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Fly By Wire w/ bad IRS results in another Airbus upset

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I'll be the first to admit Fifi has a messed up FMS system, but for early 80's technology it is a pretty nice ride. I'll trade the FMS frustration for a roomy comfortable flight deck with a tray table to eat my meal on anyday.

Having the pleasure of a brief exposure to infra red HGS, graphical flight planning and synthetic vision during my stint in the Gulfstream 450/550, even the "high tech" Airbus is showing her age and needs updating.

For the "Boeing or I'm not going" crowd, what do you think of the 787's lack of anything but electrics? I see a lot of teething issues with that thing, and I'm not just talking composite structure damage tolerance in an airline environment.

BTW, we had standard items on the G450/550 that will be "future options" on the 787. I've been in the airline world long enough to know optional equipment means no airline will ever order the extra toys.

Too bad, as the IR HGS really gives one a fantastic situational awareness and greatly improves safety.
 
True, if it costs more, the airlines will not order it. If they could equip our airplanes with a Directional Gyro and remote CDI and still get CATIII that is the approach they would take.

Ralph - I know very little about the all electric systems, but there have been multiple failures of Bus Power Control Units (I've had one) which take out every single electrical system on the airplane. In these designs the BPCU was the single point failure that would take down the rest of the busses as they either were isolated, or isolated themselves through their protective circuitry.

I doubt the 787 will have a single BPCU running the operation of the busses.
 
I don't think that the electrons are any better in the Airbus vs the Boeing. I think it comes down to design philosophy. Airbus engineers seem to think they know better than any pilot and do everything technology (and the public) will allow to take the pilots out of the loop as much as possible, no matter what the situation.
Boeing engineers have done the mostly the same thing with the big exception of, they left the little red button on the yoke. Because, there just might be some situation that they had not thought of, and just maybe the pilot will need to do something with this aircraft not in the programming.
Examples like really strong unpredictable crosswinds, or mountain waves, or maybe even a low pass the pilots messed up, and now they need to get out of dodge using just airmanship.
No matter what your thoughts are on the A vs B debate, they design philosophy between the two companies should be something that is clear.
 

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