Apparently he's never experienced severe turbulence. What happens when you're running on the treadmill in the gym and the plane drops a couple hundred feet, leaving you flapping around in mid-air? Better yet, would you get a haircut on one of these things? Oops, no you can't. No sharp objects allowed on board. Casino chips sliding all over the table should make the games interesing. And I guess double beds with seatbelts would only be for the really adventerous.

__________________
Rick Miley
2014 Tesla Model S
2018 Tesla Model 3
2017 Nissan LEAF
Former MB: 99 E300, 86 190E 2.3, 87 300E, 80 240D, 82 204D Euro
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San Francisco Airport has to extend the edges of pavement on their runways so the outboard engines won't be sucking up dirt.

In addition, the 380 can't take off and land at the same time as another jumbo on paralell runways due to the 60-foot wider wingspan.

__________________
Nate Stanley
(Currently Benzless)
1985 F-250 6.9l 170K
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2003 LS430 78K
2012 Kubota B 2320

Not quite:

The C5 has a 222' wingspan vs. 262' for the A380.

The C5 can lift 769,000 lbs. vs. 1,190,000 lbs. for the A380.

The C5 has 160K lbs. of thrust vs. 288K lbs. of thrust for the A380.

Shoot sorry but my point still stands. A rusian AN-225 has a 290 ft wing span.

The size of the aircraft is already been flying as the AN225 which is the russian space shuttle transport. It is now just a large heavy lift "for rent " aircraft. It grosses at 1.3 million Lbs. max takeoff weight.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=568023

The A380 will gross at 1.2 million Lbs.

Not many airlports will be able to handle the size and passenger Customs clearing load. But they large international airport, KJFK, KLAX, KSFO, Heathrow etc are preparing for them. Some taxiway clearence/weight issues and passenger volume problems.

Airbus. I personally don't like there philosophy of operating an aircraft. thru their onboard computer you are allowed to operate the aircraft within its set envelope. And no more, ever. Flying a low pass and get behind the power curve, you can't over boost the engines to get you away from the ground, You settle into the trees just as the Airbus test pilots did in a demo flight.

Actually the one group of pilots who have crashed the Airbus more than any other group are the Airbus test pilots, 3 seperate times.
Also the only other aircraft where I have heard of a tail coming off, besides the American A300 was a B52 in extreme turbulence. It landed safety. Our airbus crashed killing all on board.

Do I like Airbus, No. Just don't like the way they design there systems.

Another story, A Nothwest Airbus shot a approach to MSP. At 200' agl the aircraft went around and entered the missed approach holding pattern. They could not get the aircraft to leave the holding pattern. In my S80 I have flight controls that operate cables our on the wing and tail. I can overpower the autopilot. ON a airbus you are operting the computer which operates the aircraft.
The northwest crew in a teleconference with Airbus was told to momentarily turn off all the power to the aircraft and the computers would go to a basic mode. I don't think that Control/ Alternate Delete should be an emergency backup system in an aircraft.

Just my 2 cents.

Dave

__________________
1970 220D, owned 1980-1990
1980 240D, owned 1990-1992
1982 300TD, owned 1992-1993
1986 300SDL, owned 1993-2004
1999 E300, owned 1999-2003
1982 300TD, 213,880mi, owned since Nov 18, 1991- Aug 4, 2010 SOLD
1988 560SL, 100,000mi, owned since 1995
1965 Mustang Fastback Mileage Unknown(My sons)
1983 240D, 176,000mi (My daughers) owned since 2004
2007 Honda Accord EX-L I4 auto, the new daily driver
1985 300D 264,000mi Son's new daily driver.(sold)
2008 Hyundai Tiberon. Daughters new car

How big is the Spruce Goose?

It had a wingspan of about 320ft and wieghed in at 170k lbs. I think it had 8 engines too.

__________________
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"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering
if they've made a difference. The Marines don't
have that problem."-Ronald Reagan

"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them
what to do and they will surprise you with their
ingenuity."-General George S. Patton

I rather like to listen to your $.02 Dave, and have to hijack this thread to seek you opinion on the A300-600R. With the Airbus philosophy of letting the computer keep the control surfaces within operating limits, and not allow the pilot to override, how was it possible for the pilot of the A300-600R to exceed the design limits for the tail by more than 50%.

It appears that Airbus does not know the limit for the tail, or, they have failed to properly program the flight control system.

Maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Do you believe that the pilot exceeded the design load for the tail by more than 50%?

Another interesting "big" plane was the cargo version of the B-36, called the XC-99 (they only built one, otherwise it would have just been the C-99).
Info here says room for "400 troops". Maybe a commercial version (which PanAm had options on 3 of them in 1945 for it's Hawaii route) could have held more. It also was a double-deck design, interior voume was 16,117 sq ft. Could haul 50 tons of cargo (that's just cargo weight now), weighed 135,732 empty and 265,000 lb gross. Cruising speed was 290mph, but remember "it's a gasser". I think it still exists down near DFW somewhere, near where the Convair plant used to be.
Gilly

__________________
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pilot's prolly a Lib.!





i'm only kidding.

A couple of things about the A300-600R this aircraft is not a fly by wire, ?The rudders are hydraulicly controlled.
Designed in all transport aircraft is a rudder limiter that restricts the amount of actual deflection based upon aircraft speed. As the speed increases the amount of rudder movement decreases. This is designed to prevent over stressing the rudder as well as over controlling the yaw axis. As I said ALL modern airliners have this.
Here are the differneces that American and our union were trying to bring to the forefront of the investigation.
The amount of yaw produced even with the limiter applied is greater on the A300 then all other transport aircraft. 1.5 inches of rudder travel produces the full rudder movement, It take about twice as much on the other aircraft. so the aircraft is highly sensitive in yaw.
Second, all the training done that I and 95% of the pilots out there, mentions nothing about rudder oscilation inputs. My training is civilian thru ATP and Military C141's. I now have about 17,000 hours flying. Because of our accident it has come to the forefront, the design criteria of a transport aircraft. The rudder system is designed for a full deflection in one direction and then the other, AND THAT IS IT. If you continue this application of rudder back and forth you can exceed the design limit of the aircraft.
The wake turbulence recovery technique, which they were doing, was to possibly use rudder to help the aircraft to right itself.
The interesting part, After an incident 4 years ago in another one of our A300s Airbus looked at the stress loads and realized that maybe thru pilot training, the pilot force out there did not know of the oscilation problem. But they did not tell anyone. It would have been nice of them to relay there finding to the operators of the aircraft.

Can I over stress my aircraft, Yes in some ways. Oscilating the ailerons, no the elevator, yes or in the case of a rapid application, I can over G the aircraft which would cause the wings to seperate. But this we have been trained on. Our G limit is specified in the limits of out operating manual. And thru Air Force pilot training I have had aircraft up to 6 G's so I am familiar with different G levels on the aircraft.
Rudder use for control of the aircraft was actually taught in pilot training.

The big concern from a pilots point of view is WHY is the A300 rudder system so sensitve and why were we not informed of the oscilating problem thru my 35 years of pilot training. Of course now it is in the manuals.

One item that has been taught is manuevering speed, The concept taught is that at or below manuevering speed you cannot over stress the aircraft. The flight surface will stall before is can produce the force that will over stress the aircraft. Well a slight revision. You can overstress at manuevering speed, this idea applies only to the wings. If I pull on the control yoke at or below manuevering speed the wing will stall prior to over G-ing the aircraft. It applies to that axis only--- now.

Is it possible to over G the yaw axis in the fly by wire aircraft, The latest coming from the FAA and all manufacture is YES. I have not heard anything specific about fly by wire aircraft, but then again my training is specific to the MD80



Dave

__________________
1970 220D, owned 1980-1990
1980 240D, owned 1990-1992
1982 300TD, owned 1992-1993
1986 300SDL, owned 1993-2004
1999 E300, owned 1999-2003
1982 300TD, 213,880mi, owned since Nov 18, 1991- Aug 4, 2010 SOLD
1988 560SL, 100,000mi, owned since 1995
1965 Mustang Fastback Mileage Unknown(My sons)
1983 240D, 176,000mi (My daughers) owned since 2004
2007 Honda Accord EX-L I4 auto, the new daily driver
1985 300D 264,000mi Son's new daily driver.(sold)
2008 Hyundai Tiberon. Daughters new car

Doh. Should have remembered this. Thanks for the clarification.

I presume that you mean "1.5 inches of pedal travel produces the full rudder movement."

This seems like a very small number and would make the aircraft very difficult to fly. The pedals would be way too sensitive, correct?

Is it the general agreement that rudder on the A300-600R made three full deflections, full left, then full right, then full left again?

Have you had to change procedures for the DC9-80?

So, what good are all the limits that are placed upon the aircraft if the limits will not prevent the pilot from overstressing the aircraft? If you are going to follow a given philosophy, and put the control of the aircraft in a computer, then DO IT. Don't just do it half-assed.

All very interesting, Dave. Thanks.

Yes it is please keep this one going.

---------------------------------
1.5 inches from neutral for full rudder pedal tavel and that will give you full deflection and yes it did make 3 full deflections prior to failure. Why he did this we will never know. And the rate of this movement I do question if it was physically possible. I have not flown the A300 so I'm not sure of the control sensitivity.

----------------------------------
The dificulty in controling the aircraft is a learned proces. The T38 was so sensitive that you flew the aircraft with your wrist on your right leg and used just your finger tips, otherwise you would get into a pilot induced oscilations. A very sensitive aircraft flight control system. But you learned it. Why is the A300 so sensitive in just the rudders I don't know. The flight control "feel" in the MD80 is much heavier that the DC10 that I flew. A power steering Vs. manual steering idea. BUT all the flight controls had the same basic sensitivity.


MD80 procedures have change in reguards to rudder usage. Applying full rudder is OK just don't swap from side to side. This is now taught to all our pilots and since the FAA came down with this probably all airlines.

Computer fly be wire. Up until the fly by wire sytems that were started , to my knowledge, in the F16 type aircraft, all aircraft would allow the pilot to overstress the aircraft to the point of failure. That is part of our job. Every day I fly I can screw up and kill all 129 passengers. Many people have some false sence of security, or thought, that something on the aircraft would not let the airplane crash. That something are the 2 pilots in the cockpit. And only the 2 pilots. Look at the Egyptian airline crash out of JFK. The copilot wanted to crash the airplane and he did. The Captain could not stop him in that situation. If at 200' AGL I applied full aileron and rudder My coplit could not counteract my inputs with the time remaining. So what keeps you safe up there are the pilots.
The first electronic flight controls for fighters were neccesary due to the instability of the aircraft, that is how you design a high performance fighter. They designed it very unstable and used computers to control it. BUT they have ejection seats, so if it goes south you can eject.
Have I had to exceed the limits of the aircraft in any way, no, knock on wood. But if in a thunderstorm downburst I could firewall the engines and ignore the stall warning computer to prevent the aircraft form hitting the ground ( it is easier and safer to just not fly approaches thru , near or around thunderstorms) . In the A320 you would apply full throttle but the computers would not let you exceed max thrust ( actually these systems are also in newer Boeings) , I could pull on the control stick with all I have but the computer would limit me. Hopefully my next 9 years of flying I will never have to exceed any limits, but in an emergency I would like that option.

Some of the new Boeings are getting limits on engine fuel systems and flight controls. It is inevitable and will be the norm in the future. But the computer systems will also be more advanced.

On the A320 they realize they had to put a override button on the captains stick controller. Here's why. The brand new copilot with very little time in the aircrat is flying. On approach if the Capt has to take over due to poor skill level in the aircraft, IE he's messing up the landing. The old system accepted the strongest input. Not a overiding input. So now the Captain presses a button on his stick and it is now a overide stick. The copilots will no longer work. Took them a couple of years to find this was needed.

__________________
1970 220D, owned 1980-1990
1980 240D, owned 1990-1992
1982 300TD, owned 1992-1993
1986 300SDL, owned 1993-2004
1999 E300, owned 1999-2003
1982 300TD, 213,880mi, owned since Nov 18, 1991- Aug 4, 2010 SOLD
1988 560SL, 100,000mi, owned since 1995
1965 Mustang Fastback Mileage Unknown(My sons)
1983 240D, 176,000mi (My daughers) owned since 2004
2007 Honda Accord EX-L I4 auto, the new daily driver
1985 300D 264,000mi Son's new daily driver.(sold)
2008 Hyundai Tiberon. Daughters new car

All very interesting Dave. I am involved with balancing of the JT8D-217 and CF6-80C2 engines at A/A and have more than a passing interest in these machines. It's always excellent to hear it from a pilot's perspective.