Hello,Methink you will be scared to fly in the next boeing generation planehttp://www.boeing.com/commercial/787family/programfacts.htmlRegards.Gus.

You're right -- I wouldn't ride in it. I'd ride a second generation composite aircraft from either Airbus or Boeing, but the industry isn't there yet. The crashes needed to show the engineers what to avoid haven't all happened yet.It's not a matter of fear, just of minimizing risk. When you look both ways before crossing a street is it because you're scared? Of course not.

20 plus years of passenger service is not a guarantee of a design without an easily exposed fatal flaw... That was the lesson of Concorde. Ironically, it was the first airliner where computers were essential to flight safety but the designers apparently got that part right...Robert

20 plus years of passenger service is not a guarantee of a design without an easily exposed fatal flaw... That was the lesson of Concorde. Ironically, it was the first airliner where computers were essential to flight safety but the designers apparently got that part right...Robert

There had been fuel tank punctures prior to the Paris crash, and there had been blown tires as I recall, but nobody ever put the scenarios together. Would I have ridden Concorde? Five years after it entered passenger service, yes. But twenty years after launch, when maintenance costs began to soar, no.The situation with Shuttle is the same. NASA keeps touting a 1% chance of a flight ending in disaster, a risk the astronauts obviously find acceptable -- but as the vehicles become harder to maintain they become less safe. You have only to look at the solid booster insulation situation. The stuff has always flaked off but it's only in the last six years that the chunks of stuff have done actual damage to the thermal tiles.

There had been fuel tank punctures prior to the Paris crash, and there had been blown tires as I recall, but nobody ever put the scenarios together.

Actually, there had been fuel tank punctures resulting from blown tires prior to the crash. One photo I remember seeing was of a concorde taking off with a massive fuel leak from the wing, as a result of a burst tire. The fuel had not ignited on that occasion.

Hello,Google translation ......

14 June 1979: F-BVFC off from Washington Dulles. D

Hello,Google translation ......Source:http://pagesperso-orange.fr/enperspective/concorde.htmlRegards.Gus.

Right -- A classic example of what happens when governments are allowed to manage industries. No private enterprise was willing to build such an aircraft, and no privately-owned airline could have afforded to accept the ruinous financial losses ...And there are strong rumors that maybe, just maybe, governments are subsidizing Boeing's transport aircraft division ... Oh wait, that's Airbus Industrie.

As I recall we're talking about total available rudder pedal travel of less than three inches with, say, an inch of travel producing an increasing rudder displacement as airspeed built. It was this aspect of the control law software that was redesigned.

The pedal force required to get full rudder deflection at 250kt is about 30 lb for an A300-600 and about 60lb on a B777. The First Officer applied about 140lb. Whatever aircraft he was flying he'd have applied full rudder with the same consequences.This view is supported by Boeing's advice, which applies to all Boeing, Douglas, and McDonnell Douglas aircraft:If the pilot reacts to an abrupt roll onset with a large rudder input in the opposite direction, the pilot can induce large amplitude oscillations. The large amplitude oscillations can generate loads that exceed the limit loads and possibly the ultimate loads, which could result in structural damage

You have only to look at the early Comet crashes – and the Electra engine pod whirl mode crashes -- to understand the limitations of standard static load testing.

The Comet crashes were due to fatigue, not vibration. This was established by static testing. The Electra crashes arose, I understand, because damage to the engine mounts (possibly as a result of heavy landings) reduced their stiffness which changed their frequency of vibration to one that resonated with the wing.

That's a very lawyerly way of looking at things,

No – it's an engineering way. When I worked in the aircraft industry in the UK the design bible was AvP 970. (The current bible is Defence Standard 00-970 Part 1 - Design and Airworthiness Requirements for Service Aircraft). There are thousands of engineering standards, BS, ISO, EN etc that engineers widely use in their work. For example, BS 5400 is the British Standard for design and construction of steel, concrete and composite bridges use in for roads and railways. What other approach should engineers use?

All airplane designs are less than perfect but that's not my point. The question on the floor is the relative imperfection of fourth generation Boeing designs versus fourth generation Airbus designs. I'm asserting that the flaws in the Airbus design, attributable to pioneering use of carbon fiber parts, will continue to manifest themselves.

The NTSB devoted a section to the analysis of the vertical stabiliser1.6.4 Airplane Certification1.6.4.1 Loads Certification for the Vertical Stabilizer1.6.4.1.1 Federal Aviation Regulation1.6.4.1.2 Public Hearing Testimony on Section 25.3511.6.4.1.3 Complementary Conditions1.6.4.2 Design Loads for the Vertical Stabilizer1.6.4.3 Vertical Stabilizer Certification Tests1.6.4.3.1 Validity of the Full-Scale Vertical Stabilizer Certification Test1.6.4.3.2 Validity of the Attachment Fitting Certification Tests 1.6.4.4 Yaw Axis Certification Requirements It found no faults.Your definition of inadequate appears to be that if a fault occurs in service the design is inadequate. On that basis the design of every aircraft is inadequate, so using the word is meaningless.

Right -- A classic example of what happens when governments are allowed to manage industries. No private enterprise was willing to build such an aircraft, and no privately-owned airline could have afforded to accept the ruinous financial losses ...And there are strong rumors that maybe, just maybe, governments are subsidizing Boeing's transport aircraft division ... Oh wait, that's Airbus Industrie.

Of course they are both being subsidised and it's foolish to think otherwise.

We're mainly going in circles here, Gerry so I'm only going to respond to a couple of points after which I'll make a general response. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxYou wrote "The pedal force required to get full rudder deflection at 250kt is about 30 lb for an A300-600 and about 60lb on a B777. The First Officer applied about 140lb. Whatever aircraft he was flying he'd have applied full rudder with the same consequences."First of all I can't imagine where you got an authoritative figure about how much force the F/O used. Secondly, before the redesign of the software the force required DECREASED with increasing airspeed.Second, they won't have been doing anything like 250 knots. They were in the "Breezy Point climb" which is one of the several noise abatement climbs out of JFK. These are low power / low airspeed climbs and I will guess (yes, guess, an educated guess) that they were doing 200 knots or less when they hit the turbulence. At that point the the airspeed was allowed to build, revealing what I consider to be the fatal design flaw, regardless of what you or any certification agency has to say.But applied force wasn't the problem. The problem was the unusually short full travel rudder depression distance of three inches with, to my knowledge, little artificial feel -- just a constant force over a very short distance. This does not make for precise flying in conditions of significant turbulence, which is what they encountered.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxRe the Comet, it took SIX WEEKS of testing, the goal of which was to establish when in the fuselage life cycle catastrophic fatigue cracks might occur, and where in the airframe they might occur. As I recall, they had to halt the testing at one point to patch the fuselage, which had failed non-catastrophically. So this was not normal static testing, especially because they filled the fuselage with water, not air. They tested the entire fuselage to destruction, again not normal for that day and age. Most importantly, that testing occured AFTER THE FUSELAGE FAILURE crashes, not before. So any static testing done before the crash was limited in nature and LIMITED IN VALUE.Of course extreme static testing CAN be used to destroy anything. But extreme static testing is not what's normally done. A 777 wing was statically tested to destruction -- but to my knowledge they never tested a fuselage to destruction, nor any of the empennage structures or control surfaces.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI never faulted either the design engineers or the certification authorities. What I said was that in view of the catastrophic Airbus events, the design had proven itself to be inadequate. It should not be possible to destroy an airframe the way that copilot was able to.Furthermore, to the best of my recollection the Boeing language you cite was developed and published AFTER the Queens crash, not before.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxFinally, I'll retract my word "lawyerly" and instead use the word "bureaucratic". Yours is exactly the kind of defense I would expect from a certification agency. "We did nothing wrong therefore the design of this aircraft is, by definition, adequate".The implication is that redesign would be silly -- because neither the engineers nor the certification authorities had done anything wrong in the sense of culpability.But by your reasoning there would be no need for the art of airframe engineering design to advance -- because everything had, by definition, been hunky-dory when the Queens crash occurred. And yes, any airframe design that comes apart in anything like normal service is, in my book, inadequate by definition. Surely you're not going to claim that all airframes experience catastrophic destruction at the hands of the flight crew?Remember, the captain said to the F/O "Stay on it. Stay on it." He thought (erroneously of course) that the F/O's actions were HELPING the situation. In other words, he thought that what the F/O was doing was reasonable and, by implication, it never occurred to him that the F/O's actions would result in the destruction of the airframe, NOR SHOULD IT HAVE OCCURRED TO HIM.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI'll give you the last word because I'm not up for the kind of never-ending contest of wills that we had during the piracy discussions. I will let you "win" though the readers can decide for themselves the significance of the correct but misleading arguments you often put forth.When I responded to your first post I never said that you are always right, only that your posts are always grounded in facts and reasoning. The trick is always to find the distortions you engage in and respond to those -- as I've done here.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI will also observe for the benefit of the readership that you almost never start threads, or discussions withing threads. Your style is to lie in wait and snipe -- which is fine, I just want the readership to understand who my learned opponent (you) is in a forum debate sense.

Of course they are both being subsidised and it's foolish to think otherwise.

Tell us about those subsidies -- and I'll give you the last word. But don't cite the fact that Boeing makes a profit on its military business because reinvesting those profits in the commercial division is capitalism and not the way things are done in Europe, which places no such requirements on Airbus Industrie.Over to you for the last word. (See folks? I take risks. Gerry never does.)

First of all I can't imagine where you got an authoritative figure about how much force the F/O used. Secondly, before the redesign of the software the force required DECREASED with increasing airspeed.

It's in the NTSB Report.the highest force applied by the pilot during the accident sequence was about 140 pounds but that the pedal force required to reach the rudder travel limit during that time was about 30 pounds

Second, they won't have been doing anything like 250 knots. They were in the "Breezy Point climb" which is one of the several noise abatement climbs out of JFK. These are low power / low airspeed climbs and I will guess (yes, guess, an educated guess) that they were doing 200 knots or less when they hit the turbulence. At that point the the airspeed was allowed to build, revealing what I consider to be the fatal design flaw, regardless of what you or any certification agency has to say.

It's in the NSTB ReportAt 0915:48.2, the first officer indicated that he wanted the airspeed set to 250 knots...At 0915:54.2, the first officer stated, in a strained voice, "max power."15 At that point, the airplane was traveling at 240 knot...At 0915:58.5, the CVR recorded the sound of a loud bang.17 At that time, the airplane was traveling at an airspeed of about 251 knotsYou really should have read the report.

Tell us about those subsidies -- and I'll give you the last word. But don't cite the fact that Boeing makes a profit on its military business because reinvesting those profits in the commercial division is capitalism and not the way things are done in Europe, which places no such requirements on Airbus Industrie.Over to you for the last word. (See folks? I take risks. Gerry never does.)

Try this link from a US university. http://igeographer.lib.indstate.edu/pritchard.pdf

We're mainly going in circles here, Gerry so I'm only going to respond to a couple of points after which I'll make a general response. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxYou wrote "The pedal force required to get full rudder deflection at 250kt is about 30 lb for an A300-600 and about 60lb on a B777. The First Officer applied about 140lb. Whatever aircraft he was flying he'd have applied full rudder with the same consequences."First of all I can't imagine where you got an authoritative figure about how much force the F/O used. Secondly, before the redesign of the software the force required DECREASED with increasing airspeed.Second, they won't have been doing anything like 250 knots. They were in the "Breezy Point climb" which is one of the several noise abatement climbs out of JFK. These are low power / low airspeed climbs and I will guess (yes, guess, an educated guess) that they were doing 200 knots or less when they hit the turbulence. At that point the the airspeed was allowed to build, revealing what I consider to be the fatal design flaw, regardless of what you or any certification agency has to say.But applied force wasn't the problem. The problem was the unusually short full travel rudder depression distance of three inches with, to my knowledge, little artificial feel -- just a constant force over a very short distance. This does not make for precise flying in conditions of significant turbulence, which is what they encountered.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxRe the Comet, it took SIX WEEKS of testing, the goal of which was to establish when in the fuselage life cycle catastrophic fatigue cracks might occur, and where in the airframe they might occur. As I recall, they had to halt the testing at one point to patch the fuselage, which had failed non-catastrophically. So this was not normal static testing, especially because they filled the fuselage with water, not air. They tested the entire fuselage to destruction, again not normal for that day and age. Most importantly, that testing occured AFTER THE FUSELAGE FAILURE crashes, not before. So any static testing done before the crash was limited in nature and LIMITED IN VALUE.Of course extreme static testing CAN be used to destroy anything. But extreme static testing is not what's normally done. A 777 wing was statically tested to destruction -- but to my knowledge they never tested a fuselage to destruction, nor any of the empennage structures or control surfaces.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI never faulted either the design engineers or the certification authorities. What I said was that in view of the catastrophic Airbus events, the design had proven itself to be inadequate. It should not be possible to destroy an airframe the way that copilot was able to.Furthermore, to the best of my recollection the Boeing language you cite was developed and published AFTER the Queens crash, not before.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxFinally, I'll retract my word "lawyerly" and instead use the word "bureaucratic". Yours is exactly the kind of defense I would expect from a certification agency. "We did nothing wrong therefore the design of this aircraft is, by definition, adequate".The implication is that redesign would be silly -- because neither the engineers nor the certification authorities had done anything wrong in the sense of culpability.But by your reasoning there would be no need for the art of airframe engineering design to advance -- because everything had, by definition, been hunky-dory when the Queens crash occurred. And yes, any airframe design that comes apart in anything like normal service is, in my book, inadequate by definition. Surely you're not going to claim that all airframes experience catastrophic destruction at the hands of the flight crew?Remember, the captain said to the F/O "Stay on it. Stay on it." He thought (erroneously of course) that the F/O's actions were HELPING the situation. In other words, he thought that what the F/O was doing was reasonable and, by implication, it never occurred to him that the F/O's actions would result in the destruction of the airframe, NOR SHOULD IT HAVE OCCURRED TO HIM.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI'll give you the last word because I'm not up for the kind of never-ending contest of wills that we had during the piracy discussions. I will let you "win" though the readers can decide for themselves the significance of the correct but misleading arguments you often put forth.When I responded to your first post I never said that you are always right, only that your posts are always grounded in facts and reasoning. The trick is always to find the distortions you engage in and respond to those -- as I've done here.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI will also observe for the benefit of the readership that you almost never start threads, or discussions withing threads. Your style is to lie in wait and snipe -- which is fine, I just want the readership to understand who my learned opponent (you) is in a forum debate sense.

before i begin....i scimmed over most of the posts in this thread and i have not read one NTSB report excpet for one that happend at the airport where in currently taking flying lessons.im going to put in my two cents here. IT seems both sides of the story are very logical. On the other hand, Mike im gathering form this qouted post that the pilots should not have had to worry about structural failure becasue airbuses systems should have caught the pilot attampts at defelction and therefore should have kept more deflection from taking place. Am I right? If so, are pilots trained about structural speeds,,,,hence all those V speeds like Vle. Thats just one example. It seems that the pilots were to blame and not just the aircraft and the systems. My POV is that the Airbus family should be less automated and more humanicated (i know thats not a word). Comuters shouldnt be flying the plane base off of a pilot's input. The pilot shoudl be flying the pane based off of what he feels. There is no room for fly by wire in the commercial aviation world. Theres no need. Pilot's should know their aircraft's limitations. This could go into the argumen tof a pilot's experince. My opinion can go both ways and i would still get on an airbus however id be thinking in the back of my mind what the systems are doing.Also, i hate to say this but sometimes people just learn from their mistakes. Aviation accidents will always happen. No engineer or mechanic or scientist will know what will happen to the airframe of a new plane. All they have to go by is previos accidents and commen law of engineering. In order to make things better, things need to happen. One can't prevent something form happenign that has never happened. Also, for everyone who thinks being a passenger means having experience, we dont log hrs for riding in the back of a plane. Dont use that in any of your arguments. It sounds foolish to atest to that fact when comparing how safe to families of aircraft are. Becasue, we all know that none of us know how in depth the systems are in the two family of aircraft....UNLESS we fly them, or we are mechanics who work on them or we actually designed them ourselves.

So what did it miss there? Your broad unsubstantiated claims that there are some deep design flaws with the Airbus fleet. Sorry, but there are no statistical data to support your claim, no single serious aviation magazine that I am aware of arrived at such a conclusion, no government aviation safety board (NTSB/FAA included) grounded Airbus fleet because of those "flaws". So in short you are your own expert, OK, but there are 1 mln such "experts" like you on the streets every moment. No, you are not partisan you are just singing in the rain ...

Found this...http://pwm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/5/2/147 and http://www.cluteinstitute-onlinejournals.com/PDFs/1594.pdf (see page 129 particularly).These are interesting independent studies but will not be acceptable to Mike - independent facts rarely are! Best regardsJohn

Found this...http://pwm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/5/2/147 and http://www.cluteinstitute-onlinejournals.com/PDFs/1594.pdf (see page 129 particularly).These are interesting independent studies but will not be acceptable to Mike - independent facts rarely are! Best regardsJohn

Folks,I haven't been reading this thread. I really haven't. But I saw the name "sandgate" on the post before this one and I couldn't resist reading it. So ...xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWhy, bless my soul! I'll be hornswoggled if it isn't my good friend John Sandgate! Mighty clever use of that exclamation point, John!I haven't read Outer Marker in eighteen months but given your Avsim post count of four I conclude that things have gotten too hot for you there. So ... Welcome to The Hangar, old boy. Your august person will be treated, by all concerned, with the level of deference you deserve. Now ...xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxFolks,Unless I'm sorely mistaken, sandgate has just used the old "he was talking about recent aircraft designs but I'll cleverly cite reports that discuss older designs and hope that nobody will notice" trick ...I've always been impressed with sandgate's debating skills, which remind me of the following Russian political joke from the 1950s regarding a race between a Russian car and an American car, won by the American car ..."An international automobile race was held yesterday. The Russian car came in second while the American car came in next-to-last."(Oh, gosh darn it all, I've shown my Ugly American ignorance again! I should have written "whilst"!)And now I'll give you the last word, which post I will not read. (That's very like Milton, John. You know -- as in "Those are pearls that were his eyes".) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx(This business of not reading the replies of people who cannot be silenced is proving to be a winning strategy for me. It allows me to turn the tables and return the sniper's fire without my getting stuck to the tar baby, if you'll forgive the mixed metaphors.)