Emirates Airbus A380 crosswind landing at Dusseldorf, Germany, October of 2014. Imagine yourself inside that massive inflated sausage. And imagine the stress placed on the huge tail rudder, the horizontal stabilizers, the wing roots and the gear trucks. “Can I get some cleaning solution for the seats in here, please?”
Same aircraft, different vantage point.
And to think: this pilot had to land with some crappy Airbus joystick (instead of a proper two-handed yoke as with Boeing products) — left handed — when odds are that the pilot is right-handed.
I find myself absolutely fascinated with what occurs in the cockpit of airplanes, the cockpit of racing cars, the cab of locomotives, the bridge of ocean-going vessels.
In that vein, I first connected with Airbus here, regarding their then-new A380. It was “do or die” for Airbus and its parent company, the Euro consortium EADS. They’ve pulled it out; for now.
Now, I proffer this wonderful video (a bit long at 24 minutes but truly worth every second) which is a compilation of the German website PilotsEye.tv “best of.”
You’ll no doubt notice that, involving Airbus aircraft, “joysticks” are substituted for the traditional “yokes” once centrally placed before the pilot and co-pilot.
That said, one of the largest gripes about Airbus control systems involved pilots who were right-hand dominant. They had to “re-learn” how to yield critical and very detailed aircraft input from their left hands on the left-mounted command pilot joystick controller. No small deal, but your very life depends on the ability of the pilot you drew on your Airbus flight to have transitioned from his right hand in detail to his left hand.
Innocent Question: do most co-pilots therefore make landings on Airbuses? It would, after all, make them more valuable as potential pilots, would it not?
And I’ll wager the bulk of you couldn’t tell an Airbus from a Boeing and the major difference it makes.
Check out this typical Airbus A380 cockpit:
Note the far-left and far-right pilot and co-pilot joystick control columns.
Detail of an Airbus co-pilot joystick controller here:
Let’s make a comparison, shall we? A Boeing 787 Dreamliner cockpit below:
Notice a difference?
Finally, for those interested in commercial aircraft photographs, there is a wonderful website for civilian airline photos here: AirLiners.net.
