At 08:51 PM 2/20/2003 -0800, David Ross wrote: >At the risk of starting the Boeing versus "them" war, Boeing makes strong >aircraft! I wouldn't use the 707 as proof that Boeing still builds aircraft a particular way. For a comparison, look at the cars we drive, compared to the cars our parents drove. They have better gas mileage and better safety features (airbags, anti-lock brakes), but they crumple in a crash like an aluminum can under my foot. I wonder if Boeing still makes their aircraft so ridiculously strong? Or have they, like so many modern manufacturers, figured out exactly how strong their products have to be for normal use and refined their engineering process so the product is exactly that strong? I'm not an apologist for either Airbus (or Boeing), but I can't point to anything that makes me wonder if Airbus optimized the tolerances and capacities of their airliners too much. Considered the performance problems of the A340, I'm sure they has been some pressure on them to lighten those planes however they can, to tighten tolerances when they can to gain a few more miles of range. However, I can't think of any A340 (or A330) incidents that make me wonder if they've gone too far in the quest for light weight. Back in the time of the 707, the Comet airliner had just had a series of catastrophic failures in mid-flight; there was a design flaw that caused metal fatigue. That may have contributed to any arguments in favor of bullet-proofing the 707. Certainly some 727s have survived some huge in-flight stresses (remember that 727 that went into a supersonic dive over Michigan in the late '70s?), so it's not that Boeing said, "Oh, we'll never make an airliner that strong again," after the 707. But to assert that Boeing still makes craft that could survive what Tex Johnston did to that 707 might be overly optimistic. Nick