DC-9 Hard Landing

[Chris Trott]

Oh believe me, the whole US v European was going long before Airbus. The VC-10, Trident, BAC1-11, and Caravelle all suffered greatly because of the desire by the European countries to force their aircraft to be built to their flag carrier's specs instead of to a wider appeal. There were several huge fights back during the 1960s over "stolen" designs (usually revolving around Douglas and the DC-9) that I think really started the bitterness in a fight that until then was more of a pure competition.

[TobyV]

Quite a lot of posts since I last posted!

@Chris - it was the avionics bay door under the nose through which we were climbing in if that helps to make more sense of my anecdote

@Garry - I think a large part of the more solid construction of yesteryear was that they simply had no choice. All the clever Finite Element Analysis and Boundary Element Analysis tools that are used in engineering today simply didn't exist or at least were in their very infancy and ran on enormous mainframes (and indeed very simplified models compared what you can run on a typical modern PC). The result was calculations were done with slide rules by hand, probably using the sort equations (often approximations) you find in books like Roark, together with a generous safety factor. When I was interviewed by a certain UK based manufacturer of defence systems, they told me that for structures they worked to a safety factor of 1.25. That to me, is not a lot, and relies on you having understood the materials, the geometry and the likely loading of your component well, and performed some detailed FE calculations to be sure of what you've designed.

[Chris Trott]

Quite a lot of posts since I last posted!

@Chris - it was the avionics bay door under the nose through which we were climbing in if that helps to make more sense of my anecdote

Oh, in that case, I've had a BAe-146 try to kill me twice when trying to service the potable water in the forward service bay (under the forward galley door). They don't have springs or anything and are held up by a single latch. You'd better be sure you've got it fully secured before you put your head in. It seems to be a universal thing with planes - they do everything they can to protect the passenger but God Forbid they actually try to protect the poor guys working on them.

[Chris Trott]

Hi Chris,

as for the both airlines mentioned above I happen to know some of the pilots involved. They experienced quite hair-raising things there - from forgotten screwdrivers between slats up to non-working control columns on taxi to test flight, the list of horrors is endless. These men say they have never experienced such a "mess" elsewhere - not at Boeing nor at Fokker sites. These reflections/memories aren't mine and from what I can tell it's not very likely that they're based on patriotic feelings (and I doubt that you can compare the Caravelle to the DC-9, and the F70/100 came very much later). Moreover they didn't go into judging the performance or airworthiness of the aircraft but its mere assembly.

Not to pick on Airbus much, but your statement got me thinking and going to check my source, but it is true that United had to park their entire Airbus fleet for almost a year when they first got them because Airbus failed to update the Fly-By-Wire system to incorporate the changes that had been required by Airworthiness Directive prior to delivery and then refused to provide those updates to United. UAL only got it fixed when Lufthansa went behind Airbus's back and provided the updates to them and then also (against Airbus's wishes) provided the correct flight simulator software to allow UAL to start training pilots in their own sims. Sadly, after LH did the simulator thing again for Frontier, Airbus changed the way they did software so operators couldn't share it between them. Not saying this was something done in the past, but it's kind of indicitive of why the guys who work on Airbus are so hateful of them. It's not as much the airplane as the people behind the airplane that has them so soured.

[airboatr]

Quite a lot of posts since I last posted!

@Chris - it was the avionics bay door under the nose through which we were climbing in if that helps to make more sense of my anecdote

Oh, in that case, I've had a BAe-146 try to kill me twice when trying to service the potable water in the forward service bay (under the forward galley door). They don't have springs or anything and are held up by a single latch. You'd better be sure you've got it fully secured before you put your head in. It seems to be a universal thing with planes - they do everything they can to protect the passenger but God Forbid they actually try to protect the poor guys working on them.

So you realized the danger the first time around did ya?

juuuuust asking

[WhisperJet]

Not to pick on Airbus much, but your statement got me thinking and going to check my source, but it is true that United had to park their entire Airbus fleet for almost a year when they first got them because Airbus failed to update the Fly-By-Wire system to incorporate the changes that had been required by Airworthiness Directive prior to delivery and then refused to provide those updates to United. UAL only got it fixed when Lufthansa went behind Airbus's back and provided the updates to them and then also (against Airbus's wishes) provided the correct flight simulator software to allow UAL to start training pilots in their own sims. Sadly, after LH did the simulator thing again for Frontier, Airbus changed the way they did software so operators couldn't share it between them. Not saying this was something done in the past, but it's kind of indicitive of why the guys who work on Airbus are so hateful of them. It's not as much the airplane as the people behind the airplane that has them so soured.

Hi Chris,

I repeat - I was only talking about assembly quality standards - and only for Douglas / MCDonnellDouglas...
Same if you would compare a 70s Leyland Mini to today's BMW Mini - in terms of build quality.

Then, I'd be the wrong guy to carry on the US/EU rivalry in terms of aircraft technology nor am I an Airbus fanatic - it wasn't meant that way at all.

All the very best from LOWW,

Nick

[Chris Trott]

Nick,

My point of the post was to show that "build standards" are something that is kinda hard to define. Knowing guys who worked for Douglas back during that period, if they knew there were tools being left in planes, they'd be appalled. They had pretty stringent tool control procedures in place (thanks to their military contracts) and it wasn't unheard of for someone to be fired if a tool wasn't returned, even a screwdriver. The control column issue I have a problem with unless there was work done prior to the airline acceptance flight (I don't know of any manufacturer that lets customers make the first flight on an airplane), and at that, most likely someone got punished pretty severely if not fired as that's a major issue.

Also, the quality of assembly is part-and-parcel to the airworthiness of an aircraft. If these things were going on and weren't being reported to the FAA for violation of their production certificate, then that's a major issue. That's why I have a problem believing that there were that many issues.