Posts about: "Airbus" [Posts: 68 Page: 4 of 4]¶

Yes, you can , and in safety-critical applications you frequently do. (See e.g. this presentation from Airbus and this one from Rockwell-Collins .)
Triplication (or duplication) doesn't help against software problems unless the software itself is triplicated (which happens).

Hardware-wise, maybe. In most other aspects, absolutely not - otherwise the transition from analogue to digital would not have happened.

"Triplication"? I'm unsure as to what you're referring to. If you're referring to the two disparate software implementations used in the Airbus FBW systems of the A320 and her descendants, then there were only two - not three - distinct implementations, and they were not so much a necessity as a "belt-and-braces" failsafe, given that the A320 was the first implementation of its type.

Software likewise, as AirborneAgain alludes to.

Not necessarily - see AirborneAgain's post.

But in a software-based system, the logical functions can be replaced simply by replacing a ROM IC or by re-writing to an EPROM IC - a much less problematic process than re-jigging discrete hardware across hundreds of airframes.

Airbus/Boeing FBW systems use hardened versions of obsolete commodity hardware - the suppliers won't stop making them as long as there's a demand.

I just have a problem with studies that try to analyze human activities with reductionist statistics and math. Most of human achievement comes not from the masses (which perhaps can be studied that way) but from the outliers, the screwballs, the few who, through enhanced human cussedness and stubbornness, decide NOT to stay with the obvious, efficient or safe thing.

Concorde was a political animal, heavily subsidized because someone want it to happen, regardless of efficiency.

But then, ALL advances in transportation have been - and often still are - political animals, subsidized because someone with money and power wants it to happen, regardless of efficiency.

Columbus and Magellan were subsidized, to head straight out to sea when everyone else was sticking close to the coastlines. Look up the land grants to U.S. trans-continental railroads. Or the Air Mail contracts that supported the fledgling American air transport industry (and if you think "that was then, and this is now," - consider the budget of the FAA and NTSB and TSA, and the military contracts to Boeing and its suppliers.)

Cars? Consider how much tax money goes to build and maintain highway systems.

And consider the man who stood up in the U.S. Capitol and declared, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."

Concorde failed because it lost political support** - just like Apollo and the Space Shuttle. But most of the other aircraft on those charts would also be, or have been, far rarer in the skies (or never appeared) if they lost (or never had) their own political backing and subsidies, direct and indirect.

**If the French government had felt it was in France's interest for Concorde to continue, I'm sure money for, and political pressure on, Airbus would have been found to keep her flying.

And Concorde also faced substantial political opposition - its market viability would have been much higher if U.S. authorities had been as lenient with its "furrin" sonic booms as they had been with our own home-grown booms ("The Sound of Freedom!", it was called.)

Now - Concorde's technology was pushing 40, and no doubt that particular airframe would have faded away, just like the 727 and the other designs from the 1960's. To be replaced with something newer. But the future of supersonic transport in general was cut short not because of some statistical failing, but simply because it no longer shared the same political support as subsonic aviation.

Hi Dear Guys,


Amazing thread on an amazing aircraft! Red through all the posts. What an immense amount of knowledge/experience on this bird! Your valuable inputs triggerd my curiousity to the extent that I have started to study Concorde manuals trying to understand systems and operating details. Not an easy job! I think a more detailed Traning Manual would help me greatly.
Here is my question:
Going through the FM exterior inspection chapter I have run into tiny details what are really hard to find even on close-up external photos. Just to name a few: "nose gear free fall dump valve vent", "engine oil tank vent" or "hydraulic-driven fuel transfer pump drain". Was there a "pictorial" external inspection guide available on the Concorde for crew training (similar to Boeing or Airbus training aids)? If yes, could somehow, somebody send me a copy of that?


Appreciate your help.

It takes a confluence of technologies and market structure to make something viable.

Concorde could not fly as anything but a very expensive subsonic aircraft over populated land, due to sonic-boom noise pollution - ruling out a lot of the marketplace. London-Africa/South Asia, for example, or Paris-Beijing. Or even NY-LA.

Flying the Pacific non-stop requires a doubling or even tripling of range to avoid refuel stops (sitting on the ground once or twice part-way, for 90 minutes or so, plus acceleration/deceleration time, defeats a lot of the speed advantage). Technology has advanced a lot, but nowhere near doubling/tripling the efficiency/range of an Olympus-type turbojet (which, counting the thrust recovery from the brilliant nacelle designs, was already amazingly efficient).

That's why regular Concorde service (and thus aircraft sales) was, practically speaking, limited to trans-Atlantic routes only.

Work is being done on shockwave/boom attentuation, which might open up far more markets. But it is still small-scale experimental.

Airbus recently proposed - on paper - a boom-defeating flight profile: rocket-assisted vertical acceleration to supersonic (boom travels sideways rather than towards the ground) combined with Mach-4.5 cruise at 104-115,000 feet (30-35km altitude attenuates the boom effects at ground level) and near-vertical descent while passing back to subsonic. Quite a roller-coaster ride!

Using liquid H2 fuel that gets it range from London-LAX at Mach 4.5 - but carrying only a dozen or so pax (hydrogen tank fills the rest of the fuselage).

Rolls Royce will hold a copy of the CMM for the ECU. Airbus probably do as well.

Whether either of them would release it to you, even now, I am doubtful.

Rolls Royce will hold a copy of the CMM for the ECU. Airbus probably do as well.

Whether either of them would release it to you, even now, I am doubtful.

Trying to find a picture but didnt the black boxes have the Lucas Aerospace green flash logo on them ? I remember seeing that on the Tornado / RB199 MECU & DECU Black Boxes and being amazed that Lucas made both. Shouldn't have been so surprised though