And ha ha - another A vs B post. Just what PPRuNe needs!
These always bring out the Boeing diehards. I'm bored and have time to kill, so I'm going to enter the fray on the side of Airbus!
Let's see. How many Airbus aircraft served in World War 2? None.
Aah - you must mean the Boeing B17. The aircraft that had so many guns stuck on it with necessary crew to fire them, it could only carry a tiny bomb load.
Airbus is a consortium made up of many European legacy aircraft manufacturers who made many fine aircraft in WW2. Aircraft such as the Mosquito - which carried the same bomb load to Berlin as the B17, but much faster and with much less losses. And MBB is an Airbus partner. I seem to recall one of their previous products, the Bf 109 shot down quite a few B17s. A380 wings are made in the same factory where Wellingtons were built in WW2. That had the same effective load as the B17 too.
did you know that airbus is the only airplane manufacturer who's design philosophy created mayday scenarios out of thin air, when otherwise airplane itself was structurally and mechanically sound and who's philosophy was a direct cause or a major contributing factor to deaths of hundreds of people?
Rudder 737 hardovers - remember those? And while were on the topic of legacy designs, The Boeing practice of constantly re-certifying old aircraft under 'legacy' rules means the 737 is stuck with a 1950's design pressure controller. In my job, I see the incident reports from the majority of the quality reporting systems and I'm amazed at the number of B737 pressurisation failures - as a result of recertifying a system which should have been consigned to museums ages ago. And this has killed people! (Helios crash).
They even go as far as to ruin lives of their own test pilots just to keep their dumb philosophy in.
You must mean the Habschiem accident. This was the pilot doing something stupid and not understanding the systems. This get's raised in every A vs B discussion.
In short, if you're a pilot - airbus will make your living miserable and will kill everything you enjoyed about aviation.
Aircraft manufacturers don't do this - airline executives do! I've been equally as bored and disillusioned in Boeings as Airbusses. Personally, I would say I haven't enjoyed flying big aircraft since leaving the military 15 years ago. Airline flying is dull and the aircraft type doesn't change that. However, I would say that the Airbus flight deck is a more comfortable environment to bet bored in - especially at meal times!
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Banter aside, I've flown both A and B products (but not the 737). Both are good there are good and bad points to each in equal measures. But the pilots don't get a say in which type gets purchased - except for when it comes to the re-training task if the type is changed.