I find it interesting that Boeing's prized aircraft had a severe fire and meltdown the other day and all seems quite the norm....Don't worry Boeing will take care of that!!!!!

meanwhile an incident on a A320 and now we are lead to believe that Airbus is crap and the ill result of the overly teched modern era.....

Enough is Enough....if we want to compare apples to oranges, more Boeing's have hit the dirt than Airbuses...but that's not the point......

Point is who cares...

I have no preference for either aircraft, but I will say for those who are afraid of modern technology, I don't leave messages on my Dads cell phone because he doesn't know how to retrieve them.......:)

AD mod status :confused:

Does anyone know the MSN of the subject aircraft ?

razoray

there is a difference...the 787 is in its test program and is not taking paying passengers aloft.

the A320 series has been taking people for a ride now for quite awhile. too bad they are now part of the new test program.

Will the 787 ever take a paying customer??

All I'm saying is Boeing and Airbus both make good aircraft.....but as shown not perfect....just sick of the battle.....

we all have no choice but to fly one or the other......

the great divide
 

right well good job this post has gone form talking about an Airbus incident, to an A vs B argument and then to attack the 787, waiting for somebody to come after the A350 and we'll have all the hacks out. I for one am very happy with my American made aircraft but i would not be arrogant enough to either say that either Airbus ( an airplane that i have been an engineer on in a previous life) or my preferred maker of airplanes has the right idea, all us that sit on the business end of the craft must remember one simple rule it's only a Computer. A lot of the incidents of recent times have come from lack of knowledge of what the system is doing. Much of what Airbus tried to eliminate in the making of the A320 has been taken care of in the major developments of teaching of the modern elements of CRM. Leaving it to the computer may not be ideal. We have now come around to a state that pilot skills have been so degraded that even the whizz kids at Airbus are having a rethink about the control the cockpit can exercise. (In my limited knowledge direct and ultimate is the only answer.) Whichever side of the Atlantic your ideology sides TRAINING of the Aircraft systems and an integrated knowledge may save the day. Short Jar 25 courses are not the answer.

Well thats my 2 and 6 pence

awaiting the bashing

recall is incorrect. Besides, even if it were 'left in CWS' it would not have mattered.

..probably what the first guys said when they enclosed the cockpit.

Wonder why Boeing fell into the trap of FBW and all the magic? And let's forget the triple7 that went a bit funny a few years ago with its FBW.

The bashing and bias are what make a lot of us drop out of these discussions.

BTW, what ARE you FLYING these days?

Airbus funny incident
 

Back in 1995 I heard of an MAS A330 stranded in ADL with an unusual problem. The flight was AOG because of a flap assymmetry problem.
The inbound flight crew had departed KUL with an MEL deferred item pertaining to wing tip breakers which allowed despatch with the proviso the deferred item be fixed within a fixed number of days ( I can't remember the details ).

However when the outbound crew started their preflight, the wing tip breaker system locked out permanently and the station engineer was unable to make head or tail of what caused it despite the direct communication with MAS maintenance base in KUL. Even the Airbus techies stationed in KUL was not of much help. The outbound flight crew returned to their hotel only to meet up with the inbound flight crew who was also puzzled as they had been assured in KUL that the WTB lock out system has been overridden and despatchable for a number of days. Then the inbound captain asked if anybody had messed around with the flight deck clock system. The outbound f/o sheepishly admitted fumbling whilst setting the clock and had reset the f/o side clock after letting the date/month run past sveral months! Apparently the aircraft computers' time base is linked with the flight deck clocks.

Only when they advised the engineering of this that the Airbus techies in KUL realise what the problem was. I don't know how true this incident was but it was brought up in one of the technical meetings pilots had with the engineering boys. Just a little story..............................

I wont kick Airbus as its bad manners to do so when someone is down..but just how many undiscovered fault scenarios are still out there.The story of the commander taking out the PRIM/SEC so that he could control the aircraft correctly in pitch is worrying as it requires quick lateral thinking which some may not have.So are the incidents of radar alt controlling laws and the pilots ability to land(recent incident plus a qantas 330 incident a while back)..I believethe airbus peole were well-intentioned and produced a landmark machine but the over-confidence was sickening..you cannot have a computer run things in something like flying with so many variables.The man is still better..let the computer warn him by all means but not control him.Boeing and others are imperfect but you as the pilot do control your own destiny.I like it this way.Monitor me,warn me but give me control.always.

As is the norm these days on PPRUNE the "usual suspects" have hijacked a thread to spout their hate of Airbus. Truly unbelievable especially as they have admitted to never flying them.

The "urban legends" have also come out of the woodwork in a further attempt to decry Airbus.

You really are SAD people and as for the A330 story in ADL it just goes to prove what a few of the sensible posters here have been saying, some "pilots" do NOT know their aircraft!

Hi,

Ah yes .. urban legends
Note that this is not an urban legend:
Ziegler said to the press in a interview:
This aircraft (Airbus) can be controlled by my concierge
Methink Ziegler can't be suspected to hate Airbus :)

It really is time to analyse what it is that is causing this problem.

Point 1: The AB 319 onwards are clever and sophisticated aircraft. The technology is extremely advanced. I view it as a significant step along the aviation path. It generally makes life (and eating crew meals) a lot easier. Personally I dislike the side-stick concept from a monitoring p.o.v. but otherwise the a/c has a lot of plusses.

Point 2: The 'POS' that PTH talks about is not primarily the aircraft nor the technology. It sits at the desks of all those managers, accountants and airline training departments who have swallowed the AB hype - starting with Bernard's.

Point 3: If all is working well, the a/c will NOT readily let you kill yourself or your passengers.

Point 4: If all is NOT working well, it will. It has the ability to remove its defences and either not let the pilots know or confuse them with its functions.

To summarise: If all the above 'POS's' would realise this, that there are obvious faults in the software as with ANY aircraft that uses computers, the world will be a safer place. Teach pilots NOT to trust implicitly. Teach them to be wary of the machine. Teach them to retain basic airmanship and flying skills. In other words, to watch out for themselves. Had the PGF crew done this, even given the altitude was hopelessly wrong, they would most probably have survived and snagged the AoA sensors on landing. As with the latest electrical shenanigans, crews need to be aware of all the wrinkles and what to do when ECAM fails. It is not what it is hyped to be. Acceptance of this by some would go a long long way to sorting out a lot of the problems. Remember the infallible 'system' did not protect the AB CTP out of TLS. I think that is a significant lesson for all.

Time to end this boring battle here and accept that FBW is here to stay and will get more capable. Let's make sure we all keep up with it.

So dear iceman,

please tell us what's wrong with that "story".

Thx

Everybody else may have a look @ 8. on page 2/6 :ok:

http://www.kwauk.com/Files/A330%20Manual.pdf

It's not so much "hate of Airbus" as it is the dislike of all this "advanced" technology that is supposed to be making flying more safe. There doesn't seem to be much validity in that. There are just as many "incidents" [maybe more] now as in the past. At least we had control of our airplanes even when all systems failed "back then".

EDIT: P.S. This applies to the new Boeing products as well.

Very odd that rudder out of trim not noticed for several minutes and late notification led to loss of flight data.

There are two threads topping the forum at the moment. Once concerns a potentially dangerous uncontained engine failure. The other concerns a potentially dangerous software failure.

It is curious to see the difference in attitude.

The hardware failure is a taken as cause for concern - but the emphasis seems to be "find the root cause, design a fix, and move on. After all, these things are bound to happen from time to time in such complex machinery."

However, when the problem is software - even if the occurence is comparably rare - the attitude seems to be that this is completely unnacceptable. Furthermore it is used as some kind of proof that the underlying philosophy of the aircraft is flawed.

Why the difference I wonder?

Could be that pilots [real pilots, not the newer computer pilots] like to have a feeling of being in control rather than have some computer telling them what to do all the time. And then when the 'software' fails, they become passengers, not pilots.

ould be that pilots [real pilots, not the newer computer pilots] like to have a feeling of being in control rather than have some computer telling them what to do all the time.

As an Airbus pilot could you explain the above?

Maybe I should have said having a computer "limit" what they can and can't do. As an Airbus pilot, perhaps YOU can explain.

I think he already said that judging by your location and age,it would be a waste of time