"Airbus has has it for 20 years"
And perfected it in the last 10 after a
stream of accidents/events!!
I am reminded of a Paris airshow some
time ago where an Airbus went off on it's
own, much to the chagrin of Company
pilots who couldn't shut the damn thing
off!! They ended up pulling every single
circuit breaker in the cockpit they could
find, while the damn thing bounded about
"uncommanded through the air!!
Not to worry, they eventually got the computerized whizwheel under
control
and got down safely.
It's like anything else of new technology...
you gotta work out the bugs....and eventually they do....but not without
loss
of life and many accidents in the case of
the Airbus. Now (MAYBE) we are about
to learn a little more about carbon fibre
technology over time in the context of
tailplane certification parameters. According to what we thought we knew
the structure was basically pilot proof
in terms of overload within a certain
airspeed/altitude operating envelope...maybe not to the extent we
thought under all situations?
Or maybe not all the damage that particular tail previously incurred
during
a prior upper air turbulence encounter was
not discovered and thus unknowingly went
unrepaired to figure into the tails ultimate
demise at a later date on another type
of turbulence encounter?
It's an ongoing learning process for sure...
you cannot have reasonable progress without some risk, for sure though.
Cap'n. Bob
'60 :{)
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