Boeing vs Airbus

Rouxenator

Rouxenator

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Seems a lot more airbus planes have gone missing or crashed lately. I guess that is a +1 for Boeing
 
Rouxenator said:
Seems a lot more airbus planes have gone missing or crashed lately. I guess that is a +1 for Boeing
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I'm going to post an airline pilot's response to that idea on AVCOM:

Just finished a CRM refresher today, spent the whole day analysing accidents, to say it's an Airbus problem shows lack of understanding accident statistics (please don't take offence). The 737 had its fair share of accidents due to the rudder PCU (power control unit) far more than modern airliners, you have to look at accidents per million flights, I was quite shocked to see how the accident rate has dropped over the last 20 years. I will ask the CRM instructors tomorrow for the graphs and post them here.
I have been fortunate enough to fly Airbus for the last eight years and in that time I have had one air turn back, it was due to a coupling from the engine bleed breaking and we got a bleed leak.
I flew 737-200s for five years and had four air turn backs.
I was P3 on 747-400s for two years and had two air turn backs.
If you ask me which was the most enjoyable to fly I would say the 747-400, but I have loved flying all the Boeing and Airbus products.
In our CRM course we studied two fatal crashes, one 737-800 and one A330-200 both times the crew flew a fully serviceable aircraft into the deck, we then studied two other incidents where the crew nearly flew fully serviceable aircraft into the deck.
This whole IF ITS NOT BOEING IM NOT GOING mentality is a bit uneducated to me, I would rather look at the training and track record of the airline. Lack of comunication, lack of situation awareness and lack of systems knowledge seems to be the biggest cause of accidents.
After reviewing accidents and incidents I am thankful for the training I have received at SAA.
My opinion (note the word opinion) is that we have one of the best training departments in the world and I have had instruction from some of the best instructors in the world.
The fact that SAA is the first airline to train the IATA recommended UPRT course just speaks volumes.
I personaly won't speculate on this crash, but will rather wait for the findings and hopefully learn something.
My thoughts and prayers are with the family members of the crew and pax.
RIP

Neil
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Source: http://www.avcom.co.za/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=153537&start=75#p1574824

He has a very good point.
My example to put it into context:
Send 1000 Toyota Quantum taxi's to South Africa and 1000 Mercedes Vito's to Germany.
Now compare the fatal accident stats after 10 years of operation and blame Toyota for making bad vehicles.
 
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Boeing wins for me...Airbus makes soulless aircraft for strictly commercial reasons.

The A380 is mighty impressive but Airbus just bores me
 
In my view they're both magnificent aircraft makers, their planes beautifully engineered. In the end, choosing between them is a fanboi thing - different brands appeal to people in different ways.

Personally, I'm a Merc guy and would generally choose Merc over BMW, for example. I prefer Boeing to Airbus. Its history is longer and more romantic. I've visited the 747 plant in Everett, and the Airbus assembly plant in Toulouse.

My only slight edginess about Airbus is that - given their genesis and history - they're perhaps a tad too close to some European governments, which makes me sometimes wonder if air crash investigations by the agencies of those same governments have been and will be 100% impartial. The French particularly.
 
Boeing and reading articles like this just reinforces my preference

Yet if Bonin was now beyond his knowledge and experience, the key to understanding the crash is Robert’s failure to grasp the mistake being made by his colleague. It is here that Airbus’s cockpit design may be at fault.
Like all other aircraft in the modern Airbus range the A330 is controlled by side sticks beside pilots’ seats, which resemble those on computer game consoles. These side sticks are not connected to the aircraft control surfaces by levers and pulleys, as in older aircraft. Instead commands are fed to computers, which in turn send signals to the engines and hydraulics. This so-called fly-by-wire technology has huge advantages. Doing away with mechanical connections saves weight, and therefore fuel. There are fewer moving components to go wrong, the slender electronic wiring and computers all have multiple back‑ups, and the onboard processors take much of the workload off pilots. Better still, they are programmed to compensate for human error.

The side sticks are also wonderfully clever. Once a command is given, say a 10-degree left turn, the pilot can let the stick go and concentrate on other issues while the 10-degree turn is perfectly maintained. According to Stephen King of the British Airline Pilots’ Association, it’s an admired and popular design. “Most Airbus pilots I know love it because of the reliable automation that allows you to manage situations and not be so fatigued by the mechanics of flying.”

But the fact that the second pilot’s stick stays in neutral whatever the input to the other is not a good thing. As King concedes: “It’s not immediately apparent to one pilot what the other may be doing with the control stick, unless he makes a big effort to look across to the other side of the flight deck, which is not easy. In any case, the side stick is held back for only a few seconds, so you have to see the action being taken.”
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Whatever the cultural differences, there is a perceived safety issue, too. The American manufacturer was concerned about side sticks’ lack of visual and physical feedback. Indeed, it is hard to believe AF447 would have fallen from the sky if it had been a Boeing. Had a traditional yoke been installed on Flight AF447, Robert would surely have realised that his junior colleague had the lever pulled back and mostly kept it there. When Dubois returned to the cockpit he would have seen that Bonin was pulling up the nose.

There is another clever gizmo on the Airbus intended to make life simpler for the pilots but that could confound them if they are distracted and overloaded. Computers can automatically adjust the engine thrust to maintain whatever speed is selected by the crew. This means pilots do not need to keep fine-tuning the throttles on the cockpit’s centre console to control the power. But a curious feature of “autothrust” is that it bypasses the manual levers entirely – they simply do not move. This means pilots cannot sense the power setting by touching or glancing at the throttle levers. Instead, they have to check their computer screens. Again Boeing have adopted a different philosophy. They told the Telegraph: “We have heard again and again from airline pilots that the absence of motion with the Airbus flight deck is rather unsettling to them.” In Boeing’s system the manual handles move, even in automatic mode.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/9231855/Air-France-Flight-447-Damn-it-were-going-to-crash.html
 
Alan said:
Boeing and reading articles like this just reinforces my preference






http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/9231855/Air-France-Flight-447-Damn-it-were-going-to-crash.html
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Yeah, if you cant see the throttles moving pysically and the trim tabs moving by themselves, you get the feeling their broken,
(Pretty cool standing on the flight deck of a 737 and seeing them move by themselves, like the invisible man is flying the plane)

Airbus should have made this a feature so even without looking you know its working,

Thats why on cars with power steering its litrally a art to give you an indication what the front wheels doing. Technically they can get rid of the wheel and replace it with a stick to drive a car.

If it was up to airbus, all planes would be flown from the ground like a uav.
They interested in technology, not people,
Their design philosophy is the computer never messes up so lets get rid of the pilot and make him just a passenger....
 
Well, it would appear as if neither one would have been safe in this instance, as the Pilot apparently decided to commit suicide... :(
 
Fazda said:
Well, it would appear as if neither one would have been safe in this instance, as the Pilot apparently decided to commit [-]suicide[/-] homicide... :(
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Fixed. Sadistic coward ...
 
Just proves once again that one shouldn't read too much into the make of the aircraft involved. This suicide (and murder!) would have happened whether they were flying a Boeing or an Airbus.

One should also keep in mind, that when it comes to mainstream commercial flights, the majority of aircraft are Boeings and Airbii...there is not a hundred different makes like with cars.
 
eg2505 said:
If it was up to airbus, all planes would be flown from the ground like a uav.
They interested in technology, not people,
Their design philosophy is the computer never messes up so lets get rid of the pilot and make him just a passenger....
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If that were the case than this pilot suicide wouldn't have happened. :( :cry:
 
bluepoole said:
Just proves once again that one shouldn't read too much into the make of the aircraft involved. This suicide (and murder!) would have happened whether they were flying a Boeing or an Airbus.

One should also keep in mind, that when it comes to mainstream commercial flights, the majority of aircraft are Boeings and Airbii...there is not a hundred different makes like with cars.
Click to expand...

Could change soon. Bombardier is entering the big airliner market, Comac will start test flights of its C919 set to compete with Boeing and Airbus headon, the Superjet 100 will enter service with a western customer (though delayed) in the next few year and Japan is near starting test flights of Mutsibushi MRJ. But yes, when it comes to dominance, Airbus and Boeing are the main guys.
 
Rouxenator said:
Seems a lot more airbus planes have gone missing or crashed lately. I guess that is a +1 for Boeing
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Before reading the Germanwings thread I didn't think of you as either an idiot or a troll, I'm not so sure now.

But just to disprove your strange idea that all Boeing aircraft are better/safer than all Airbus aircraft.

A 25 September 2009 entry on the AirSafe.com News described the contents of the following video, which lists popular airliner models with the five lowest fatal plane crash rates. As of 26 March 2015, the order of the airline models with the five lowest crash rates (for models with at least two million flights) has changed, with the Airbus A320 dropping to fifth place due to the March 2015 Germanwings crash in France:

0.00 - Airbus A340
0.07 - Boeing 747-400
0.08 - Boeing 737-600/700/800/900
0.10 - Airbus A320 (includes A318, A319, A321)
0.15 - Boeing 737-300/400/500**
0.17 - Embraer 170/190
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So even after the Germanwings crash the A320 is statistically a safer aircraft than all Boeing aircraft except the 737-600/700/800/900 and the 747-400.

http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm
 
airsafe.com is therefore owned by a subsidiarity or subsidiarity proxy via intermediary, of airbus.
 
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