Once there was a saying "If it ain't Boeing, I'm not going " Back then, Airbus had been plagued by issues with its fly-by-wire control systems, which (at the time) could override the pilot's inputs and fly a plane into the ground.
Fast foward a few decades and Airbus's systems are pretty reliable, since they've been forced to allow that their algorithms aren't always smarter than the pilots (aviation regulations are written in blood, as another saying goes).
… Now it's Boeing that's in the news every few days because of quality-control issues.
The thing about taking shortcuts, cutting oversight, and squeezing pennies in aviation is that the problems don't always surface right away.
You think you got away with it, but then years or decades later stuff starts falling off b/c of wrong fasteners, shoddy work, poor design, etc. You might never win back that public trust, even if your overall safety record is still good.
@david_megginson I have a question about Airbus fly-by-wire. I understand from reading about AF447 that at least as of that time, Airbus averages disparate control inputs. Do you know whether that changed as a result of the AF447 investigation?
I recall after the accident there was some industry interest in synthetic air data ... somehow computing your airspeed without needing a pitot tube out in the air that can be fouled by ice or a plague of locust. I've tugged on that thread a little bit, I think with some interesting results, but my stuff is a mess and I keep starting over because I keep having ideas for improvements before I finish the last round!
There seems to be discussion of two joysticks that aren't physically linked together being part of the issue here as well. The above poster (Reg) seems to discount that as a leading factor which is interesting to me ... it's the first I've heard someone express how easy it would be to know this is happening by just looking over. But I also know in the middle of chaos it's easy to miss things that would otherwise seem pretty obvious.
My only other comment, from personal experience, I was onboard an A319 (Northwest airlines when my kids were young) when we had a complete failure of the right engine. It somehow injested itself. There was a loud bang followed by the whole aircraft shaking with high vibration, and a surprising number of rosaries immediately came out. But from the perspective of FBW and pilot training, the airplane tracked perfectly true throughout. There was nary a wiggle or shimmy or even the tiniest yaw divergence that was perceptible. I was quite impressed actually. Much less impressed with the airline who gave use each a $5 long distance calling card to compensate us for the trauma and trouble.
@mcdanlj@david_megginson Oh, one more quick thought: I've also flown an A320 full motion sim used to train actual pilots, and it was about the easiest thing I've ever flown in my life. I nailed a good landing on my first try and a nearly perfect landing on my 2nd try (the sim was setup with perfect clear weather with no failures and faults ... so I'm not bragging, real life would have been different, but just pointing out how much I like the airbus FBW system.)
@clolsonus From what I understand, it's a good system for normal flying, and has probably averted some unknown number of pilot-error accidents, but it took them a few decades to harden it into a good system for abnormal flying.
As we discovered initially with our new LRT system in Ottawa (trains by Alstom), whenever a manufacturer says their new system can't fail because of its great technology, just start counting down … 🙁 (fortunately, we haven't had any major injuries, just delays).
@david_megginson Mode confusion is a real thing ... you expect the FBW system to behave one way, but instead it is behaving some other way [due to a fault or something unexpected or abnormal] and then the pilot fights the system often leading to bad outcomes. The scary thing about the boeing mcas system is that instead of degrading it's protection or assistance, it just drove the airplane hard into the ground ... it wasn't doing anything reasonable in that situation and the pilots needed to know how to turn it off or reset it, but boeing advertised the max as just another 737 so no new training needed.
I also hope I'm being extremely careful not to criticize ... these are extremely complex systems, and the failure scenarios that we /can't/ expect or anticipate are infinite, and we are mere humans ... about the time we get good enough to do useful things we are hitting retirement age. The industry is continuously shedding people with whole careers worth of experience ... and that is really difficult to replace, especially when all the evtol companies witth all their fancy VC $$$'s are sucking all the experienced people out of the room. That said, at the moment it sure seems like boeing could be doing better, and that includes boeing leadership. 2024 could be a good year for companies like Airbus and Embraer... but I'm sure boeing will also do fine because they have a gazzilion military contracts and those aren't going anywhere.
@clolsonus@david_megginson When I did the weekend warrior/ Walter Mitty 737 training lo these many years ago, I was similarly impressed, though no FBW characteristics were being modeled. Hand-flew an ILS to minimums in gusty, stormy weather, put the mains down on the markers, and made the high-speed turn-off.
The only real trick after flying a small plane was that while roll was still quick, pitch was ponderous.
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