Boring airliners?

Jay Honeck wrote:

I wonder if they've addressed the rudder pedal boost, which was apparently
much more sensitive than necessary?

It was necessary because the rudder must have enough authority to keep
the plane straight if flown on only two engines on the same side. The
investigation of the accident (to which you apparently refer) clearly
states that most other airliners (747 comes to mind) would also have
lost its rudder. But I would think they have enhanced the software to
limit rudder usage, although I don't know. I don't know, either, whether
the involved airline has enhanced their pilot training. Do you really
want to restart this discussion?

Stefan

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
Now the A380 is surely a marvel of modern engineering, as is the Boeing
7E7 (787? Dreamliner?).

But fundamentally...it's yet another tube with wings with two or four
engines on pylons below the wings. I'm really disappointed that Boeing
dropped the Sonic Cruiser, a much more interesting proposition.

I'm also wonder what the point of the 7E7 is - surely the
midsize longhaul jet market is already adequately served by the 777?
Could they just not make incremental improvements to the 777 in the same
way they've done with the 737 for years?


Development costs would have killed the Sonic Cruiser. Yes, teh A380 is
pretty unremarkable, but it's based on proven technology.

The 757 does as many milk runs (UK int Europe and vice versa) as any 737
ever did, but with greater capacity.

I thought it was the width compared to narrow taxiways/gate areas that
limited the operations, rather than the weight.

I'm sure they could fly it in empty if weight were the problem.

"Corky Scott" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 28 Apr 2005 13:14:37 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

P.S. Not a lot of comments from the US about the A380 now it flies.

It's an impressive bird. I'm looking forward to seeing it at OSH
someday...

What else can be said?

Not sure it can land there. I read that it's so heavy, only a few
airports in the US can take it.

Corky Scott

Boeing dropped the Sonic Cruiser because the airlines convinced them to.
The speed increase over standard subsonic didn't gain you enough time to
make it worth paying extra for a ticket. For instance, London to New York
(the most profitable city pair in the world) is an average of about 7-8
hours. The Sonic Cruiser would only save about 45 - 60 mins but would cost
substantially more to operate. With a steady stream of 747s and 777s going
between the two, there's plenty of capacity at cheap prices so people would
have to value the time saved more than the money spent on the ticket. Time
saved wasn't going to be substantial enough to make it viable. It was only
supposed to be high-subsonic or low supersonic (can't remember which) but it
wasn't going to be Mach 2 like Concorde, so the speed difference was too
small.

Boeing were told to apply the same technological development to a
super-efficient (hence the "E" in 7E7) subsonic airliner of 767 size
(between 757 and 777) and then they'd have something. It won't replace the
777 as it's not intended to be that big (last time I touched the project,
anyway).

The two aircraft are based on different philosophies of how the airline
industry is going to grow - big gambles on both sides. Airbus reckon it'll
be about bigger hub-and-spoke operations like there tend to be now.
Emirates plan to suck large volumes of pax out of the US and Europe to Dubai
where they'll then parcel them out to A340s and such on to their final
destinations (or, in some cases, into other A380s for the bigger routes) or
to a follow-on hub.

Boeing reckon people will buy more point-to-point tickets, which won't
support larger airplanes but would be commercially viable with smaller and
more cost-efficient aircraft. It could finally open up that long-ignored
Columbus OH - London route that's been languishing unexploited for so long!

It's going to be interesting to see what a true Open Skies agreement will do
to this development in the industry. I think one or the other maker will
have a fleet of commercial dinosaurs on it's hands in about 10-15 years, but
it'll be anybody's guess at this point which one it'll be.

Shawn


"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
Now the A380 is surely a marvel of modern engineering, as is the Boeing
7E7 (787? Dreamliner?).

But fundamentally...it's yet another tube with wings with two or four
engines on pylons below the wings. I'm really disappointed that Boeing
dropped the Sonic Cruiser, a much more interesting proposition.

I'm also wonder what the point of the 7E7 is - surely the
midsize longhaul jet market is already adequately served by the 777?
Could they just not make incremental improvements to the 777 in the same
way they've done with the 737 for years?

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in
I wonder if they've addressed the rudder pedal boost, which was apparently
much more sensitive than necessary?
--

I am sure Jay that the people at Airbus are locked onto these newsgroups
just to be sure they have caught everything that needs catching from the
resident experts at aircraft design and engineering.

In article ,
Dylan Smith wrote:

In article G67ce.31010$NU4.15176@attbi_s22, Jay Honeck wrote:
Certainly. And I guess you can crash the A380 like any other plane if you
really want to and act accordingly.

I wonder if they've addressed the rudder pedal boost, which was apparently
much more sensitive than necessary?

In the A380? Only at most 4 people in the world have actually
manipulated the controls in-flight. Since they are testing the plane, if
the rudder pedal boost is too sensitive - well, that's the point of test
flights to work out these sorts of bugs.

All technologies have their problems - we've had one A300 go down due to
a lost tail, but we've also had two B737s go down due to unexplained
rudder hard-overs. Overall, both Boeing's and Airbus's records are
outstanding.

And AA1 into Jamaica Bay in 1958.

In article , says...


Greg Farris wrote:

I agree. The French often get screwed up when they invent "English" names.

You seem to miss that Airbus is *not* a French company.


Expected that response. Doesn't affect my opinion on the matter.

In article TM6ce.30985$NU4.10589@attbi_s22, says...



Interesting. I read somewhere that it's actually rather "light on its feet"
because it has so many wheels...



Apparently so. Runways in france have recently required extensive
reinforcement to accommodate the B777-300 - works which were apparently not
mandated for the A380.

G Faris

"Greg Farris" wrote in message
...
In article TM6ce.30985$NU4.10589@attbi_s22,
says...



Interesting. I read somewhere that it's actually rather "light on its
feet"
because it has so many wheels...



Apparently so. Runways in france have recently required extensive
reinforcement to accommodate the B777-300 - works which were apparently
not
mandated for the A380.

G Faris


The Max Takeoff weight of the 777-300 is 660,000#s the A380 is 1,235,000.

Maybe the reason the work was not mandated for the A380 is that there is
only one flying

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:G67ce.31010$NU4.15176@attbi_s22...
Speaking of safety -- I wonder if the A380 has a composite rudder?

Certainly. And I guess you can crash the A380 like any other plane if
you
really want to and act accordingly.

I wonder if they've addressed the rudder pedal boost, which was apparently
much more sensitive than necessary?
--

I believe that the rudder on the 380 is all fly by wire. All it would take
is a software write.
--
Jim in NC