Jim,

I was just kidding about Russian pilots.

Aren't 777 fly by wire? What about the 757 and 767? I'm not sure. How is Boeing's implementation of FBW with regards to redundancy? Just wondering.

According to my understanding, the Boeing 727 is pretty fun to fly. Plenty of power, according to the pilots I've talked with.

Also, a close friend of mine works at the Boeing Everett plant where they make the 777, 747 and some other models as well. All in the same building, by they way. World's largest building, at least a few year ago anyway. So.......my friend sometimes goes with a new 777 when it first flies. Everett out to Moses Lake and back. According to my friend, an empty 777 with a half-tank of fuel can take off and gain altitude RATHER QUICKLY.

Doesn't the 777 have triple redundent flight surface control systems? I'm not sure, but I think there is electric, and hydraulic, and piano wire.

I thought so about the kidding - everyone gets dumb sometimes. For example the guy that put the 307 in the bay. Good grief!

Yes, the 777 is fbw, 757 and 767 are not. I would have to get detailed info from a friend who retired from and now teaches the 777, but this much I do know: The 777 is pilot-priority. The controls move when the autopilot moves the aircraft. The throttles move when thrust is changed. The pilots can switch off the automation and the aircraft operates like it's manual. The "magic" can be switched from computer-assisted instrumentation to display of standard flight instruments. This turns out to be a big deal as it's important for a pilot to remain current on using raw data for flying. Never know when your life (and those of the passengers) will depend on it.

As for how the automation is structured, I may be wrong in this as it has been quite a while, but iirc the 777 has 4 computers. 3 are primary and a fourth for a backup. Each computer runs different software and then they vote. If all 3 agree then the action is validated; if one disagrees they check the backup; if one is failing or consistently wrong it is dropped and replaced by the backup. Keeps 'bugs' from creating serious problems. I think the Airbus also uses 4 computers, but I don't know if they are running the same or different programs. Don't take this as definite - it needs to be checked with someone currently involved in the program!

Supe - don't recall details, but there is definitely more than one actuation method. I think the wings are too big to have a 'piano wire' (aka manual reversion) backup. Beyond some size that stops working well. Yes, the 727 is fun. We called it the "Jurassic Jet". Power depends on the model. With the -7 engines it was dicey at max weight. The -15 was much better, and the -21 was fantastic!

Trivia: The 747SP would do Mach 1+ in level flight.

Look like everybody prefer the Boeing philosophy...is somebody down here can tell me how many A/C than the computers put down compared to an experienced human pilot's hand...Just curious...!

A very straightforward question without a straightforward answer. When in doubt, follow the money. Example: The A-320 landed/crashed into the trees while I was in Berlin. Within a day the [fill in country] Minister of Finance announced that the aircraft was perfect and the pilot was at fault. Of course, pilots weren't supposed to be able to be at fault in the 320, but....
How do you think the accident was rated?

Several months later we received a telex in ops for A-320 operators that, if full thrust was needed while on final approach, it was necessary to retard the throttles to idle for 10 seconds and then full thrust could be requested. Low and slow, so you have to idle the engines and wait - great planning. I understand that non-defect has since been corrected.
How do you think the accident should be rated now?

To do a valid analysis you would have to compare similar time frames because the Airbus flight control philosophy has been in use for a far shorter time period than the Boeing philosophy. You would also have to control for numbers of takeoffs and landings as well as do a valid comparison of aircraft types and for flights which had inflight emergencies to cope with. General rule, however, is that if it can go wrong eventually it will. I don't think the Airbus philosophy has had a chance to get the real test of time.

Let's complicate it further and recognize that there are likely accidents which the Airbus philosophy has prevented and accidents which the Boeing philosophy has prevented. A case in point is a colleague flying a 727 in Mexico - he had a Cessna pop out of a cloud directly in front of him (Cessna shouldn't have been there) while the 727 was on approach. My colleague pulled about 4G to avoid the Cessna; everyone lived. 4G is above the Airbus allowable limits on approach, as I understand them, so there is at least one airplane full of passengers who would not have lived had they been in a fly-by-wire Airbus. I have no idea of how many of these instances there are, though I know of a few, but statistics can't show us what has not happened.

I can search our accident data and see if there is any difference in the finding and factors..... The problem is there is never just one factor that caused the accident. There is always a serious of events that took place that all contributed the end result. If any one of the events was changed, the outcome would have been different.

Therefore it is hard to blame the aircraft solely.



Cheers

You can if it's a Airbus.:p

As much as I dislike the Airbus, and believe me I do, (early Heavies not withstanding) it is hard to point the blame 100% at the aircraft. I wish you could.....

The reports/investigations that I have taken part in and have studied indicate that there are *potentially* more things to be situationally aware of in an Airbus. I have seen some busses do some pretty strange things only to talk with the pilot later who says " I don't know why it did that". That is not to say there is not a good reason, just the pilot did not know.

I would love to hear from some Bus pilots on this thread. Some of what I see may be tainted by company SOP's etc. I have noticed the A320/319/321 aircraft flown by US based carriers to be more responsive to our clearances.

Nothing beats a Biz Jet though right Joeaksa? My life would be simple if everyone flew old generation airliners and biz Jets... :)

Cheers

yup, jeff....three cheers for old lears.. ;)

on that note, jeff...it was always, umm..satisfying..to hear the controller ask 'say altitude' when we'd be bombing up faster than the 'puter could keep up. :) out west at night, empty and in an old 20-series beast, we'd get initial clearances up to nearly the flight levels..depart someplace like salina, ks with its 15,000' runway..gear and flaps up, stay in ground effect..indicate around 300 kts. by runway end and pullllll. you'd be reporting level at 15,000 or whatever in about a minute. not that there's anything wrong with that. :D

We used to have a company that ran a 24 here for years. Impressive machine. Now we have a bunch of 31's, 35's, 45's, 55's, and 60's based here.

A 28 comes in occassionly which sure is a good performer. Interesting aircraft, don't think there are many around.

What did you fly Ryan? What was your favourite?

Cheers

A different take.

The fly-by-wire Airbus fleet, which numbers well over 4000 aircraft, has 19 years of active service with millions of hours and cycles over those years. It is a very common and very mature aircraft, by all accounts. It has a fatal accident rate per million flights that is actually a bit better than the Boeing products. The pilots I know who have flown both products extensively for United like both of them.

Very early on in the Airbus' life (19 years ago), it had a very spectacular and public accident. The cause was determined and changes were made. There has not been another accident that involved the fly-by-wire system of that aircraft since, as far as I know. Let's not forget that the Boeing 737, with its conventional flight control system, had (and I believe still has) a poorly designed hydraulic rudder actuator that was most likely the direct cause of two very spectacular 737 accidents in which the rudder went hard over and forced both aircraft into unrecoverable spirals straight into the ground. Horrible way to die.

As for passenger comfort, I can say that the flights I have taken on the Airbus A-320 have been very nice. I've been on these aircraft through all kinds of weather and have always enjoyed the comfortable and uncannily quiet ride. The cabin is slightly larger in diameter than the Boeing and seems to be better lit. As for leg room, that's all up to the operator of the aircraft. As has been said already, some of the tightest seating I have ever experienced has been in the back of various United jets, both Boeing and Airbus. It's simply a matter of a particular airline's marketing. I've also been in supremely comfortable and roomy A-340 coach seats for over eight hours and have been amazed by what to this day has been the quietest airliner I have ever been on.

Regarding performance, airliners are built to be able to comply with various FAA and ICAO certification standards. One of these standards is that they must be able to perform a successful takeoff after an engine failure at a critical time during the takeoff role. The airplane must be able to demonstrate a certain positive gradient of climb at it's maximum takeoff weight. Now, when a four engine jet loses one engine, it loses 1/4 of it's available thrust. It must then be able to continue the takeoff with the resultant 3/4 of it's original intended thrust. When a two engine jet loses one engine, it loses 1/2 of it's available thrust and must be able to continue the takeoff with 1/2 of it's original intended thrust - a much bigger loss of thrust, percentage wise. Therefore, twin engine jets, by their very design, must have a very high thrust to weight ratio with all engines operating in order to be able to perform adequately when one of their two engines loses thrust. Four engine jets just simply do not perform as well during climb as their two engined counterparts. This is why the 767 previously mentioned climbs so much better than the A-340. By the way, the A-340, fully loaded is a poor climber for sure, but is one of the faster jets once up at altitude, just as the B-747, 707, 727, DC10, and L-1011 are, due to it's fairly high wing sweep. Wing sweep is the biggest factor when it comes to high cruise speeds and all of these jets have high sweep. In fact, the B-747 has the highest wing sweep of any subsonic jetliner ever built, if I recall correctly - about 38 degrees, which happens to be about the same as the much vaunted Citation X.

One might ask why Airbus built a four engine jet while Boeing built a two engine jet (the B-777). They did this because the A-340 was designed to fly over vast oceans, at times hours from a suitable landing site in the event of an engine failure. With four engines, the jet has no limitations concerning how far from a suitable runway it may fly. This is a marketing advantage because right out of the box a four engine jet can fly anywhere in the world without limits. On the other hand, twin engine jets, considering that the loss of one engine has suddenly cut their total number of operating engines to one, are initially limited by how far away they can be from a suitable landing airport at any given time, which can severely limit routes that can be flown over the Pacific, for example. However, over time a manufacturer can attempt to show that their twin engined jet's engines are statistically reliable enough to be able to fly further away from a suitable landing field without undue risk. This is called ETOPs and is becoming much more common these days which is why we are beginning to see more twin engine jets out over the Pacific.

As for the lack of moving controls while on autopilot/autothrust, yes, I agree that I'd certainly prefer to see and feel the controls move, but it seems that in the long run, it really doesn't seem to have any real effect on the safety of the flight. The pilots just seem to adapt.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is that a passenger is just as safe on an Airbus as he is on a Boeing, and he is just as comfortable - arguably more so. The aircraft have not demonstrated over a period of almost twenty years that they are any more likely to have a problem than any other brand of jetliner. Don't get me wrong, I love Boeing and would prefer to see them succeed over Airbus for strictly personal reasons (I'm American and am proud of American products), but I also acknowledge that Airbus makes a heck of a good product with a proven, long term safety record.

I offer this up for a little balance.


SmileWavy

We have far better equipment (radar wise) than the FAA has, far far better. But, I can admit to having to ask the odd 24 what his altitude was just to make sure he was clear of the inbounds..... :)

I would always giggle when a departure controller would ask an early lear for "best rate of climb through 10,000....) "

Once cleared above 10,000 rate of climb gets you on course better than anything. Lears, and the rest of the business jet fleet, excelled at that.

Now another impressive machine....... A certain owner of Vancouver sports teams and CART teams (in the past) had an MD87 business Jet. They always left here pretty much empty as they were only going to KBFI. But man, could that thing ever go up. Had an interesting talk with the Captain one day about how they loved when the owner was not on board.... :)

Cheers

450knotoffice, there were a few more A320 crashes shorlty after it went into service. Most were early on though.

However, I agree, lately the aircraft seems to have a great safety record. The earlier crashes could have been a combination of suspect systems and un familiar crews. Both have been updated now.

The thing about Airbus that got me so cranked (back in 92) was the interview I saw with a couple of Airbus execs that said the safety record had nothing to do with the aircraft, only with the crews flying them. Then low and behold, they upgraded/modified the systems in the aircraft. Not saying this is unique to Airbus (I know it is not) but it really rubbed me the wrong way. Apparantly it still does... LOL :)

I have spend maybe 25 hrs in the jump seat of a A320 and enjoyed every minute of it. I remember doing an approach into CYVR where we were 3000 high on the GP at 9 miles. We made it, just. But the Captain was trying to prove to me that the aircraft was capapble. He did.

I guesss that is why I said I wanted to hear form 320 drivers. What I see is tainted by company SOP's.

As for flying over water, there is something comforting in knowing you still have 3 engines instead of 1... :)

Living in the ATC world is like living in this Porsche community. We all like responsive, high performance cars. ATC is not any different, we tend to like responsive high performance aircraft, they make our life easier. Clearly, I am jaded somewhat by the performance I see everyday on the radar screen. I know what aircraft I can count on to do what I need them to do. You are flying an A340 downwind and there is a hole on final big enough for you, guess what, you are not going in. If you are flying a B767, you are going in.

Cheers

We serve a the Orient from CYVR with wide variety of aircraft. They all use similar ocean entry points. Around noon every day we see A340, A330, B747, B777, B767 aircraft depart and head over the pacific using the same entry point to the ocean.

Having said that, I have only seed three different Aircraft fly CYVR direct Sidney AUS. A340, CitationX and a Global Express. I am sure other could make it.

Cheers

yep, not many 28's around..the 'longhorn' they called it. learjet type ratings come in two basic types: i have the 'LR-Jet' type: models 23, 24, 25, 28, 35, 36 and 55. the other (glass cockpit) type covers the others, the 45, 60..

i flew all the 20-series with the exception of the 28. these were almost always exclusively cargo-only planes for which i flew for three different unscheduled part one dirty-five operators. i also flew the 35 and a 36xr for an int'l air ambo company, the latter with a 6 - 6.5 hour endurance. i liked it a lot, the highest gross weight lear i flew. but for pure exhilaration it was always the 20-series turbojets. i'd say the lr-24 was my fave simply because the fuel system was more reliable (the 23 had 6 electric fuel pumps to the 24's two). they could go vertical for several seconds before compressor stall, etc. would remind one to lower the nose. low on fuel? they're unreal. i wish i could remember how quickly we could reach fl450, but it seems like 12 minutes maybe? fl470 was the highest i ever pushed a lear certified to fl450..trying to top a line of t'storms out in tornado alley. no luck and worse luck..popped the left engine and had no choice but to go down to fl250 in the heart of the storm to re-light. roughest ride of my life..and terrified a hail shaft might shatter the windshield. i'd seen 'em pop trying to climb with too high an angke of attack at high altitude, but always before in clear weather..this was a bit different. time to change underwear.. :p

Err...no. It extends RAT, (and goes into Direct Law if everything crapped out, which as far as I remember, never happened), and you fly it down into nearest landing spot just like enything else.

Remember that bird that run out of gas over Atlantic? It was dead-sticked into Azores ... and yes, it was FBW.

There is lot's of biased opinions here.

I would welcome somebody who actually flys busses and some people who work in industry.

Remember, Airbus is consortium made from lot's of companies.

Some of those companies were around for looooong long time. They've built Concorde, Messerscmit's, Dorniers, Spitfires, bombers, Caravelle's, Comets and whatnot.

I'll be glad to participate in this discussion next day, I'm off to midsummer celebrations


SmileWavy

Jeff,

The 28 & 29 series were the offshoot of an experiment in flight test in Learjet Wichita. They put the wing from a Lear 55 (which was in the prototype state then) on a Lear 25 fuselage to test it a bit. Worked so well that they built a few, less than 10 I believe.

One or two of them are still here in America, while the others went to Pakistan. Fitted with funny looking modified lower cabin doors that housed camera's and "other instruments," they did high altitude flights (51,000 feet and above that allowed them to look into over the border into other countries) over the area for a certain US Govt agency with three letters in its name.

One of the airplanes that stayed here in the states set the "time to climb" record for civilian aircraft that held for almost 20 years. Friend of mine was in the right seat on the flights, and was based out of Chicago's Palwakee airport. They are nice airplanes but fuel range is not very good, only about 2 hours, which is typical of the 20 series airplanes. The winglets are nice but you lose the "tip" fuel and that cuts your range down quite a bit.

The Lear 60 is a monster, and I have seen 14,000 feet per minute climb rates out of the plane. Massive P&W 305's hung on the airplane, the bird just loves to climb. Not ususual to see 3,500 or 4000 feet per minute climb at altitudes of 35,000 and above either which is very unusual. Bad point is that they are still using the same Lear 55 style wing which limits how large the main tyres/wheels that will fit in the wheelwells, so the brakes are very small for the power available. BFL (balanced field length, if you have to abort after a problem while still on the ground) is high so the airplane likes long runways.

I flew for Bombardier Learjet for many years, so have a few hours in them.

Joe

I'm a licenced engineer on Airbus A-310 and A-330...I'm also certified on some Boeing machines...I was working at Air Transat
when the A-330 flew dead stick to Azores...This A-330 is a wonderful machine...