More on the Hudson River ditching.

[trof]

I guess this will stir the pot some, but I just got it from a guy I used to fly with. We're both in our late 60s and have been in aviation, military and civilian, for nearly 40 years.

I pretty much echo his sentiments about the Airbus engine and flight control systems.

The first part is what he sent to me. The second part is a reply he got from another pilot friend.

"Hello all:

The press is having a field day turning "Sully" Sullenberger into a Lindbergh-like hero. I attended his welcoming home reception in Danville, CA last weekend... me and the estimated 3000 other attendees. All credit is given to him and his crew, but they will be the first to tell you, "they just did their jobs." They did them well, but when your job entails holding the lives of hundreds of people in your hands every time you fly, then doing your job well is the minimum acceptable standard.

I don't, and I doubt if more than just a handful of other pilots would, begrudge Sully his day in the sun. What I am concerned about is how the real cause of this accident is being glossed over and, on the part of Airbus Industries, actually lied about. There are stories circulating now about how the flight computers helped "save" the aircraft by insuring the ditching was done properly. The stories themselves are absolute nonsense and the contention that the flight computers ensured the proper attitude was maintained for ditching is pure fabrication.

So what's wrong with Airbus wanting to steal a little glory for their computerized drones? There is a good chance it was the computers that put the aircraft into the water!

I readily admit I heartily dislike Airbus because of their design philosophy, I will never set foot in an A-380 (the superjumbo) as I consider it a really bad accident looking for a place to happen. I am not much happier with the rest of them but especially the A-320 which has killed several folks, while the engineers try to perfect software that can replace a human brain that has a talent for flying... something that I, rather naturally, don't believe possible.

It is well known that I love Boeings. I love to fly them. Beyond the sheer joy of just flying the Boeing, I also believe in their design philosophy that the last word has to be with the pilot, not the machine. No pilot, no matter how hard he tries, can turn an A-320 upside down. It just won't do it. Airbus believes it has designed a computer that is smarter than a pilot (the evidence of dead bodies scattered around Mulhouse, France to the contrary) and gives the last word to the computer. If a pilot moves the controls so as to turn the airplane upside down, the computer will refuse.

I can turn the B777 upside down. Once I get it upside down, if I let go of the controls, it will turn itself right-side up (smart airplane). I don't believe I will ever be in a situation where I will need to turn the airplane upside down, but I feel good knowing I have the control to do it. That's why I'm not really kidding when I say: "if it ain't a Boeing; I ain't going".

What follows is an e-mail from a retired US Air Pilot who has flown the Airbus A320 just like the one that ended up in the Hudson. It was written in response to a friend asking him if he knew the pilot who did the ditching. It is most illuminating and worth the read...

"I don't know him (Sullenberger). I've seen him in the crew room and around the system but never met him. He was former PSA (Pacific Southern Airlines) and I was former Piedmont and we never had the occasion to fly together.

The dumb shit press just won't leave this alone. Most airliner ditchings aren't very successful since they take place on the open ocean with wind, rough seas, swells and rescue boats are hours or days away. This one happened in fresh smooth water, landing with the current and the rescue boats were there picking people up while they were still climbing out of the airplane. It also happened on a cold winter day when all the pleasure boats were parked. Had this happened in July it would be pretty hard not to whack a couple of little boats. Sully did a nice job but so would 95% of the other pilots in the industry. You would have done a nice job.

Don't be surprised if the Airbus fly by wire computers didn't put a perfectly good airplane in the water. In an older generation airplane like the 727 or 737-300/400, the throttles are hooked to the fuel controllers on the engine by a steel throttle cable just like a TBM or a Comanche. On the Airbus nothing in the cockpit is real. Everything is electronic. The throttles, rudder and brake pedals and the side stick are hooked to rheostats who talk to a computer who talks to a electric hydraulic servo valve which in turn hopefully moves something.

In a older generation airplane when you hit birds the engines keep screaming or they blow up but they don't both roll back to idle simultaneously like happened to Flt. 1549. All it would take is for bird guts to plug a pressure sensor or knock the pitot probe off or plug it and the computers would roll the engines back to idle thinking they were over boosting because the computers were getting bad data. The Airbus is a real pile of shit. I don't like riding on them. Google the Airbus A320 Crash at the Paris Airshow in 1998*. Watch the video of an airbus A320 crash into a forest because the computers wouldn't allow a power increase following a low pass. The computers wouldn't allow a power increase because they determined that the airspeed was too low for the increase requested so the computers didn't give them any. Pushing the throttles forward in a Airbus does nothing more than request a power increase from the computer. If the computer doesn't like all the airplane and engine parameters you don't get a power increase. Airbus blamed the dead crew since they couldn't defend themselves. A Boeing would still be flying."

* The Paris Airshow Airbus crash video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5NXpar4Ouw

[crispini]

1. Interesting.

Worth reading. :kick:

[stray cat]

2. I don't know if 95% of pilots could have done it as successfully - hope I don't find out

I'm sure 95% think they would do as well.

[panzerfaust]

37. BS

100%

If they don't think that, they should not be flying...

[AndyA]

3. A friend of mine is a pilot, and he feels the same way.

He won't fly an Airbus plane. He says the Boeing planes almost respond to your thoughts, and they dutifully carry out what is demanded of them.

I wonder how wide ranging this opinion is among pilots?

[trof]

13. I flew 707, 727, and 747. I like 'em. But the L-1011 was my favorite.

It was a pilot's airplane and very comfortable for passengers too.
It's too bad Lockheed was politically driven out of the airliner business.


http://video.aol.com/video-detail/twa-lockheed-l-1011-departing-runway-1r-at-sfo-early-1990s/1862559880

[SharonAnn]

23. As a passenger, it was my favorite plane. I used to have to fly from Dayton to LA

and TWA had an L-1011 flight on that route. It was always my chosen flight.

What a wonderful, comfortable plane.

After all my years of flying, it's the only plane I ever had "an attachment" to.

It's nostalgic to even think about it and remember those long, wonderful, comfortable flights.

And the food was great on that flight, too.

Ah, those were the days.

[trof]

28. Ever fly first class?

We always did.
Of course it was free, since we were traveling on passes.
;-)
But it was heaven back then.
5 star food and booze, cheerful cabins attendants literally at your beck and call (and happy to be there), and...COMPLIMENTARY CIGARETTES!
:evilgrin:

[ferrous wheel]

17. Not unanimous for sure, but fairly common. I have no qualms about flying in an Airbus

(but then I've flown some of the most hideous machines ever to rise above the ground :D)

I thought the "rheostat" claim was amusing...nobody has manufactured a rheostat in the last 50 years.

[deadmessengers]

4. Good writeup, except for one thing...

"A Boeing would still be flying."

That would be true for most Boeings, but not the 777 or 787, both of which use (in the case of the 787, will use) fly-by-wire systems similar to the ditched Airbus. I can't find a cite on this, but I think the late un-lamented 717 was fly-by-wire, as well.

[Maven]

5. It seems to me from this OP that the problem is not fly-by-wire per se

but rather the programming of Airbus' systems, which give the final word to the computer on what to do. Hopefully Boeing's newer planes still give pilots maximum control while preserving safeguards.

Interesting article, although the first guy does seem to be a little envious of the attention Sully's getting whereas the second sounds like a more legitimate complaint about the equipment.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. There's fly by wire and there's the computer - separate things.

Fly by wire is simply shorthand for controls not connected mechanically to what it is they're controlling. A failed electronic bit hopefully has a redundant system or three .....

Computer control is the ability to simply shut the pilot out of the equation and take over the control. And in that, the software needs to be as perfect as a human brain running on adrenaline, instinct, good training, and deep experience. That just isn't possible.

[trof]

9. True. My last a/c was the 747-200 cargo.

Unlike the passenger version with all the nice cover panels and such, the main deck on the cargo ship shows all the innards.
It was part of the pre-flight (and very comforting) to walk back through the bird and make sure there was no slack in the flight control cables, no frayed cables, running from the cockpit a-l-l the way back to the tail.
:-)

[Stinky The Clown]

6. I remember seeing that clip some time ago.

Not sure it was contemporaneous to the event, but it was a while ago.

[maxsolomon]

7. A Boeing 707 was once barrel-rolled at Seafair in Seattle

the test pilot did it over Lake Washington. it was never done again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IV9PZW1N9U

[trof]

11. A friend of mine rolled a TWA 727. With passengers onboard.

Not on purpose. It was a control malfunction over Detroit.
He claims he didn't even spill a Martini.
;-)

[ferrous wheel]

18. I was a GIB in a 27 coming out of SFO one day that did a 120 deg roll.

The official explanation was wake turb from a 747. I don't know if it was or not...but a lot of beverages left their receptacles.
;-)

[SergeyDovlatov]

30. lol. He was piloting while holding a Martini? No wander he rolled his plane ;-)

[trof]

31. Found the story at wiki:

Hoot was a good friend and a hell of a pilot.

On April 4, 1979, a Boeing 727-31 (tail number N840TW) operating as TWA Flight 841 took off from JFK International Airport, New York City en route to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. Over Saginaw, Michigan, while the plane was cruising at 39,000 feet, its #7 slat extended, initiating a sharp roll to the right. The roll continued despite the corrective measures taken by the autopilot and the human pilot. The aircraft went into a spiral dive, losing about 34,000 feet in 63 seconds. (For comparison, a normal rate of descent for an airliner would be 1800 feet per minute).

During the course of the dive, the plane rolled through 360 degrees twice, and crossed the Mach limit for the 727 airframe. It was later estimated from the flight data recorder that the plane was momentarily supersonic. Control was regained at about 8,000 feet, by the decision of the Captain to extend the landing gear in an attempt to slow the aircraft<1>, and following the #7 slat being torn off from the aircraft and symmetry of lift being re-established. The plane suffered substantial structural damage, but made an emergency landing at Detroit, Michigan without further trouble. No fatalities occurred among the 82 passengers and seven crew members. Eight passengers reported minor injuries relating to high G forces.
(6 Gs according to the flight recorder)

[Delphinus]

35. That would be enough

to stop me from ever, ever, ever setting foot on a plane again!

[panzerfaust]

38. There are Roll Deniers

- if you read the comments on uTube you can see those who are sure the video is faked, never happened, etc, etc



But even Boeing seems proud of Tex now (http://www.boeing.com/history/narrative/n036boe.html), though it was a Dash 80, not a 707 (nor a 720, or KC-135).

[90-percent]

10. youtube

has a lot of plane vids. spectacular landings from some pretty scary airports all over the world.

And it has the Air show crash. Man is that horrific or what? Scary that the computer killed all the people on that flight. Sounds like it would have been avoided with a Boeing!

-90% jimmy

[ColbertWatcher]

12. Let me see if I've got this right: Sullenberger excells at his job, isn't looking for publicity ...

... (like Joe the Token) and now "peers" suddenly appear out of nowhere to bash him.

You know what this means to me?













...












...












...












He's a liberal!

[trof]

15. No one is bashing him. He did a helluva job.

And I'll be the first to tell you that all pilots are not created equal.
We all have to meet certain (very high) minimum standards.
I've known guys who just managed to meet those and had long and successful careers.

And I've known guys who just seemed to be born for the cockpit.
And those are the ones I'd want with me in a situation similar to Captain Sullenbergers.

[ferrous wheel]

21. Heh...well I don't know Sully but I know hundreds of pilots and 90+% of them are conservatives.

It can be maddening.

[Mika]

14. Hey trof, could an Airbus be steered into tall buildings like a Boeing can?

My pilot acquaintances say no. The computer wouldn't allow it.


:shrug:

[trof]

16. Never having flown an Airbus...I'd say absolutely it could.

AFAIK the Airbus engines and flight controls can't see what's ahead.
Otherwise why would it fly right into the forest in that clip?

[Billy Burnett]

20. Well, I sat in the 3rd seat of an A320 in flight ...

... this was pre 9-11, and I asked the pilots how automated the plane was. They said that if the pilots passed out or some such event that the plane would automatically avoid flying into a mountain or colliding with something. Being pre 9-11, I didn't think to ask about deliberately flying into a building, but the pilots said the flight control computer was "looking" ahead via the radar and GPS and wouldn't allow a collision with anything. They said that if the plane was on the runway and positioned for takeoff, and the destination programmed, that it was capable of doing the entire flight - takeoff to landing - automatically.

It did scare the crap out of me to think that all cockpit flight controls are virtual.

[trof]

25. Might depend on autopilot.

First thing the 9/11 hijackers did was go off autopilot.

[ferrous wheel]

19. That claim is completely absurd. Your acquaintences must be getting their

information from comic books.

[ljm2002]

22. As someone who has been in the software industry...

...for many a long year now, and who has an interest in the risks associated with automated systems, I have always adhered to the belief that any system simply must have a manual override. There must be a way to switch the computer off and allow a human to take control. Because no matter how smart the programmers are, they can never account for every possible eventuality.

I'm all for automated systems, and they really do make lots of jobs easier and less error-prone. That's all good. But removing the ultimate decision-making capability from humans -- that's all bad. IMNSHO

[backscatter712]

24. I remember hearing about the crash in France on some Discovery channel program.

Yes, it was the computer.

More precisely, we had a usability problem. On PCs, there's always issues with "How do I do a spell check in Word? Where do I go to set the fonts? Why is it you have to click on Start to get to where you shut the computer down?"

Same thing on airplanes.

Specifically, there are some dials and digital displays on the top edge of the instrument panel in Airbus airliners, which are used to set the autopilot. They do things like programming the autopilot to maintain a specific altitude, or descend at a particular rate, fly in a particular direction, follow a radio beacon, and so on.

Some of those displays have two modes. In one of them, you switch the display and its dial to the first mode, and you set the desired altitude. Push the button to toggle it to the second mode, and you set the climb or descent rate. Let's just say you really want to double-check that the display's in the correct mode before you set it.

In the crash in France, roughly what happened was that the pilot thought he was programming the autopilot to fly the plane at 3,000 meters, but because the display was in the wrong mode, it set the descent rate to 3,000 meters per minute, and the autopilot flew the plane straight into the ground. Whoops!

[trof]

26. Boeing yoke will override computer/autopilot.

If the autopilot begins an 'unscheduled descent' (one you didn't program...it happens) just pulling back on the yoke will trip off the autopilot.

Evidently the Airbus doesn't work that way. I'll bet those two French pilots were pulling for all they were worth while their plane was descending into the trees. Must have been damn frustrating.

[Blue_Tires]

27. wow... i knew computers had a lot of involvement

but i didn't know it was THAT much...Airbus might want to re-work their CPU logic processes

[SergeyDovlatov]

29. I am skeptical about validity of this mail. Most of the accidents are due to 'human factor'.

Sully is considered a hero for doing competently his job. I agree with this premise. But in the most crashes, people don't do the job competently, thus this is being hailed as unusual.

http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm

Also, agree with calm waters. With the exception landing in the pugent sound, and one hawaiian plane, the previous 100% no victims landing was on river Neva in USSR.

Now, with respect to the cause of the Aribus A320 crash. All of the reports I've read on that incident is that pilot applied power to late.
It is a jet engine. It takes time to gain power. Moving the control does not mean you get the power immediately. But it is not because of the computers. It is because jet engine need to spin up before it can reach the desired power output.

Moreover, automatic computerized Take off / Go Around system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TO_GA was not active. Otherwise, it might have saved the plane.

What is surprising that only 3 people out of 136 died. From how it look on the youtube, I would have though that everybody got killed

---

Date: June 26, 1988
Time: 14:45
Location: Habsheim, France
Operator: Air France
Flight number: 296Q
Route: Basel - Basel
AC type: Airbus A320-111
Aboard: 136 (passengers: 130, crew:6)
Fatalities: 3 (passengers: 3, crew:0)

Summary: The plane was scheduled to perform a series of fly-bys at an air show. The plane was to descend to 100 ft. altitude with landing gear and flaps extended. The automatic go-around protection was inhibited for the maneuver. During the maneuver, the plane descended thru 100 ft. to an altitude of 30 feet and hit trees at the end of the runway. The aircraft was totally destroyed by the successive impacts and violent fire which followed. The pilot allowed the aircraft to descend through 100 ft. at slow speed and maximum angle of attack and was late in applying go-around power. Unfamiliarity of the crew with the landing field and lack of planning for the flyby.

[trof]

32. Serge, there are so many errors in your post it's hard to know where to start.

Sorry, buddy. If you ain't a pilot I just can't consider your post.

[SergeyDovlatov]

33. Please, enlighten me. I am here to learn.

[trof]

34. Later, man. Leaving now. PM me if you want.

[1Hippiechick]

36. Emlightening & frightening, particularly since a flight crew fell asleep in the cockpit a while ago

To be remembered and passed on to friends and acquaintances:
"if it ain't a Boeing I ain't going".