were under full manual control by the time they crossed the threshold and neither FBW nor FMS had anything to do with it.
But that went over about like a fart in church with the standardization mafia. "I needed to get the Airbus Religion" I was told when I objected to the classification of hand flying as "John Wayning" the airplane. They wanted me to use all these nanny protection devices all the time.
And here I go back to your point earlier. Was this in your company? If so then you have a simple pattern to follow; get together with a few like-minded people to put your concerns to the Chief Pilot - if he doesn't listen then the next step is the regulator via your union. If they don't listen then contact the manufacturer directly. This will eventually put you in danger of becoming a whistleblower - which could harm your career - but you'll at least be able to sleep at night knowing that you did everything you could.
What bothers me about a lot of posts in this thread is the number of anecdotes about how the management at some airlines are reluctant to consider potential failures in automation and "encourage maximum use of automation at all times". This is not a fault with any manufacturer or design, but a management failure at the airlines concerned.
I'm pretty sure that the engineers at AI (and for that matter most if not all manufacturers) would be happy to hear from pilots about any issues relating to the product, because at the end of the day their reputation gets tarnished if there is an accident.
To clarify - almost everyone reads the front page stories about an airliner crash when speculation is rife and no-one knows much of anything, but significantly fewer read the bylines months or years later when the actual cause is determined and reported. The result of which is that some people still believe that (paraphrased) "The computer thought the plane was trying to land" (Habsheim), "The composite fin attachment lugs were weak and therefore failed" (AA587), "A missile streak was seen before the explosion" (TWA800) and "The aircraft was on fire before it hit the ground" (too numerous to mention!)
but just like digital home computers, corruption may be lurking.
I've gone into this before and taken several paragraphs to do it, so I'll keep it to the piston-engine analogy I used then. Computers in the aviation realm are like the engine in your old pick-up truck - by which I mean they are specified with reliability over long periods of time as the paramount concern, designed and engineered using older, proven technology and given multiple layers of redundancy as a backup. Home computers on the other hand are more like an F1 racing engine - specified to run as fast as possible, designed using the latest bleeding-edge developments - and as such it is expected that they will only run for a (comparatively) short time before something goes wrong and they will require restarting.
Phew! Sorry to go on so long guys, but as I've said before the amount of misunderstanding on this subject saddens me a great deal. I'd like to add that clearing up such misunderstandings are my only intent here - I'm not especially pro- or anti- any aircraft manufacturer and don't want to get drawn into the bunfights that ensue.
My lifelong love of aviation means that I do a lot of reading on the subject and (as ex-ATC) I'd love to return to the sky at the controls again one day if my luck permits. However everything I have read, watched and taken in over the years has taught me that no manufacturer has ever been whiter than white when it comes to acknowledging faults in their product - though I'd say that both Boeing and AI have learned some lessons there in recent years and the result is some pretty damn good flying machines from both of them and from others.
I'm sure that the issue in the OP will be resolved swiftly, and I hope that one day we can put all this political garbage behind us.