Unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable, that an interesting and valid discussion gets hijacked by transatlantic oneupmanship.



Disclosure: This post has been subsidised by the China Investment Corporation.

Tom Banglabut - mostly - that's what trade is ... :}

And the Yanks never did get to make a supersonic airliner (even the Ruskies did that!)

Actually, there were spec changes, in mid bidding cycle.

Those changes favored the 330-based frame, which our Air Force didn't want in the first place.

Once those changes came to light - which was the basis of Boeing's complaint - the ensuing investigation, which is rather well documented, resulted in Airbus choosing to not compete - again - with a product that didn't really fit the original bid.

Read up on it before you come complaining back to me.

I'll add a snarky remark right here. Most of our troops don't want anything except Boeing in that role.

The reason is simple. Far before the formation of Airbus Industrie, KC-97s and KC-135s were refueling our fighters and everyone else's.


A final technical concern, the 330's fly by wire system, came to light. The 767 can do some things which the 330 simply can't or won't.

Anyway, cheers, have fun fighting about this, and as usual on this site, running the US down.

Not to get too pointed about this, the Russian supersonic never really did well. Your Concorde did for a while, but I get the feeling that it never really turned a profit.

That's another subsidy we should discuss in the future in a different thread.

In the mean time, keep blasting away and looking uninformed. It's fun to watch!


Cheers.

My paternal grandmother coming from an island with rich and smart people used to say: do you know how to break rules is a start but knowing not to get caught is basic if you want to do successfully.

Maybe Airbus should have seek advice from my grandmother.

" A final technical concern, the 330's fly by wire system, came to light. The 767 can do some things which the 330 simply can't or won't."

For example- cable-rat-hydraulic backup for minimal flight control when everything else turns to poo has been on 767 since day one over 30 years ago. check out Gimli glider . ..

Oh for crying out loud - this is embarrassing. Of course, as we all know, only american aircraft have ever had standby flight controls, and no fly-by-wire airliner ever had the ability to continue flight without engines running. That's why Air Transat 236 plummeted into the ocean the second the engines stopped.

Oh hang on - did it...?

Ohhh - groooan- can you spell EMP effects on ALL electrical combined with NO hauptic feedback ? EMP effects are much more likely with military- and even with shielding- a LOT of things go poof...

But for a more detailed explanation go to military thread

http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...-46a-woes.html

BTW-The initial subsidy argument/issues re Airbus started in year 2000 by a Boeing union.- In mid 2001- Boeing hired an ex deputy sec of defense ( Rudy deLeon ) to pursue WTO issues independent of Union. When 911 happened, things turned to worms re commercial- and a suggestion to prop up commerical with insurance and lease 767 tankers to keep at least that line open . Boeing then stifled Union work on a WTO complaint and elected to push the tanker deal since Japenese and Italian tankers were aborning at that time. Since funding was not available to purchase, a lease arrangement was proposed. But Boeing furbared that whole thing up via major mismanagement and the rest is history.

What about the massive agricultural subsidies given by the US government to American farmers enabling them to dump their products on the world market at below the cost of production and still make a profit ?