6 ms·
Airbus A320neo is just a better plane. A case study where better engineering provided a competitive advantage.
by jakozaur 3y ago
Airbus A320neo is just a better plane. A case study where better engineering provided a competitive advantage.
- squirrel6 3y agoTrue, I’ve heard and read that many pilots prefer the cockpit config over the 737. Boeing needs to just start over.
- ahoka 3y agoYes, because redoing something from scratch usually reduces the amount of problems. Do you really think that?
- sgt101 3y agoeerrr... I can only speak from experience with software, but several times I've been in projects trapped with implementations that take months to incrementally update and then seen clean sheet implementations blow them out of the water in a matter of weeks. In one case I saw an implementation of a radio system that met 100% of the technical requirement that a staff engineer wrote as a side project in six weeks. The corporate implementation couldn't meet the spec, had taken 2 years and was being developed by scores of engineers. Interestingly the corporate implementation was supplied to the customer, caused a huge reputational dent and was ulitimately scrapped... while the staff engineer was dismissed!
- Dalewyn 3y ago>I've been in projects trapped with implementations that take months to incrementally update and then seen clean sheet implementations blow them out of the water in a matter of weeks. Firefox vs. Chrome in a nutshell.
- ahartmetz 3y agoNot the example you are looking for. KHTML -> WebKit (for a while, that was the engine of Chrome!) -> Blink.
- Ekaros 3y ago737 might be at point where redoing it from scratch might be sensible. You can only iterate from same starting point that is over 50 year old design so long. At certain point starting from new will make more sense. And it might be now.
- p_l 3y agoThe problem is that 737 design requires significant redoing to make it inherently safer (either structural redesign, or switch to Fly-By-Wire), with all options involving significant certification hurdles. At some point the question becomes if there aren't bigger wins possible with new airframe. Or at least resurrecting 757 and maybe making a shortened version.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- diggan 3y ago> Boeing needs to just start over Would that even be possible? How long time would it take them to complete a completely new design? And then how long time from the design is finished until they can start delivering planes?
- plett 3y agoThe whole reason the 737 Max series exists is to avoid having to start over. By maintaining "backwards compatibility" type approval with the regular 737 then the existing massive pool of 737 pilots can jump straight in it and start flying.
- deaddodo 3y agoI always thought that was the most idiotic part that the FAA accepted. Like, I get that there has to be leeway for similar configurations of the same plane so they don't have to go through the process for each. But it's been so clearly abused that it's ridiculous now. This: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/EM_N323AS_%282896342517%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/EM_N323A... Is so obviously not this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Alaska_737_Max_9.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Alaska_7...
- Symbiote 3y agoI'm not sure a simple picture is enough. The Airbus A330 and A350 share the same type rating. (At least some variants; I'm not an expert.)
- nicole_express 3y agoA big advantage Airbus has is their more modern designs are full fly-by-wire, so they're able to more practically compensate for the handling characteristics in software. As far as I know (not a pilot or aeronautics engineer) MCAS was more or less an attempt to do the same to a non-fly-by-wire plane, and we see how that turned out...
- rst 3y agoLikewise the 757, which current Boeing management scrapped when market trends were against it, but is now the plane they want -- so instead they're trying to cheap out with 737 retreads.
- HPsquared 3y agoShort-term thinking seems to be a big factor in all these issues.
- wkat4242 3y agoOn the other hand, Airbus went ahead with the A380 and gets a lot of bad press for it ("How could they not have seen this coming"). And the 757 is an old design too.
- HPsquared 3y agoA380 was an example of "spending now in hope of future return". It was a case of long-term thinking gone wrong.
- kergonath 3y agoYou cannot avoid mistakes every now and then. At least it had no particular safety issue and is quite a reliable aircraft, and they still made money with it. This is nothing like the issues Boeing is facing.
- deaddodo 3y agoAnd it mostly comes down to Boeing being unwilling to invest in a new design so they can keep getting grandfathered into the approval process since all iterations are "the same plane". Something that probably directly led to recent events.
- kilroy123 3y agoI strongly agree. I fly a lot, far more than the average person. So I have a lot of preferences for which plane I'm sitting on. Not surprisingly, it is originally from Bombardier. The US, no the world, desperately needs more competition and other plane builders.
- Symbiote 3y agoThe originally-Bombardier plane is the A220. The A320 / A320neo has nothing to do with Bombardier.
- lierborgu 3y agoI think maybe it's the A220 (developed by Bombardier, acquired by Airbus) you're thinking about here, not the A320neo (developed by Airbus)
- noir_lord 3y agoMy favourite commercial flight was on a 787, that was one comfortable plane to fly on (they pressurise to a lower altitude than anything else I’d flown commercial) but every other flight I’ve got in the top ten was airbus. Given the choice though I’d fly on an airbus with lower passenger comfort than any recent Boeing. I never used to look at what aircraft it was but now I do and I avoid Boeing, that’s a strategic failure, don’t make customers think is a good rule.
- naijaboiler 3y agoSame here for me. 787 has the best flying customer experience. After that, the rest of the top 10 are airbuses
- atif089 3y agoAnyone got any idea what's the status of that X1 thingy which was supposed to be like Concord fast but still affordable by peasant class
- afruitpie 3y ago
- mnbion 3y agoThe R&D is the same but Airbus has superior QA and manufacturing.
- m463 3y agoI think a lot of the qualities people assign to aircraft are actually determined by the carrier. Some carriers give you things like leg room and comfort, some do not, and some take it away then sell it back to you.