Airbus vs. Boeing: which is best, really ?
 

Not a tongue in cheek question, but it's really hard to get a straight answer... People tend to be divided along country lines, and this being a mostly US board, you tend to hear boeing is best without much argumentation...

I'd like to get some (as) unbiased (as possible) opinions from people who know airplane designs or flew both lines..

Which brand would you say is better and why ? Avionics, cockpit design, ease of flying, safety record, cost, cabin space, and if it'd be silly to generalize, which specific models are best in each line ?

Just curious....

I work for Boeing....subscribing. :>)

I have worked for Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and a couple of other aircraft makers, so have a bit of experience with airplanes.

Unless I have no other way of moving around the world, "if it aint a Boeing, I aint going"... and I am not kidding.

Airbus has a history of doing things to save weight (and thus fuel) that are not always the safest in the industry. The American Airlines airplane that crashed in NYC just after 9/11 had the entire tail come off of the airplane because the pilot used the rudders to dampen some choppy air he was flying through.

Excuse me? You are supposed to be able to use ANY of the flight controls from lock lock but Airbus says "not to use the rudders at certain times" because it stresses the tail too much. WTF??? You will never see a flight restriction like that on a Boeing.

I'm a licenced AME on both type...For a mechanic stand point...the Boeing is better suitable to work on...No surprise...A/C always go out in time...For operational stand point...Airbus is better...cheaper to buy and to operate with one way cockpit for all A/C...all that in my IMHO.

Syl,

How far is your hangar from Shell Aerocenter/Innotech?

We are back in Montreal and flying out this afternoon.

Sorry not much time to talk with everyone last Sunday on Crescent Street!

Joe

Have you ever seen an A340 claw it's way slowly into the sky? An overloaded Cessna has a better rate of climb. IMO it's dangerously underpowered.

Airbus is an extraordinarily poorly run company plagued by political infighting and bad decision making. They bet on the A380- which is years behind schedule and selling poorly- and the cancellations are mounting. Boeing bet on the 787- which is proving to be the fastest selling airliner of all time.

What did Airbus answer with? First a reworked A330, then an a 350 when their customers balked- which is a copy of the 787 but light years away from production. Meanwhile the 777 is kicking their butts.

Without subsidies Airbus would have already gone bankrupt. A shame because the A319 is a nice airplane. It kicked Boeing's butt for awhile and is still cheaper to operate than a 737 from what I've heard.

But Boeing should adopt the one cockpit scheme. No harm in copying the competitor when they have a better idea.

Hi Joe...The Transport Canada hangar is located south side of the control tower...adress is 590 Albert De Niverville, Dorval Intl Airport
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&country=US&popflag=0&lati tude=&longitude=&name=&phone=&level=&addtohistory= &cat=&address=590+albert+de+niverville&city=dorval &state=qc&zipcode=

The Airbus 340 (330) got his certification from FAA on the same basis than the 777...he has to pass and demonstrate all the same parameters...may be look like that...but he got HUGE wings and may be that's why he seem to go slowly...It's an incredible low fuel consumption aircraft...very efficient.

I've always seen Airbus as planes designed by comittee primarily to satisfy political requirements.

I've seen Boeing as planes designed by engineers primarily to satisfy customers.

Does Boeing occasionally put a plant for some sub-assembly in a specific place out of political need? Yes.

Does Airbus occasionally let engineers design the parts of the planes? Yes...

As a frequent flyer (almost every week) I can say from my standpoint that the Boeing planes are more comfortable for the passenger, depending on the seat configuration! Every Airbus I have flown in seems to have a tail "wag" that is more pronounced in the rear of the plane hence I won't sit in the back of an Airbus. the Boeing planes seem to be more "solid" and stable in flight.

I have never flown a large plane but I do heve a few hours in small aircraft.

Just my humble opinion.

Some guys on Airliners.net like to joke that the A340-600 only gets off the ground because of the curvature of the earth.

Nah, they get off the ground because some of them are so ugly that the earth repels them! :)

Living in Minneapolis I have to fly Northwest most of the time. Their aging fleet is mostly Airbuses. I don't know about the rest of the issues, but I do everything I can to get on the flights they use Boeings on because they are so much more comfortable to be in. They just announced they are phasing out their ancient Airbus fleet and going with Boeing.

I understand that both the A340 and 777 have to meet FAA requirements. However, to my knowledge, the A340/200 has (by a big margin) the slowest rate of climb of any current large commercial aircraft- and the later variants aren't much better. The ROC isn't dependent on wing area, but on a number of factors of which wing area is only one (weight/power/drag etc.).

All commerical aircraft have to maintain similar flight profiles but their ability to meet them varies greatly. The rate of climb makes a huge difference in an aircraft's ability to maintain separation (which impacts air traffic delays), the overall flight time, fuel consumption and safety.

The UA flight 828 SFO to SYD incident a few years ago really highlights the latter. (I'm very aware of this as I was due to take that flight). The aircraft was a fully loaded 747 which lost an engine on takeoff. The pilot countered the loss with both aileron and rudder. As a result of using the aileron the plane lost altitude and nearly slammed into south SFO. The FAA and Boeing revised the 747's engine out procedures and training requirements as a result of the incident.

I also believe that Singapore's decision to switch from A340s to 777 was in part based on the former's poor climbing ability. The 777 climbed faster, got there faster and required less maintenance.

I'm not the pro from Dover on this stuff but I can't believe there's a pilot out there who would prefer a slower rate of climb over a faster one. I personally avoid A340s whenever possible (but Virgin's IAD to LHR is pretty darned nice).

MRM when the last A319 is parked a DC9 will be there to ferry the crew home.

The old "Diesel 9" is an industry workhorse and only thing better than it is the DC-3, which will be hauling parts to keep the DC-9 in the air for many years to come

I have some old DC 9/Chuck Norris jokes which I'll relay:

Q: If a DC-9 throttles up and there's nobody around to hear it, does it still make a sound?
A: Yes, because whenever a DC-9 throttles up, the earth itself trembles in fear.

A DC-9s engine does not mimic the sound of thunder; thunder mimics the sound of a DC-9’s engines at takeoff power.

The DC-9 gave birth to the modern regional jet, which it promptly disowned after the regional jet failed to aspire to its father's standards.

That little feeling of joy you get when you wake up on a bright summer morning is there because a DC-9 just took off somewhere.

On the 7th day, God went on vacation. He flew a DC-9.

Little known fact: The DC-9 is the only thing on earth rated for Chuck Norris.

Northwest will not retire the DC-9. The DC-9 will retire Northwest.

A DC-9 does not lift off, it actually pushes the earth down.

Another little known fact: The DC-9 is the only object known to be able to withstand a roundhouse kick from Chuck Norris.

Q: What are DC-9's control cables made from?
A: Chuck Norris' hair.



DC-9s don't get pushed back, they pull the tug with them.

When an A-380 grows up it wants to be a DC-9.

The DC-9 was not built to FAA safety standards. The FAA wrote the standards after examining the DC-9.

Indeed, the MD-80's are the noisiest airplanes that visit Sea-Tac International Airport. No question. And they're beautiful to look at. But they are a Cattle Car, frankly. Moooooooooo........

One thing I've noticed is that Boeing is just good at anticipating opportunity. They'be been doing it for years. Their spec-building of the venerable Dash-80 (707) is legendary. The military did everything they could do to reject Boeing and favor MD, but Boeing knew the military was going to need a large jet.......for refueling if nothing else. Eventually, the military caved.

Lately, as pointed out above, Boeing gambled on the 777. A shrewd and successful gamble. Today, Boeing is betting the farm on the 787. And winning again. The 747 is still the world's favorite Jumbo, and the 737 still has more flight time than any aircraft in history. Boeing is simply the heavyweight champion of the world, and the reason is simple. They know what they're doing and they work hard.

BTW, I recall seeing a special on testing the 777. One test was to clamp the fueselage down and bend the wings upward until they snap. Pretty frickin' impressive. A human would NOT survive a turn so sharp as to bend the wings like that.

From an ATC point of view, it is hard to beat the Boeing.

When the A340 came out it was nicknamed "babe" the pig that thought it could fly....

In the approach control end (both departure and arrival) we like aircraft that respond. Good rates of climb/descent, the ability to slow or accelerate etc make for easier work and quicker trip to the on course.

Over the years the entire fleet has changed it performance characteristics, but it seems even the new 777 can deliver what we need. Now some of the performance end is based around fuel burn, SOP's, deck angle and the need to keep passengers happy (or so the execs tell me) but it appears on the radar screen like the Boieng is just a better perfroming aircraft.

As for the DC 3, out here we have sadly seen 3 crashed (faltaly) and written off. I can't even remember the last time I talked to one. Not many DC-9's around here either.

When all is said and done about the debate, I will always just point to the press demo flight at the Paris Airshow when the Chief Pilot made a perfect landing in the A320, only it touched down in the forest instead of the concrete............

Cheers

A cousin used to work in Northwest's maintenance facility at MSP.

His opinion is that the construction methods of the Airbus line are downright scary. The Boeings are far better built airplanes.

Beautiful Boeing 307 Stratoliner in the foreground with fugly Airbus part hauler in the background. This pic is from Oshkosh a few years ago when the Airbus was used to visit Oshkosh and was full of a bunch of small French airplanes.

IIRC, the restored Stratoliner ended up ditching in water somewhere a couple years ago and I think is being restored again.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1182363582.jpg

For whatever it's worth, I have rather strong opinions on the matter. I've been in and out of the cockpit - mostly large jets - since the early '70s in the USAF and with two major airlines. My degrees are aero and mechanical engineering and now develop software for a living. I give you the background because I won't leave the ground in an Airbus with a model number above 310, and it's not because of ignorance, technophobia, or nationalism.

My objection is to the Airbus philosophy which is that (1) the computers should have more control over the lives of the passengers than the crew, and, (2) there is no need to provide a backup to the computers. That said, there are parts of the world where relying on the computer would be a good decision, but not where the vast majority of us fly. Airbus claims to have statistics that show it's safer that way, but that discussion is long and I thing the assumptions used are flawed. Hence the joke that the next Airbus will have a crew of a Captain and a dog. The Captain is there to feed the dog and the dog is there to bite the Captain if he tries to touch something.

At any rate, the ergonomics of an Airbus cockpit from a comfort standpoint are superb; however, from an operational standpoint they leave much to be desired. Example: the pilots make suggestions to the flight control computers via two joysticks - so what happens if both pilots use their joysticks simultaneously? I asked that question of an NTSB accident investigator I had in my jumpseat, and he stated that first there was no tactile feedback to allow each pilot to know the other was on the controls (ouch!) and second the joysticks are additive - move them opposite directions and they cancel; move them together and the results are amplified (ouch again!). The Airbus cockpit is far too heavily dependent on referencing the correct computer display to let the pilots know what is going on, and deprives the crew of many of the non-visual cues (like control yoke motion) that are so helpful to the crew.

Having an aircraft which is designed to be dynamically unstable allows for reduced fuel burn, but does so at the cost of safety - a computerized flight control system is required to keep the aircraft flying. The safety consequence is that total failure of the flight control computers leaves you with only life insurance as a backup. It was beaten into us in engineering school that a single point of failure is bad design and that a backup system has to be of a different type and with a different failure mode (use manual to back up hydraulics, not hydraulics to back up hydraulics, for example) or else it really isn't a reliable backup. Airbus uses computers to back up the computers. Lightning strike or electronics bay fire, anyone? I asked a friend who is a Captain on an A-320 what he would do in the event of full computer failure. After dancing around the "it's unlikely" responses and facing the reality that if it can happen eventually it will happen he said: "it will be a hell of an airshow". Yep, that's what the passengers paid for.

I could go quite a bit further on this subject, including avoidable accidents in Airbuses, plus friends - and their passengers - who would be dead had they been flying an Airbus instead of a Boeing, but I need to get back to work and I think the point has been made.

~~~~~

Tim - yes, the aircraft was ditched and re-restoration has been finished. I need to see it some time - what a beautiful aircraft!

Supe - The wing failure test is done to all aircraft. When the 767 (iirc) was destruct-tested the wing did not fail, the fuselage failed where it was clamped to the test rig.

Joe - Good point on the AA crash. Controls you can't use are not worth having. The report is a whitewash - I know no pilots of large aircraft who would move the rudder stop-to-stop in flight. You'd have pax and flight attendants bouncing off bulkheads and generating injuries like crazy. The pilots were, in all likelihood, responding to the failure of the vertical stab, not causing it.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1182366442.jpg

Boeing builds airplanes;
Lockheed builds systems;
Douglas builds character.
~~~~~

+1. I'm a tube jockey for them (airframe design).

Most of us remember watching the video of the airplane fly into the forest. This was caused by the pilots over-riding a safety system then the system over-rode the pilots and even when the captain pushed the throttles forwards the engine's did not respond immediately because the frigging computer did not tell them to!

Like Jim says above, I want an airplane that a pilot controls the systems, not one controlled by a computer that feels that the pilots are backup at best. In 37 years of flying I have proven that I can fly the plane, while the computer is still learning at times...

So it's true, Jim, what I heard about pilots. I heard they like having something between their legs.

Joeaksa, I agree with you and Jim 100%. I think Airbus intitially got it 100% ass backwards. Their model is a human monitoring a computor. It should be the other way around.

From where I sit at work, I want to be talking to pilots who are using the controlls. We see better response which helps us out. Nothing worse then trying to fit one on the downwind into a hole between two on final and the plane does not turn or descend like the last one did. Next thing you know you are at the wrong end of a long table explaining your actions.......

Now, RNP is another story. We have designed and are using some pretty impressive RNP approaches to places you could not get to with out it. But that is a little off topic.

Here is one reason I like the Boeing...... Lets say we are departing of 08L/R and a A340 takes off for the Orient (due west). We can't turn for noise until 3000. Well 5 miles later a B67 hops into the air going the same route. The B767 will be westbound on course and 15 miles ahead and 5000 feet higher when the A340 finally gets pointed westbound. (Assuming we turn them both crosswind at 3000)

Cheers

The Airbus surely got something we don't know...they are a big number of them flying around...!

We know what is up. By making an aircraft neutrally stable (or even dynamically unstable) fuel consumption can be slightly reduced. We also know that the aircraft are not being selected by the Operations (pilots and engineers) side of the house.

I will be careful what I say here so........

AirCanada (when gov't owned) bought a whole pile of A320's right after the Paris airshow "incedent". The PrimeMinister of the day (who bought the planes) was later charged with accepting a kick back. (which everyone pretty much assumed took place, though not proven.. :) )

He later sued the RCMP and it got too expensive so they settled out of court with the former Prime Minister pocketing a big wack of change.

Now, Air Canada had B767 Aircraft in their fleet for a few years before they bought some A340/A330 twin aisle heavies. They are still going to have the same B767 in their fleet a few years after they get rid of the last of their A340/A330's. They are moving their twin aisle heavy fleat to B767, B777 and B787 aircraft.

They are also bringing online a bunch of E190 aircraft to replace the A319/320/321 fleet.

Now, I will not comment on the cockpit side of things, as I have only a couple of simulator hours, but the A319 is a pretty good performer in our world, much like a late model B737, but an A321 makes wish they would put the B727 back into production...... :)

Like I said, just my observations from the other end of the radio.....

Cheers

E190?

Embraer?

I flew one of those from Bloomington to Atlanta--a few times. I've hit bad weather dozens of times, but I've never been so scared as when I hit bad weather in that plane. Probably a function of it being so small...

Supe, close...

We are used to having something large inbetween our legs. Some pilots have nuggets so large that they need a wheelbarrow to move them around, the rest of us just drag them along... :)

Yep that is the one....

turbulence? I love flying in bumpy weather, infact as a passenger I admit to once in a while trying to make the scared passengers even more scared........ (childish I know)

Flying over the Alps once between Frankfurt and Faro in an A321, I nearly crapped my pants from the ride. First time I was scared. Mind you, I blame it on the Captain who was acutally yelling through the PA to fasten seatbelts and for the waitresses to buckle up!!

I wish I knew if he decribed the turbulence as moderate or severe to the controllers. We react to both, but often wonder just what an airline pilot considers severe.....

Cheers

Joeaksa, next time you are up my way, PM me and I would love to get together and talk the industry. If you have a bit of a layover of course!

Cheers

Hopefully the Airbus computers don't run Microsoft Windows...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1182395372.jpg

Maybe you should ask these pilots:
http://www.pattywagstaff.com/
http://www.aafo.com/racing/2003/Mary_Dilda_Interview/

Legion, the Embraer 190 looks almost exactly like an Airbus A320 to the General Public and is can even fool seasoned airline pilots due to it's size and shape (over 100,000 pounds and almost an Airbus clone). Are you sure you were on an EMB-190? The Embrare fleet consists of the EMB-120 Brasilia 30 passenger turboprop, the EMB-135/140/145 37 to 50 passenger Regional jets, and the EMB-170/175/190 70 to 110 passenger mainline sized jets.

Just wondering because that 190 is not a small plane.

I remember the good old days of flying in "stretch" 9's... you could see the floor move like a snake when you sat at the back.

Of course that's a good thing, but try telling that the the "anxious" flyer who gets stuck at the back. They tended to ring up a pretty hefty bar tab. ;)

Jim,

Have known Patty for years. She lived in Tucson when I did and very nice person and very good pilot. She is also kinda easy on the eyes...

Good thing you qualified easy on the eyes with "kinda" :D