Airbus rudder raises red flag

Airbus rudder raises red flag

i'm looking for the incident on march 6th

it was last year (2005)

What made an Airbus rudder snap in mid-air?








some amazing pictures

sorry if it was already posted








[edit on 25-3-2006 by bigx01]

The pilot error always sounds like whitewash to me. This is a second time that there has been an issue with the composite tail on the A300 series craft. Im not sure if the earlier incident was a 600 variant like the Fed Ex plane.

If I were the NTSB I would insist on inspections of all 300 flying and increase thier inspection schedule. However, the NTSB seems oblivious to "rudder" issues. The 737 series craft have also had unexplained rudder problems as well and they in essence did nothing.

The more interesting question is this: How similar in nature are the composites making up the 787 compaired to the rudder in the A300????



[edit on 3/25/06 by FredT]

that's the incident that the seattle-pi was refering to. also that more problems were found in a fed ex plane after a through examination

at least it still had it's vertical stabalizer. probably would have crashed if the whole thing would have broken off

I brought this up last year, and got jumped all over for "Airbus Bashing"

The American that crashed in NYC shortly after 9/11 was later determined to be a failure of the entire vertical fin. There have been several incidents of rudder/tail issues with Airbus that have been whitewashed.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
I brought this up last year, and got jumped all over for "Airbus Bashing"

never by me I get that flung at me all the time cause its true

Im still interested in the composite angle of all this. Any aero people out there that know the process they are using on the 787 and how it differes from the Airbus material???

"airbus bashing" is probably better than an "airbus crashing"

Originally posted by FredT

The more interesting question is this: How similar in nature are the composites making up the 787 compaired to the rudder in the A300????

if i recall correctly. fiberglass (which is a composite ) was supposed to be the "no maintenance required" save all for boats.

as we all know now you do have to do maintenance on fiberglass boats and watch for delamination and such. not to mention that the core material can rot and lead to failures

i wonder if this might be the same thing that is happening to composites on aircraft.

the military has been using composites on their aircraft for years, but then their maintenance program is much more intensive than commercial versions

Airbus uses Carbon Fiber and a material called Glare. They're using Glare on the A-380. It's sheets of Aluminum, and glass fiber reinforced bond film.

Boeing uses reinforced Graphite for the 787. They use it in the tail of the 777 now.

update from canada

Canada wants inspections of Airbus rudders

Frankly, I think its like the xbox 360, you rush to get out to be the best, when you take the time you give up the performance.