The third and largest commercial airliner I flew, was the Airbus A319. when Atlantic Coast Airlines decided to re-invent itself into a low cost carrier in June of 2004. We flew the A319 out of Washington Dulles International Airport just outside of Washington, DC. Unfortunately, we were saddled with inefficient regional jets and we were never able to acquire 319's quickly enough to offset the losses from the regional jets. The airline closed its doors in January 2006 after after 18 months of operation.
The Airbus is certainly one of the most advanced and automated airplanes flying today. The A319 is the slightly smaller offspring of the A320. The A320 family of aircraft was developed as a short to medium range, narrow-body aircraft. In case you're wondering, a narrow-body aircraft has only one aisle running down the center of the cabin. A wide-body aircraft has two aisles running the length of the cabin. The A320 was launched in 1984 with its first flight occurring early in 1987. It was delivered to its first customer in 1988.
One of the things that made this aircraft unique, was that it was the first commercial aircraft to have an all glass cockpit. The only analog gauges were the brake pressure indicators and the Remote Magnetic Indicators (like a compass). Most significant of all its advances was a fully digital fly-by-wire system. Older aircraft had cables attached to the control wheels in the cockpit. These cables ran through the floor of the aircraft, out to the hydraulic control units, that then move the actual flight control surfaces. With a fly-by-wire system, there are no wires going to the flight controls. Instead, a side-stick controller, a joystick, replaces the big control wheel in front of the pilot. When the pilot moves the joystick, a signal is sent to a computer. This comuter interprets the inputs from the pilot, and sends and electric signal out to the actuators that then move the flight controls themselves. It's really an amazing system. Boeing now also uses fly-by-wire technology in the 777 and the soon to be delivered 787. Instead of having a side-stick controller, Boeing decided to stay with a control yoke in fron of each pilot. Personally, I prefer the Airbus' side-stick.
While undergoing training at the Airbus North America Training Center in Miami, Florida, Airbus told us that the design philosophy behind their aircraft is to make the pilots job as easy as possible. Give them all the information they need, let the computers do the flying, and the pilot will be a manager of everything. I must admit, even though it is highly automated, you have to know what the airplane is doing at all times, lest it reach up and bite you. That said, it was a wonderful, fun airplane to fly!
Here are some videos from Airbus on the development of the A320 family:
I hope you enjoy the videos. Until next time, Flight Attendants, Please prepare the cabin for Landing
No comments:
Post a Comment