Found a movie that details the sales history, govt issues and general timeline of both companies. Very interesting, seems aircraft sales has many more layers than just building a good product.
It's available on amazon.

Enjoy

Patrick

Airbus sux! Go Boeing!

While we're at it:

High wing v. low wing
Twin v. Single
Firebird v. Camaro

But seriously, yeah, I'll take the ride in the Boeing instead of the airbus any day.

Airbus put the "bus" in commercial air travel.

rabid brand loyalty is amusing. It's like being in the stands at a nascar race

Yeah. Didn’t cezzna build the Airbus? or maybe it was Godforbid Cirrus!

In the early 1990s, Air Canada starting taking delivery of Airbus 320s. I was president of a small high tech company specializing in automation hardware and software. Knowing that the Airbus is flown by software, and knowing how incredibly difficult it is to test and certify software as being bug free, or even design appropriate, I issued instruction to the travel agent we used at the time that all company flights were to be booked only on Boeing aircraft.

I will never forget watching the low and over demonstration flight of the 320 crashing into the trees, because Airbus software engineers never accounted for such a flight profile. As far as the plane was concerned, it "thought" it was going to land, and it fought the flight crew who wanted it to climb. It's a classic video and shows what happens when software over-rides crew intentions. Here is the link for any who have not seen it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEH7OpnA-I4

With time the software improved and I relented. But even today I would much rather fly on Boeing than any damn Airbus. Air Canada is now phasing out the 320s in favor of the 737 MAX.

Like the 787 with its bulletproof elecrical system and batteries ?
Both companies build amazing airplanes - I would not expect this kind of bashing on a high quality forum like this

It wasn’t fighting the crew because it wanted to land!
It was fighting them to “Not Stall” the airplane, known as alpha floor protection.
A Boeing would have stalled into the trees.

Murray

Makes no sense to fly a jet into the ground in either case Boeing or AB. Without overriding protection a stall would not be impossible in either. Pushers and auto throttles and low speed protection and awareness systems are available on every transport category aircraft for the last 40 years at least.

I airline around the world a lot. I ride on both often. I love the 787 for all of its new gadgets, creature comforts, and watching the wing flex what looks to be about 15 feet. I love the biz class pods and the sheer awesome size of the AB380. Hard to tell by ride alone which I'm on at any given time.

-E

This book by William Langewiesche is by far the best read on that accident I’ve come across.


- Martin

This book by William Langewiesche is by far the best read on that accident I’ve come across.


- Martin

Airbus philosophy is that the computer flies the plane. This permeates the entire design including using no feedback joysticks for flight controls (and not connected left to right, either), and the fact the auto throttle doesn't move the cockpit power levers. In my mind, this is a disconnect between the what the plane is doing and what the pilot can observe. The computer flies the plane until such time as the situation is so complex the computer can't any more and then, without warning (and likely without sufficient training), the computer goes "I give up, your airplane". Witness AF447.

Boeing philosophy is that the computer aids the pilot but the pilot is the final authority. If the flight surfaces move, the cockpit flight controls move. If the autothrottles move, the levers in the cockpit move. In mind, this provides a FAR better man to machine interface and visualization of what the computer is doing. You will not find Boeing pilots wondering what the computer is doing as compared to Airbus pilots.

Inexperienced Airbus pilot: "What the heck is it doing?"

Experienced Airbus pilot: "Oh, it is doing THAT again."

I would MUCH rather be a Boeing pilot than an Airbus pilot. I would rather be a Boeing passenger, too.

Mike C.

Simply not true. You'll find plenty of mode confusion amongst the Boeing crowd. When we first started flying the 777-200, we had a crew execute a go-around on short final to 27L at LHR.

"********* 462, state the reason for your go-around."

"Well, we wanted to land but apparently the jet doesn't."

(Chalk that one up to possibly something a simple as confusing the AT disconnect button with TOGA paddles.)

An experienced Boeing or Airbus pilot minimizes these occurrences by diligently monitoring the flight mode annunciator and understanding exactly how the FMS/MCDU/MCP and autoflight system interact. This takes disciplined and consistent study.

The most vocal "I hate Airbus" stick and rudder guy I ever met found himself on the A320. I called him up after his first trip of IOE and asked him what he thought.

"Umm...I love it. It's an amazing airplane."

The Airbus family is designed for a 300 hour Chinese pilot. It has a damn good safety record when you look at who's flying them.

This whole Boeing vs. Airbus argument is a bunch of bullcrap. You can say you like the Boeing FBW philosophy better and that it somehow makes the Boeing safer, but an Airbus pilot performing a GPWS escape maneuver or encountering windshear is going to max perform the airplane perfectly, with a much better margin of safety than any Boeing pilot pulling into the shaker late into the backside of the clock while fatigued as hell.

Here's one last argument: the Boeing 737-900ER's are an imperfect union of 1967 and 2009 technology. Many of the engineering shortcomings are dumped squarely in the pilot's lap for us to manage the risk. Thrust limited at even medium altitudes and gross weights. Ridiculous fuselage stretch requires adding on 15-20 knots to target for tailstrike protection, putting us across the fence at up to 160 knots without a drag chute. All with crappy brakes. Fisher Price VNAV/autothrottles that require hyper-vigilant monitoring. Uncomfortable 1954 cockpit leaves you much more fatigued at the end of a transcon. An Airbus flight deck is huge and you're not encumbered by a control column between your legs.

Lastly, I would respectfully disagree with your AF447 reference. Any pilot who allows a startle event to distract them long enough for the airplane to climb 4000 feet and stall, is going to have a problem in any airplane. The probe icing issues with that mishap were Thales fault, not Airbus. Any pilot worth their title should know pitch and power settings for their airplane in cruise. All the relief pilot had to do on that flight was stare at the ISIS, fly 3 degrees nose up, wings level and leave the thrust at a cruise setting, while directing the FO to start recovering his systems to where he had an autopilot and autothrottle available. Also, anybody who regularly flies through the ITCZ at night knows they had best be paying very close attention to the airborne weather radar, lest they fly into some behemoth storm and lose control of their jet. +/- ten degrees lattitude of the equator at night is a threat and should always be briefed and treated as such.

No excuses for what happened. The only Airbus specific contributing factor was the fact that the other two pilots couldn't see the right seater had the stick held full aft, which probably didn't matter because nobody had recognized they were in a fully stalled condition. AF447 was much more an issue of basic airmanship than it was the Airbus. Delta had an identical event over the NOPAC just a month before the French accident. The Captain flew pitch and power while the FO cleaned up the ECAM. They landed and went home.

Piece of cake.