From: black.hole.4.spam{at}gmail.com (Don Hills)

In article ,
"Phil Payne"  wrote:
>
>I've never been that happy an Airbus passenger.  First of all, that damn
>thing DID fly into the ground.  Second I was on an LH034 Frankfurt-London
>flight once that suffered an incident, and third I think of the Boeing 737
>that lost a lot of its roof and still brought most of its passengers down
>safely.

The one that flew into the ground in Paris would have actually hit the
ground earlier (and harder) if it hadn't had FBW. If the pilot had been
allowed to push the throttles up faster, the engines would have compressor
stalled and he'd have had no power at all. If he had been allowed to pull
the stick back further the plane would have stalled, dropped a wing and
cartwheeled in.

The 737 that lost its roof over the Pacific was an early model, an old
design. Structural analysis wasn't such an exact art back in those days,
and this incident proved it. First, it allowed the failure to occur in the
first place (too weak in some areas), and allowed it to land safely (too
strong in other areas). You wouldn't be as lucky in a current model 737,
although you wouldn't need to be as the failure would be much less likely
to happen.

--
Don Hills    (dmhills at attglobaldotnet)     Wellington, New Zealand

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