Boeing, and Airbus Industrie Design

Compare and Contrast Boeing, and Airbus Industrie Design History,

and Philosophy on the Boeing 777, and the Airbus A-330/340

Over the next decade, there should be an increased worldwide demand for large transport aircraft. The two major competitors for this market are the Boeing Company in the United States and Europe's Airbus Industrie. Although the Boeing 777 and Airbus A330/A340 families bear certain similarities, they are actually very different aircraft.

During the last fifty years, the commercial-class aircraft manufacturing industry has evolved into an "oligopolistic production structure" characterized by "extremely high survival risk" and "intense competition" (Golich, 1992, pp.899-934). Two of the industry's major contenders presently include Boeing and Airbus Industrie (Mecham, 1994, p. 53). According to Boeing market projections, there will be an $815-billion market for approximately 12,000 new transports through the year 2010 (Proctor, 1994, pp. 48-49). Airbus Industrie, for example, estimates that over the next 10 years, the world's airlines will require about 800 235-seat twins (Sparaco, 1995, p. 30). To meet the demand, both manufacturers are developing wide-body aircraft. Obviously, this has produced considerable competition. The victor in this economic war may be determined by each manufacturer's design philosophy, as well as their application of technology. Such factors could ultimately determine which firm produces the world's w

Related Essays

Boeing and the 747 .... sophistication of the technological equipment and design of the .... The reason UPS chose the Boeing 747s over McDonnell Douglas or Airbus Industrie is because .... (1539 6 )

Consolidation in the Airline Industry .... a standard of airport and route design was originated .... 1993) reported in the early 1990s that Boeing and members of the Airbus Industrie consortium were .... (5521 22 )

320's joysticks. In addition, the A330/A340 cockpit has six 7.25 x 7.25-inch cathode ray tube displays. Two of these displays are located in front of each pilot, and there are two Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitor displays (Hughes, 1993, pp. 38-41). The plane also employs a Honeywell Flight Management System (Hughes, 1993, pp. 38-41). Airbus Industrie's fly-by-wire computers employ a revolutionary software scheme known as "Flight Envelope Protection System" (Waldrop, 1989, pp. 1532-1534). This system has various components. For one, it watches over the pilot: Every decision from takeoff until touchdown is monitored to ensure that no mistakes are made. Second, the system exhibits "guardian angel" behavior (Waldrop, 1989, pp. 1532-1534). Its control laws provide high-speed protection, bank angle protection, high angle-of-attack protection, and load protection to a maximum of 2.5g (North, 1992, pp. 38-42). In addition, the fly-by-wire computers' "flight idle" engine thrust prevents pilots from accidentally flying too close to the ground (Banks, 1991, p. 17). Unfortunately though, much of this protection involves preprogrammed restrictions which limit what exactly the plane can do. Inevitably, Airbus Industrie's fl

Category: Business - B