1/18 Regarding the A380 airbus/French engineering troll... if I were to
pick machineries based on reliability, branding, and engineering
history, I'd pick in the following order:
Japanese > German > American > French
It's too bad that Germans and Japanese don't make aircrafts.
They really know how to make machineries that are efficient
and/or high performance. As for French engineering, when was
the last time they built anything reliable and/or worth driving?
Peugeot? Renault? No thanks.
\_ Honda has always wanted to get into the aircraft engine
business, and it has started doing it already:
http://world.honda.com/AircraftEngines
\_ I just saw the Honda Jet video, it is AWSOME!!! I LOVE IT.
\_ German machines tend to be slick but fragile.
\_ and I suppose Americans are much better? Say you got a 100 mile
drive to a wedding/job interview, would you drive a 20 year old
Pontiac or a 20 year old Mercedes?
\_ You do know that JD Powers polled 293 problems per 100
Pontiacs after 3 years ownership, and 318 problems per
100 Mercedes Benzs in the same period. The MB has fewer
initial quality problems (132 per 100 vehicls) than the
Pontiac (142 per 100), but the Caddy, which is more
comparable to the MB anyway, has just 103 initiali problems
per 100 vehicles, and just 209 after 3 years. To back it
up with personal experience, the 2 MBs I've owned (ML320
and E430) are pure crap with electrical and vibrational
problems too numerous to list.
\_ The previous poster said 20-year-old Pontiacs and Mercedes,
not late model year ones. 20-year-old Mercedes are much
more likely to keep on running today than 20-year-old
Pontiacs. I agree that today's low-end Mercedes are craps
for their price tags.
\_ Yes. But I fail to see how the reliability of 20-
year-old cars applies to current German ability to
design and manufacture reliable machinary. Low end?
A friend's SL500 dash lit up like a Christmas tree 2
hours after he picked up the car from the dealership.
"Dude, your check engine light is on... Now the empty
gas tank light too... What does *that* other light
mean?..." I had a great laugh over it and he was
pissed at me for a couple months. Of course, he also
has the Land Rover that has never ran for 3 months in
a row, including the time when it would not go into
reverse, which made leaving a parking spot somewhat
entertaining.
\_ Mercedes has ran their reliability into the ground.
Who knows why this is, although I've seen (somewhat
troll-ish) claims that it is related to their move
into East German factories. BMW seems to have
kept up to speed, however. One factor here is that
car reliability is much higher than it has been in
the past, and the differences between makes is not
nearly as great as it used to be. Car makers have to
work very hard to keep up their standards, and of
couse Lexus sets a very high bar indeed (too bad they
make such boring cars).
\_ As a BMW owner I can call their cars
'adequate'. The engine itself will run
forever, but everything else (including
transmission) is delicate. My BMW has been in
the shop more times in 3 years than my Honda
has in 10 years. I prefer the BMW because of
performance and styling, but that's it.
\_ The decline of Mercedes started with its merger
with Chrysler.
\_ But interestingly, Chrysler has had something
a comeback since the merger...
\_ which means, crappiness and quality are both
conserved, and that Chrysler owns Mercedes,
not the other way around?
\_ Concur. Also, the Swedes are good engineers. What about the
British? Certainly they made good planes in WW II.
\_ Britian used to make passenger planes, but a very famous
set of myserious crashes in, the 50's (I think) ruined
them. It turned out the metal they had used would
fatigue and eventually break off in flight. They did,
however, figure out the cause via some very impressive
detective work, so they at once lost their reputation
fro building aircraft but gained one for good aviational
detecive work. I think the plane was called "the Comet."
Addendum: Here we go:
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/chasingthesun/planes/comet.html
\_ Scotlandyard?
\_ The Spitfire was the best fighter....
\_ Our Boeing 747s use Rolls Royce engines.
\_ Really? I heard Volkswagon engines lasts a long time.
\_ Volkwagen is near the bottom in reliability. German cars
are high performance, but break easily. Japanese are
durable. American cars are... uh...?
\_ Cheap. The world you are looking for is cheap.
\_ German engineering is the best! Panzer >>> Shermans. V1/V2 rockets were
state of the art. Their ME262 fighters flew faster than any WW2
prop fighters. And they have the Autobahn, which tests German cars
under great stress. I love German engineering. ALL HEIL GERMAN!!!!!
\_ Airbus > Boeing (not a troll)
\_ Yeah, Boeing never crashes their demo planes into the trees
due to faulty design. Airbus = r0x0rz!
\_ The Airbus was foolproof. Basically, if you are 50 feet from the
ground the computer assumes you're landing and takes over the
throttle/controls and guides you to a gentle landing. During the
Airbus demo, the pilots were instructed to make a low level pass
from the ground (common aviation demo), and when they flew it,
they flew 30 feet from the ground. The computer thought they're
landing, and took over. So yes the Airbus is foolproof, the
pilots are not. P.S. All Boeings have an option to turn off
fly-by-wire. None of the Airbuses have that option.
\_ If you make something foolproof you will breed greater fools.
\_ Trusting computers that completely is blatantly stupid.
\_ That is true, but trusting humans completely is even worse.
cf. the collison in Switzerland. It really comes down to
a choice between trusting the people who designed the
plane/machine (ppl like you) and those who pilot them.
Contrary to popular myth, the latter are not that reliable.
Contrary to popular myth, the latter are not more reliable.
\_ That's hilarious! URL please?
\_ as an engineer, I have reservations on the latest and greatest
technology. First of all, the A380 is GIGANTIC so it requires
longer runways and more complex systems to accomodate for its
size. If there's a problem, you can only land in certain
airports so if you have to reroute or land due to weather or
mechanical problems, you're screwed. Secondly, big systems have
more points of failure, and even when you add redundancy, they
crash more catastrophically than smaller systems due to bigger
mass and less available land (you can land small planes in a
dessert, but with A380 you'll generate so much spark/fire and
leakeage the chance of surviving is minimal.)
Thirdly, big systems tend to be complex than smaller ones and
in general complexity introduces new and unforeseen problems.
Lastly, I just don't know enough about French engineering to
really trust the A380.
\_ Must be a really small plane or a really big dessert.
\_ I prefer fudge sundaes, myself.
\_ I knew people who adored American engineering, boarded a Boeing
or MD, and migrated to the big aquarium. |
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