To me, the most important aspect of the A320 was it’s size. The 737’s largest customer, UAL, wanted an airplane that could fly all the way to the east coast from it’s hub in Denver (high altitude limited performance of the 737-300) and all the way to the west coast from it’s hub at IAD. Boeing would not consent to making a bigger 737.

Delta started talking about a 150 seat, 2 pilot airplane with high bypass ratio engines in the late 70’s that they could put into service in the early 80’s. They called this concept “delta three.” (Extra credit if you can name Delta one and Delta two.) Boeing refused, and Delta had to buy the 757, which is/was a little too big at 187 seats (in DL config.)

The engines were available, often a limiting factor in other airliner development. Only Boeing intransigence kept them from doing the right thing at the right time. Had Boeing built the right sized airplane instead of the too small 3-4-500 series, several other large carriers probably would have also bought them for competitive reasons. Boeing didn’t listen to what the market was demanding, and FINALLY built the 737NG series. By the time the NG entered the market, the A320 was firmly established, having been in service almost 10 YEARS. The NG was a Boeing RESPONSE to the A320 just like the Classic was a RESPONSE to the DC-9. By the time Boeing came around, UAL already had A320’s. Boeing will never sell NG’s to UAL now. Delta finally got what they wanted with the NG in 1998, almost 20 years later than they wanted, and not really interested in the A320 after having a bitter Airbus experience with the A310.

So to summarize MHO, Airbus “won” by providing the marketplace what it needed. The fly-by-wire is just fluff, as it hasn’t shown any clear advantage over the NG flight control system. Airbus did get the width of the fuselage right, along with the general size of the airplane.

Is Air France retiring their A320-100’s? If so, I never knew that. Such a shame to see the -100 disappear.
Hopefully atleast one will be preserved.

IIRC, Airbus was extremely conservative when they specified the “service life” of the A320. I think some of the older engineers working on the project at the time must have remembered, or perhaps even been involved with, the Comet.

Usually expressed in terms of flight hours and cycles (cycle basically being a fancy term for landing), airliner “age” is carefully monitored. I want to say the original numbers were something like 60,000 hours and 48,000 landings (these numbers may be wrong) for the A320. At any rate, the numbers are/were absurdly low for a modern airliner, a fact not often quoted in fanboy arguments. Airbus is currently conducting an engineering study with a view towards extending the life of the airplanes. The study is not yet complete. I think also, that later airframes off the production line had a slightly longer life.

As a result of the relatively short life of the A320, and cheap fuel, you see some strange things in the market. For example airlines like Northwest scrapping mid-late 1980’s build A320s while continuing to fly 1967 build DC-9s.

Cynics would also argue that by specifying a short service life Airbus ensures future sales, not unlike the old “trade every 2 years” mentality the U.S. car makers used to have (until the Japanese forced them to improve their quality).

Please see page 6 of the document linked below for more info on the life extension, although somewhat typically it reads like a sales brouchure, it does have some relevant information of the ESG (Extended Service Goal):
http://www.airbus.com/store/mm_repository/press_kits/att00005531/media_object_file_Airbus_Letter_EN.pdf

Who do you think you are fooling, mate?? I point out that snags hit all new planes, be there boeing’s or airbuses’. You are saying that Boeing is so good and superior that their new planes know no snitches. You are way past the fan boy state.

And this is an embarassment only in the eyes of people who know squat about aviation. Not really surprised that you are among the lot.

Minor in comparison?? UA B777s had to be diverted three times during their first few months of exploitation because of loss of cabin pressure. It made big headlines at the time and the issue was blown out of all proportion (probably by the likes of you). Several early BA 777s had to be grounded because of engine issues.

SIA said the same type of thing about the 380. You expect a new airplane outperform existing ones. Nothing new or striking here.

When pressed, you always resort to personal attacks: “people who know squat about aviation….not really suprised that you not are among the lot” is only your latest. It doesn’t lend credence to your arguments. Comments like “usual bull” aren’t constructive either.

“You are saying that Boeing is so good and superior that their new planes know no snitches.” Please show me where I have ever said that. I don’t believe I have ever stated that the 777 didn’t have any problems. The thread titile is: “Qantas grounds A380 fleet.” I don’t recall that happening in the case of the 777.

WRT new airliners have teething problems. I never said they didn’t. I will grant that when a fleet is as small as the anemic A380 fleet, or the Concorde, the problems seem magnified. (WRT my ‘anemic” comment, by this time in the 747 program, over 100 airplanes had been delivered, 93 in 1970 alone.)

As far as who is embarrassed, I’ll bet the passenger service people who notified that pax that their travel plans were interrupted were embarrassed for their airline. And I’ll bet Airbus was a little embarrassed also, if I had built the airplane, I would have been.

Grey: Not sure that I have defended Boeing or the 777 to the level of sainthood. I will admit that the 777 program appears to have been the most “model” program run by any of the big manufacturers since, well, a long time. But there were a lot of things that could have been better.

The A380’s were “grounded” when they were in an unairworthy state. The whole small fleet needed repaired at the same time. Thus, not flying, ie., grounded.

Qantas introduced the 747 a long, long time ago. More than 30 years? The state of the art has advanced considerably in the meantime, therefore the 747 or Concorde comparisons are hardly appropriate.

A much more valid comparison might be the 777. I don’t seem to recall similar problems when 777 entered service in 1995. As a matter of fact, it went right into 180 minute ETOPS as “the most thoroughly tested airliner in history” or some such, according to the Boeing hype.

One would expect a more flawless entry for a modern product, especially one that had sevice entry delayed for two years. Any way you cut it, it is an embarrassment for Qantas and for Airbus.

BTW all pressurized aircrafts windows are designed to resist loads of pressure pushing them out but not as much pushing them in, so the displacement of the windows is not suprising.

Rgds Cking

Indeed, agree completely.

I’m guessing very few members of this forum have ever seen firsthand how little holds one in? Essentially, there are a few clips to hold them in the correct spot and cabin pressure does the rest. It doesn’t take much force at all pushing the other way to eject them. The DC-9 didn’t even have the little clips BTW, the window seal alone held them in the hole, they were a bear to install correctly.

Not suprising. 2-3 years ago there were HUD pictures all over the internet from a regular SuperHornet with an F-22 in it’s crosshairs. As stated, no plane is invincible, and any pilot can make a mistake.

Due to the incipient risk of the thread degenerating into another KC-X endless debate, I redirect back to the original topic, to whit:

The C-17 is a compromised beast, neither fish nor fowl, neither tactical nor strategic, jack-of-all-trades and master of none.

It’s great value is that it can be made to do most anything, but just because you can cut down a tree with a butcher knife doesn’t mean you should.

The ridiculously expensive, compromised beast is now the norm for U.S. military procurement. Witness:

The F-22: Stealth Superfighter/Stealth bomber/mini-AWACS/emerging EW. Gun and missiles. Internal carriage. State of the art avionics. Summary: Too much capability, too much cost, not enough airplanes.

The Super Hornet. Fighter/Interceptor/Attack/Tanker/EW. Does them all fairly well, and a few very well, but it is a compromise. At least they are getting a sufficient number of frames.

The Burke Destroyer. Traditional destroyer duties/AEGIS/ASW. We cram so much capability into each hull, that we have fewer and fewer hulls to fill out the fleet. There just aren’t enough ships. A billion dollar ship ends up almost sunk by a suicidal maniac in a rowboat.

The Virginia class SSN. Lets see now…we spend 3 billion dollars per platform for a super sub that will do everything: put up a winning fight against other SSN’s, prosecute hostile SSBN’s, conduct secret intelligence operations, combat modern AIP boats in the littorals, and insert/extract SEALS. 3 billion to deliver SEALS? It is built to do everything. See Burke and Raptor, ie., too much cost, too few units.

I’m sure there are other examples, I just pulled those off the top of my head. Its the F-111/McNamara all over again, and McNamara’s argument seems to have won in the end. U.S. political leadership has chosen over the last 20-30 years to purchase multi-purpose platforms that are not optimized for a specific mission. Therefore, you can always pull a scenario out of the air where another platform would do better: A militarized 747 could carry palletized cargo between large air bases much more effectively than C-17 or C-5, but won’t be purchased cause it can’t do all the other stuff. We end up either with super product like the Raptor or Virginia that we can’t afford in sufficient numbers, or a severely compromised product like the Hornet. The C-17 is kinda like the Hornet. The circular debates go on.