Senate confirms former Textron executive as DoD acquisition leader

took a slight shortcut. Obviously, I could have mentioned the 767. Anyhow, as stated repeatedly the goal was never to discuss if Airbus was a success. It was. The repeated failure in design projects in the last 20 years was the main line of my arguments for the probable need of some appropriate measures to lessen the risk inherent of an even more complex challenge that lies in the making of an advanced fighter project in near future. Plain logic only. That, obviously is again more difficult to contest that a 3 line long harshly typed attempt of a restrospective of a 46 years old Industrial in a quick reply 😉
In any case, I stand corrected. Thank you.

Lets look again at that list:

– A400 a failure ? Why? It was late and over budget, true, so was the C-17, so was the C-130J, so is the Kawasaki C-2, the Russians couldnt even get a new generation cargo aircraft! The aircraft is being produced now, its starting to be fielded now, god know hows how manny will be built. Its too early to call that program a success or not.
– The A340 a failure? That particular “failure” has more export orders by almost 1/3 then any other European commercial jet before Airbus came along. It broke even, its development was made together with the A330, it got a profit and 377 were built. The only place were that´s a failure is in Boeing´s land, a particular place were the Europeans simply couldnt compete before a particular Company appeared.
– A380 – Another one wich is still being built, its entirely possible that its development costs actualy gets even, its not obviously the massive success that was hoped, but its too soon to call it a failure
– Tiger and NH90 – The Tiger is no way a failure, the NH90 has an helluv lot of problems
– Ariane V – That competition finnaly got its act together in recent years (congratulations to SpaceX ) doesnt mean that the chaps who actually send more things into space in 2014, 2015 and 2016 are in any way a failure.

What you are doing is calling “failure” to programs using an yardstick, and the yardstick that you are using is… Airbus himself, had those programs being launched by any other European company and you would be calling them a sucess, because they have been built in numbers that no other European company has ever provided.

But its irrelevant what we think, there´s one particular number that smashes this entire argument. Airbus was formed in 1967 and from that date till June 2017 (half a century) it had delivered 10514 commercial aircrafts, its backlog (firm orders) is … 6771 airframes!
Recently i´ve read an article in wich it was stated that if we excluded the US aerospace industry, the Airbus commercial backlog was bigger than the combined value of the rest of world´s aerospace industry combined, commercial and military. Airbus is a massive success today, there´s absolutely no way of denying it.

You are strangely loosing your legendary insight. And again, we are not here to comment what made Airbus what it is today. I was just drawing a tendency around the list of late projects and fact is that the odds are weak if business as usual is set to be the goal. Plain logic.

Regarding the list that I didn’t want to debate all days long:
A400: not a tactical aircraft. Is that something hard to get? Last commercial demo across the Atlantic needed 3 spare engines for a 4 engine airframe. C’mon. We are not here around the counter debating if the bottle is half empty or full. Facts are undebatable as are the customer returns. Then it might lead to something positive, but this is in plain logic dubious.

A340: the 777, 787 set the new norm in term of long range flight (ETOPS). Airbus reacted with the 330 wich proved to be a success. To make it short, the A340 was simply enclosed on a dying segment. Nothing fancy. It’s a superb airplane by the way (but de facto not a success).

A380: the greatest demonstration of what went wrong in Airbus management. I don’t even know how you can debate this point. I have written this for years (like others) and it’s now mainstream all around the market.

Tiger: an attack helo has to be evaluated by it’s sortie rate and mission success (hence OP cap). I don’t know where you can see it being a success. Hell, even the old Cobra carry more, have a better availability (by far) is cheaper, has on overall better system etc… For long the canon turret could not be operated on the Tiger. The obsolescence is notorious, the self designation cap was so late that it had to be paired with Gazelles at great risks for their pilots, the cutting down in very different Block was weird from the onset and is now the subject of a costly upgrade etc… Then the Tiger fly very well. true*… when spare are available.

Post Ariane V (my meaning – scroll back): competitive pricing has been totally discarded in favor of the grand Mass of “it has to be French (EU) first”.

Frankly, I don’t understand the why of this outburst. Airbus is a Giant and this was an undebatable successful achievement. Now, after such an accumulation of failure in a row, it’s not rocket sciences to see the trend of the last 20 years (my exact meaning) and ask ourself some questions.

*But again, it’s not in the capability in technical ground that we are debating but the lack of insight of Airbus executive chain

I also think that you cannot label Tiger or NH90 failures because one operator couldn’t specify their equipment properly.

It is too simple to say Airbus products on that list are failures, because they all work incredibly well for the people that operate them. I would much rather Europe had the balls to design and produce an aircraft like the A380 than sit on a warmed over design from the 1960s.

And whilst we are at it, the A400M is a fantastic aircraft that was only made to work once Airbus took it over.

Even if the Tiger is a remarkable platform in term of agility, it early versions proved often inadequate to combat with Fr soldering on the old Gazelle even in the most dangerous zone (see Lybia). And I am not even mentioning the inacceptable anemic sortie rate or the cost of spare.
Regarding the NH90, you have a system well known for being a decade late, that have quite inadequate exit or defensive geometry for an assault helo and with a heavy share of scandalous corrosion problem (that were discussed heavily here).

I don’t know when you last have seen a successful program, but let’s admit, those are not. The AW159 might be one to see. The BK117 also etc…

Pilot who shot down Syrian jet speaks

“[…] the whole incident lasted about eight minutes… I did not directly communicate with the Syrian Jet but he was given several warnings by our supporting AWACS aircraft… So yes, we released ordnance and yes it hit a target that was in the air, but it really just came back to defending those guys that were doing the hard job on the ground and taking that ground back from ISIS.” He recalled; “I didn’t see the pilot eject but my wingman observed his parachute.” Tremel is an incredibly modest and relaxed gentleman, it is others, not himself who are keen to make a big deal about what was a relatively simple air-air kill against an obsolete aircraft. “When you think about the shoot-down, in the grand scheme of things… we [our squadron] flew over 400 missions in support of friendly forces on the ground” he said. On encounters with Russian aircraft, he said: “They behaved with great professionalism at all times.”

[…]

Asked if it was a straight Sidewinder shoot down, Tremel admitted it took 2 missiles. The infrared guided AIM-9X Sidewinder short range air-to-air missile missed, apparently lured away by decoy flares from the SU-22. It was a second radar-guided AIM-120 AMRAAM missile that destroyed the aircraft. The AIM-9X is the latest version of a very well proven family of missiles and it would not be expected to be fooled by flares or fail against such an obsolete aircraft.

Source:
Save the RN.org from The Navy Times.com

Major MALE RPAS Design Milestone Achieved

Twin turbo prop/Med alt… It’s going to be massive. Let’s hope that they follow the Hammer road to cut some expenses.

ok. Not my intention.

yes, and?