Ask a Captain: Choosing between Airbus and Boeing ‘like picking a favorite child’
Question: If we had a choice to fly a Airbus or Boeing, that would we prefer?
– Thousand Oaks, California
John Cox: I am asked this doubt frequently, it is really tough to answer. we flew a Boeing 737 for 15 years and a Airbus A320 for six years and entirely enjoyed both of them.
Each had their clever points and their not-so strong-points. The A320 was some-more gentle on prolonged flights, due to a incomparable moody rug and miss of a control mainstay (it has a side stick). The 737 was a best airplane I have ever flown in a crosswind. Both are arguable workhorses of a travel system. Picking one over a other is like seeking me to collect my favorite child … I like them both!
Q: Some years ago, we had a few back-and-forth exchanges about my concerns as a long-retired airline captain about a several involuntary stabilizer trim systems on complicated aircraft. You were of a opinion that they were a profitable enhancement. In a light of a 737 Max debacle, do we still feel that way?
– Lee Oldershaw, Florida
Cox: The 737 Max issues are very, really complex. In a box of a Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, a sensor failed, causing a stabilizer trim to pull a nose down. This caused a really lunatic condition as a pilots were perplexing to authority nose up. The stabilizer trim complement routinely balances a aerodynamic army on a tail. But in a dual MAX accidents, it was mispositioned by a aircrafts’ Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).
The MCAS on those planes also lacked excess and did not have a extent on activation. Other involuntary trim systems have excess and a proven lane record (they have been in use given a 1980s). Like any moody control system, a excess and contrast contingency be strong for a trim system, primer or automatic.
There are many lessons to be schooled from a Max, many of that should assistance make a subsequent era of airliners safer and some-more robust.
Is a Boeing 737 Max safe? 2 large reasons a craft is still grounded by FAA after crashes
737 Max: Boeing software is fixed, now it’s adult to a FAA
John Cox is a late airline captain with US Airways and runs his possess aviation reserve consulting company, Safety Operating Systems.
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~/611908590/0/usatodaycomtravel-topstories~Ask-the-Captain-Choosing-between-Airbus-and-Boeing-like-picking-a-favorite-child/