Automation: Boeing vs. Airbus

[The Victors]

The bus hand flies very nicely, very light on the controls. Before I flew it, I thought it would hand fly like a Boeing in CWS. Not true, it's very natural.

I 'm sorry to remind you, but "you" don't fly the bus. You, as the pilot, provide inputs into a computer through a joystick and the computer decides how IT will do what you are suggesting to fly the plane. Obviously the 777 and future boeings will also be FBW as this is the wave of the future, but the systems are totally different when compared to the bus. The 320 was basically built for no skill, no experience pilots in the third world so that even they couldn't screw the pooch.

 

[The Victors]

not to mention they're built by the French. That says it all.

 

[oldxfr8dog]

I 'm sorry to remind you, but "you" don't fly the bus. You, as the pilot, provide inputs into a computer through a joystick and the computer decides how IT will do what you are suggesting to fly the plane. Obviously the 777 and future boeings will also be FBW as this is the wave of the future, but the systems are totally different when compared to the bus. The 320 was basically built for no skill, no experience pilots in the third world so that even they couldn't screw the pooch.

Well, thanks for the tip, I guess I'll have to white-out the last 3500 hundred hours in my logbook.
Can you tell me how the FBW is different in the 777?
Thanks so much.

 

[Cardinal]

The 320 was basically built for no skill, no experience pilots in the third world so that even they couldn't screw the pooch.

I concur with the rest of your post, but I heard this line over and over, and it's a farce. It took all my aviation experience to stay ahead of the machine in training, and the Bus will do things requiring pilot skill and/or intelligence to fix.

If the aircraft was actually designed with that mission in mind, it's failed miserably. Third world pilots crash A320s with regularity. Despite certain "protections" poor aviating will kill you just as dead in the Airbus.

 

[typhoonpilot]

Can you tell me how the FBW is different in the 777?
Thanks so much.

The 777 pitch control is manuever demand modified for conventional speed stability. I.E., when hand flying you must trim for speed changes. That is a tactile feedback that Boeing wants the pilots to retain. Much like the fact that the thrust levers move when the thrust changes. That feature alone would have prevented at least one major A320 accident.


Typhoonpilot

 

[Babylon]

I currently fly the MD-11 for Fedex and the 737NG for the military and I like the box much better in the MD-11. With the software upgrades on the 11's box it is now just slightly slower than the 737's but much more capable. The limitations of the NG's box drive me nuts (albeit much caused by SWA's same type rating insistence). Having to manually set your speed on an ILS, manually tune an ILS and manuallly input the LOC course is nerve wrecking. Having a secondary flight plan for the "alternate STAR and ILS" on the 11's box is great too. The 737 NG is a Smith box and its backwardness shows compared to a Honeywell. I've found that even with all the correct programming (winds, etc.) on the 737, the VNAV will screw you for altitude limitations half the time unless you start down early . Not sure if that's a function of a poor autopilot or the box but either one it sucks.

 

[Nado]

The automation in the bus would have prevented a crash as well (AA in Columbia with A prot). Boeing and Airbus both build great airplanes, the best one is the one that pays you to fly it in my opinion.

After that small fire in Okinawa with a 737 recently, I don't recall seeing one thread on this board about it, but I am sure if it was a Bus, it would have been open season on Airbus. Just the American in all of us speaking up. Some guys sound like a bunch of little *itches talking about this stuff
.

Its the eye of the beholder and all.