Airbus = Bad airplane to fly

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Chock

Platapus, try this site, it has a link to DC-3 flights and training..

http://www.centercomp.com/cgi-bin/dc3/gallery?720

Thank you! what a cool site.

who needs porn when I can see DC-3s!!!!!!

[SUBMAN1]

I read about how airlines outfit the aircraft - that is to a point only because the manufacturers have a selection. Boeing has theirs and Airbus has theirs. Otherwise you go custom interior which is not economical, so I don't want to hear that its the same between the two - it is not.

On another note, I read someone saying cockpit conformity across models in Airbus as a plus, but fails to mention that Boeing has been doing this same thing since the early 90's.

Probably my biggest complaint between Boeing and Airbus has to do with safety however. Airbus has hard set limiters on what you can and can't do with the aircraft. Boeing also has the same thing, but the end is where things are a major problem - Airbus will not let you ever exceed them given an emergency - if you are going to crash, and you go up against the limiters, you are going to die because that is all you get. Boeing however has a different philosophy - they also have this same limiters, but if its an all or nothing situation, Boeing aircraft allow the pilot to exceed them by using excessive force on the controls.

To me, this mentality by Airbus is an arrogant one to not give the pilot the final say.

-S

PS. Again I am sick after getting back off an airplane. Its like a recycled cigar tube of bacteria and viruses. Boeing and Airbus should find a way to address this issue. Last couple days had a temp of over 100 F.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Probably my biggest complaint between Boeing and Airbus has to do with safety however. Airbus has hard set limiters on what you can and can't do with the aircraft. Boeing also has the same thing, but the end is where things are a major problem - Airbus will not let you ever exceed them given an emergency - if you are going to crash, and you go up against the limiters, you are going to die because that is all you get. Boeing however has a different philosophy - they also have this same limiters, but if its an all or nothing situation, Boeing aircraft allow the pilot to exceed them by using excessive force on the controls.

Sounds sorta like F-16 vs. MiG-29

[gnirtS]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

I read about how airlines outfit the aircraft - that is to a point only because the manufacturers have a selection. Boeing has theirs and Airbus has theirs. Otherwise you go custom interior which is not economical, so I don't want to hear that its the same between the two - it is not.

Bull****, its entire down to the airlines preference and ordering. There is no default interior. Every airline specifies exactly what they want. Thats how they budget for it and how they maintain conformity between the entire fleet.

On another note, I read someone saying cockpit conformity across models in Airbus as a plus, but fails to mention that Boeing has been doing this same thing since the early 90's.

So they both do it? Whats the issue? 757/767/777 yes. The 737 and others dont follow it.

Probably my biggest complaint between Boeing and Airbus has to do with safety however. Airbus has hard set limiters on what you can and can't do with the aircraft. Boeing also has the same thing, but the end is where things are a major problem - Airbus will not let you ever exceed them given an emergency - if you are going to crash, and you go up against the limiters, you are going to die because that is all you get. Boeing however has a different philosophy - they also have this same limiters, but if its an all or nothing situation, Boeing aircraft allow the pilot to exceed them by using excessive force on the controls.

Firstly lets see exactly how many incidents have happened due to that. Exactly zero. Seconly you appear blisfully unaware that hard limits arent a feature in the newer airbus aircraft.
You also appear to ignore the incidents where boeing planes have been damaged by flight crew accidentally taking the airframe over its limits which would not have occurred on an airbus. 737 and rudder reversal comes to mind a lot.

PS. Again I am sick after getting back off an airplane. Its like a recycled cigar tube of bacteria and viruses. Boeing and Airbus should find a way to address this issue. Last couple days had a temp of over 100 F.

Or work on your diet and general fitness. If aircraft made people sick every time they fly the world would have a real problem. HEPA filters and so on cut most of the bugs but at the end of the day its a confined space with 300 people on board just like a train, cinema, sports ground and so on. No way to avoid that without giving everyone their own little space suit.

[wireman]

737 rudder reversal had nothing to do with the built in limits you were refering to.

[HunterICX]

Mmm..

limiters ,

cant refer any situation where a boeing survived a crash by overrunning the set limiters.

if a airliner has a big problem and the only way the plane wants to go to is Down, you can pull as hard as you can on the sticks the plane will go down.

indeed I agree, the Airliners are the biggest threat for your own healthy especially as they dont refresh the air so much in the cabins. I had seen a documantary about this issue, and it made me wanna buy myself a gasmask for the next flight.
you just dont wanna know how unhealthy the air in the cabin is after a while flying at 10.000 meters. but still if you are perfectly healthy , you have a low risk of getting a fever

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by gnirtS

Bull****, its entire down to the airlines preference and ordering. There is no default interior. Every airline specifies exactly what they want. Thats how they budget for it and how they maintain conformity between the entire fleet.

I've worked next to the Boeing interior design for nearly 5 years and Boeing's options are going to be different from Airbus's options. They make their own seats / interior's and no they are not the same. Matter of fact, new versions are even kept secret. Wait till you see the 787! I've seen things that are not yet released! I'll fly that aircraft every day of the week if I could!

So they both do it? Whats the issue? 757/767/777 yes. The 737 and others dont follow it.

Lets see here - 737/747 share, as well as the 757/767/777 share. The logic here? It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that if you are certified on one 737, it is a bad idea to change things around. So you really only need two cockpits - and of course, if all aircraft had been designed in the same period, this would have probably only been one.

This is all pointless though - you are still dealing with shared cockpit designs - where you have 2 total. Its not like the old days where each aircraft had its own! I remember those days.

Firstly lets see exactly how many incidents have happened due to that. Exactly zero. Seconly you appear blisfully unaware that hard limits arent a feature in the newer airbus aircraft.
You also appear to ignore the incidents where boeing planes have been damaged by flight crew accidentally taking the airframe over its limits which would not have occurred on an airbus. 737 and rudder reversal comes to mind a lot.

737 Rudder reversal can not be contributed to the pilots. Boeing denies this, but they need to face it. Period. The black boxes do not show pilot commanded input causing the problem (hydraulic issue?). There was one case of rocking by a pilot who liked to use hard rudder inputs for some unknown reason, but only one. Scratch that - just found it - it was an Airbus that he was flying and he snapped the rudder off. Sorry - my mistake. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/inter...436374,00.html

Still the 737 is one of the safest airplanes to fly, with the 600 series and up showing only 0.14 fatal accidents per million takeoffs and landings - better than its Airbus counterparts, especially the A310 which has a score of 1.39. By the way, the only aircraft flying commercially even that has not only never killed anyone, but also never even had an incident like sliding off a runway is a 777.

Oh - On your hard limiter not causing crashes - Something to watch -

By the way, where is it said that they removed the hard limiters? I can find no evidence to support that claim.

Or work on your diet and general fitness. If aircraft made people sick every time they fly the world would have a real problem. HEPA filters and so on cut most of the bugs but at the end of the day its a confined space with 300 people on board just like a train, cinema, sports ground and so on. No way to avoid that without giving everyone their own little space suit.

Agreed - except the fitness part. Can't help the guy sitting next to you coughing up a storm! You sit there in the terminal and hope that guy doesn't sit next to you, and when he does... I guess it could be worse - It could be a 300 pounder who has to sit in the seat sideways!

[HunterICX]

@Video.

Air France Flight 296

and on that speed no matter what it would have crashed

Official report
The official report states the causes of the accident were 1) very low flyover height, lower than surrounding obstacles; 2) speed very slow and reducing to reach maximum possible angle of attack; 3) engine speed at flight idle; 4) late application of go-around power. This combination led to impact of the aircraft with the trees.
The Commission believed that if the descent below 100 feet was not deliberate, it may have resulted from failure to take proper account of the visual and aural information intended to give the height of the aircraft.

a Pilot error.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

@Video.

Air France Flight 296

and on that speed no matter what it would have crashed

Official report
The official report states the causes of the accident were 1) very low flyover height, lower than surrounding obstacles; 2) speed very slow and reducing to reach maximum possible angle of attack; 3) engine speed at flight idle; 4) late application of go-around power. This combination led to impact of the aircraft with the trees.
The Commission believed that if the descent below 100 feet was not deliberate, it may have resulted from failure to take proper account of the visual and aural information intended to give the height of the aircraft.

a Pilot error.

You are reading the official Airbus explanation - pretty much a cover up. Read what the pilot has to say about whaqt happened - he was prevented from saving his aircraft!

-S

A320 operation anomalies

Third-party investigations into the crash dispute the official findings[2].Captain Asseline asserted the altimeter read 100 feet (30 m) despite video evidence that the plane was as low as 30 feet (10 m). He also reported that the engines didn't respond to his throttle input as he attempted to increase power. The month prior to the accident, Airbus posted two Operational Engineering Bulletins indicating anomalous behavior noted in the A320 aircraft. These bulletins were received by Air France but not sent out to pilots until after the accident:

[edit] OEB 19/1: Engine Acceleration Deficiency at Low Altitude

This OEB noted that the engines may not respond to throttle input at low altitude.

[edit] OEB 06/2: Baro-Setting Cross Check

This OEB stated that the barometric altitude indication on the A320 did not always function properly.
These malfunctions could have caused both the lack of power when the throttle was increased, and the inability of the crew to recognize the sharp sink rate as the plane passed 100 feet into the trees.

[edit] Investigation irregularities

According to French Law, the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder are to be immediately retrieved by the police in the event of an aircraft accident. However, the recorders were taken by the civil aviation authorities and held for 10 days until they were finally confiscated. When the recorders were returned, they had been physically opened and the magnetic tape tampered with. 8 seconds of tape was removed, including the 4 seconds immediately prior to the crash, and the voice recorder and data recorder were 4 seconds out of sync at the time of the crash. This has led to allegations that the flight data recorder was seriously tampered with, or even replaced.


PS. I also find this quote interesting:

No fewer than 52 provisional flight notices have been published by Airbus Industry between April 1988 and April 1989. Hardly any new aircraft type has manifested such a large number of malfunctions.

[SUBMAN1]

Wow! Check this out:

Due to these anomalies, and the fact that the Black Boxes were in the hands of the DGAC, it has always been supposed, and is finally proven since May 1998, that the Flight Data Recorder confiscated on July 5 from the DGAC is NOT the one which was taken from the aircraft after the crash.

[SUBMAN1]

The more I read, the funnier this gets!:

Norbert Jacquet

Norbert Jacquet, an Air France pilot who spoke out in Asseline's support, was suspended from duty and had his licence withdrawn by Air France on the grounds of "mental instability". Meanwhile he has got five psychiatric certificates which unanimously state that he is completely sane and does not have any signs of mental trouble. One understands that co-pilot Pierre Mazière, who has continued to fly for Air France after the accident, cannot dare to express himself on the subject.

This is from over at Air Disaster .com

-S

[Chock]

The www.airdisaster.com site is aimed at rubber-necking morons, the name of the site says it all.

If you are interested in serious treatments of air accident and aviation safety matters, try looking at: flight safety, FIA, NTSB or AIIB sites, where sensationalist rubbish is not the main motivation for the site.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Chock

The www.airdisaster.com site is aimed at rubber-necking morons, the name of the site says it all.

If you are interested in serious treatments of air accident and aviation safety matters, try looking at: flight safety, FIA, NTSB or AIIB sites, where sensationalist rubbish is not the main motivation for the site.

Hardly - it is for people that want to know what happened and have an interest in a subject. That is like saying The Register knows nothing about computers since they are not quoting from a government source! Get real!

Besides, all the data on the crash is easily verifyable offsite - that should be good enough for any researcher.

-S

[Chock]

I didn't say it didn't contain any accurate data, I'm merely pointing out that it concentrates on the shock value, rather than concentrating on being a serious research tool.

Take a look at the navigation bar on the air disaster site on the left, you'll notice that all the sensationalist stuff appears first (videos, photos, cockpit voice recordings etc). Last time I checked, Investigation came before Video if you list things alphabetically. I think it's an appalling site.

And with regard to research, since I was a writer for a daily newspaper for ten years, I do know a little about finding facts and verifying them

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Chock

I didn't say it didn't contain any accurate data, I'm merely pointing out that it concentrates on the shock value, rather than concentrating on being a serious research tool.

Take a look at the navigation bar on the air disaster site on the left, you'll notice that all the sensationalist stuff appears first (videos, photos, cockpit voice recordings etc). Last time I checked, Investigation came before Video if you list things alphabetically. I think it's an appalling site.

And with regard to research, since I was a writer for a daily newspaper for ten years, I do know a little about finding facts and verifying them

If some people like this stuff or are obsessed by it, I'd have to say that this site offers a lot of info on the subject! But to put it into perspective - it is little different than subsim.com, but only with what you may call objectionable content. It even has a forum.

Now what really doesn't jive with your assessment - it looks for solutions to current problems, and it looks for ways to help you deal with your fear of flying for example.

So, I do not agree on your perspective in relation to the site. Taking a look at the data provided for the Air France disaster - it is not over hyped or over sensationalized (which is typical of your industry). It has all the data, and that is it. Just because it has links in one section vs another is not reason to discount it as you do.

-S

PS. Incase you didn't notice - it also links out to the NTSB for example.