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All Airbus airliners (the only other serious airline manufacturer in the world) are fully fly-by-wire and require computers and sensors to even get off the grou
by Alupis 7y ago
All Airbus airliners (the only other serious airline manufacturer in the world) are fully fly-by-wire and require computers and sensors to even get off the ground, let alone maintain level flight.
Unstable flight profiles are not foreign in aircraft, and requiring computer systems to maintain stable flight is nothing new.
The problem is entirely how this specific system was implemented... and that can be fixed.
- addicted44 7y agoThe fact that Airbus are fly by wire doesn't mean they are "unstable". They might be, but fly by wire does not imply that. For the record, I don't believe Airbus plans are unstable in the way the MAX is, whose instability, from what I understand, came about because they were trying to fit larger engines on the original 737 frame (to prevent pilot retraining), and so had to move the wings higher.
- johannes1234321 7y agoIn some avionics podcast A380 pilots described that that huge beast is a quite good glider. This makes sense since you want to reduce fuel usage and just enjoy smooth sailing. Something like an F-16 however is less stable and requires constant adjustment of flaps etc. there dynamic properties of air to air dogfight are more important.
- henryfjordan 7y agoI'm not saying unstable planes cannot be built, just that I don't trust a company that's already had 2 planes go down to get it right. A quick google search seemed to imply most unstable airframes were military or experimental, not commercial. Unstable airframes are not appropriate for commercial airliners unless you can point to a good reason. "We don't want to train pilots" is a bad reason. The FAA should have pushed back very hard on this point. Personally I think the flaws in the 737-MAX design process were so deep that it would be safest to just scrap the plane. It's not that the issues cannot be fixed, but rather that we'd be better off starting over from scratch knowing that good design principles will be followed the whole time.
- mlyle 7y agoIt is not "unstable" in that sense. At high thrust, slow speed, high aoa it is a little too close to neutrally statically stable. C f. to airliners that can break up from dynamic yaw instability if the yaw dampers fail in some flight regimes.
- henryfjordan 7y agoThanks for explaining! I suppose I've been using "unstable" a bit too liberally in this thread.
- ClumsyPilot 7y agoAirbus planes don't fall out of the sky when air speed sensor fails.
- benjohnson 7y agoAir France Flight 447 crashed with all souls on board lost when the air speed sensors on the Airbus A330 failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
- ClumsyPilot 7y agoHave you read about accident you linked? "It highlighted the role of the co-pilot in stalling the aircraft while the flight computer was under alternate law at high altitude. This "simple but persistent" human error was given as the most direct cause of this accident"