;D Yes, I think they could sell twice the amount of planes if they would stop that "retard!" thingy. Other planes are more polite though, they just write it on the PFD.

Of course you are right, the thing is big, it raised some attention and it's ugly too. Now do a "usual" mishap in a current 737 and nobody will care, do the same in the whale and the world listens.
Does anybody doubt that the PIC at the airshow crawled under a rock after the building said "ouch!"?
Lets stay on the conspiracy side.  :P I think the pilot was the same as in the A380 against CRJ thing.

Quote:

Basic pilot training 101 - if you are not sure it will fit, don't go there.

Seems like he was sure.  ;D

Media often enough plays a big role in the perception game. The RR engine trouble at the Qantas A380 is solved and RR paid the bill there, but ain't no big headlines then, only sensational things count.


I remember those rudder incidents, Lou. First it was stuck (but gave you a big one to one side before) and then it actually deflected the rudder in the opposite direction as commanded.
Tricky thing and they only came to a solution after a plane eventually landed safely after this happened, so the pilots could tell exactly what happened. All others before crashed with zero survivors and the CVR just had "what was that? Holy s...!! " on it.
And that rudder deflection gets recorded like a commanded one (which it wasn't).

Nobody is happy about the simple "pilot error" conclusion when the guys are dead. And evil to whom evil thinks when it comes to the best conclusion from the manufactures viewpoint, which is just that, "pilot error".
They went straight to this "pilot error" conclusion on quite some DC-10 incidents too until some relatives took the heavy burden of running year long lawsuits (with the costs involved) where unbiased experts (and there are few) had a chance to state their views on e. g. the design of the plane.

But one has to play fair, you can't design a thing going up to 40.000ft at 0.80 Mach to be invulnerable under all circumstances, you can just try to circumvent known or foreseeable stuff.
Running all three hydraulic systems through one vital joint isn't the best idea though.

They later had a NASA developed system ready for daily use which could fly the plane with thrust settings only and all hydraulics disabled.
That system would come at a cost and they then said that it's too unlikely to happen that all three hydraulic systems fail (for whatever reason), so the cost would be too high in relation to the actual use.
Money business, not safety business. It still is and will always be. (Especially aviation) safety always came at a cost of lives, nobody should forget about that.


I think I've hijacked boeing247's 797 thread.  :-[