2013. Wish the original timescale was still in existence. Can’t wait to get my hands on this ugly behemoth.

These people need to be banned. What if an engine had failed above V1! If the crew wipe themselves out then that’s their own issue but when they take out innocent members of the public then it just isn’t funny.

That aside I did like the controllers comment “cleared for Smirnoff”!

I am also interested in the fact that after all the press hype of heroic piloting that the autopilot remained engaged (in fact it was never taken out but tripped itself out) until 175 feet at 108 knots after chasing the glideslope! With no available thrust selection the reality of the situation must be that the pilots had no discernable input into the resulting flightpath that followed.

A343 does not have tailstrike ECAM indication like the A346 however the crew were notified by ATC yet still decided to pressurise and fly for 10 or 11 hours! Madness.

Sorry Steve but ModelJets is quite right. We had an A346 suffer a tailstrike in HKG about a year ago in these conditions on take off.

I keep replaying that vid because it just beautifully shows the appreciation of going from the 757 to the ‘bus from a pilots perspective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKBABNL-DDM

Thanks very much for that. Around the world there are many people that have only ever flown Boeing with very stong opinion about Airbus. I was one of them! I remember being blown away in just the same way. Airbus make aircraft that are hard to learn and fully understand but they are a delight to operate.