The only problem is their composite airframe parts disintegrate when under contact with hydraulic fluid.
They haven't yet re-opened the investigation into the Airbus crash in New York after 9/11, but when they do I'll bet they figure out that the rudder came apart, and took the vertical stabilizer out with it, like this flight from Cuba almost did. The rear attach brackets on the vertical were overstressed and damaged by that incident.
Since virtually any airframe part can have hydraulic fluid in/on it, I don't trust any Airbus equipment with composite parts (probably all of them).
I only hope Boeing gets their resin system correct in the 787 so they don't have that problem, because the whole airplane will be composite.
Since virtually any airframe part can have hydraulic fluid in/on it, I don't trust any Airbus equipment with composite parts (probably all of them).
"The NTSB pointed out that with Flight 587, the entire tail assembly failed -- whereas the recent problems concern only the moveable rudder portion of the tail."
"...Airbus spokesman Clay McConnell said the company considers the matter resolved. "Flight 587 was the most investigated accident in the history of aviation and the NTSB did a very, very thorough job," McConnell said.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1620971/posts
AA 587 had nothing to do with the composite construction. It had to do with the unintended consequences of improved pilot training. the pilot flying had just been to an upset training course, where he flew an Extra 300, an airplane made in germany that is stressed for +/- 12G.
He applied vigorous rudder (as one does in an Extra during takeoff, landing and maneuvering, and one normally does not do in a jet). As a result, the rudder of the airbus was stressed beyond its failure limit, of about (IIRC) 1.6G.
Why so low? Because the certification requirement for lateral loads is only 1.5G. Before this accident, not one ATP (top pilot rating) in a thousand knew this, and not one A&P/AI (top mechanic) did either. The engineers who designed the thing knew it. They took another one and chucked it into a test fixture to see where it let go -- and it let go right where the one in the mishap aircraft did.
You can find similar mishaps (in terms of overstress failure) with other aircraft. For example, a Boeing 720 or 707 got caught in a lateral jetstream off Mt. Fuji once. The ust failed the vertical stabilizer to the left, where it failed the left horizontal down and away. Stripped of the tail downforce, the plane pitched down violently enough to fail the wing outer panels down and away, and the plane tumbled down to the ground.
So why did they give the pilots upset training? Simple, there have been cases where airline pilots, many of whom have no aerobatic experience, have done the wrong thing when a plane upset. An example was the 737 crash at Aliquippa. IF it was a momentary hardover caused by a rudder actuator reversal (a controversial judgment), the plane could still have been recovered. The pilot in command at least had no aerobatic experience. Both pilots held the yokes fully back and the plane remained stalled all the way down.
Upset training would have trained those pilots to unload the aircraft (pitch to remove G loads, which would have unstalled the wings), rolled wings level ("step on the sky" was what I learned) and gradually recover the aircraft. In that case it might have made the difference, and that's why airlines pay for their pilots to go and play with an EXTRA for a few days.
As far as the whole Airbus versus Boeing thing is concerned --
1. Both companies try to build safe a/c
2. Both companies comply with the same rules
3. Airbus a/c are mostly made in England, France and Germany but often have major US content (radios, engines, big-$$ stuff).
4. Boeing a/c are mostly made in the USA buthave increasing amounts of foreign content (engines from England or Europe, parts made overseas. For instance, the fuselage of the 787 Dreamliner is made on the cheap in China; that decision idled hundreds of workers in Wichita and Seattle).
5. All manufacturers use more nonmetallic composites as more is learned about composites. Still, there's a lot of metal in any aircraft. Airbus is trying to save weight more by using exotic metals, like lithium, these days.
6. A principal advantage of composites over aluminium alloys is that composites are not subject to fatigue as nonferrous metals are. Google "Aloha 232" to see why this matters.
7. A second principal advantage is that composites are not subject to corrosion. Aluminium alloys tend to be subject to terrible corrosion -- if you recall your periodic table, it's a pretty reactive element.
8. A principal advantage of aluminum is after 100 years of building aircraft structures from it, it's a very mature technology. We know how to inspect, test and repair it well. We're still learning a lot about composites in service, and there's really no way to learn that except put them into service.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F