A340 Rotation Problems

[atakacs]

Thanks for linking the report. I tried to find it by myself to no avail.
All in all I think that there is an informal consensus that the 340 is somewhat below expectations when it comes to take-off performances. At the same time the type is in service for many years and except for some "close calls" it has not been plagued by TO accidents, so it is probably not that bad. and now that every competent driver is aware of this I hope things should be under control.

[capngrog]

Originally Posted by futurama

I don't know... the engineering calculations and simulations were actually prepared by Airbus, then reviewed by experts from BEA, Air France, and Lufthansa. Furthermore, since Air France & Lufthansa actually implemented operational changes, presumably the analysis was also reviewed by the union safety rep pilots.

But what do they know, they should have just consulted pprune experts who got to the actual root cause even without any access to the data.

This is a forum for ideas, comments and opinions on things aviation, and there should be no sacred cows immune to criticism. The BEA is a respected organization, and its reports and findings are well able to stand up to criticism and discussion. Technical reports are usually subjected to questioning, and from that questioning comes understanding. With all that said, perhaps the opening sentence of my Post #38 stating that the BEA report " ... is not correct", was too declarative. I believe that the wording would have been better stated as " ... is not entirely correct."

Outside questioning of the processes of respectable investigative agencies such as the BEA and NTSB is often quite beneficial. An example of which was the questioning of the initial focus of the NTSB investigation into the crash of UAL 585, paying too much attention to mountain wave "rotor" phenomena, to the exclusion of other possible factors, such as uncommanded rudder movement. Yes, I was one of those questioners way back then, but I'm still no expert on much of anything.

Cheers,
Grog