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Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

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Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're stringing random facts together to try and make a point, Airbus was found guilty two days ago of manslaughter in the 2009 Air France crash that fell into the ocean. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czd2qmdvmq6o It's the same airplane as the MRTT, A330.

I think it's fair to call out the parent comment for things that are not exactly caused by Boeing (eg: the engine failure), but I also think it's important to look at the why . In the case you're referring too, the focus was on poor training and failure to follow up on earlier incidents. It's not the same as designing a system based around a single sensor that is known to fail or forgetting to bolt a door.

[deleted]

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#62
post #47

This is a noob question but wondering if anyone here could answer. There are plenty of choices for Small and Medium size plane as well as private jet. Why are most commercial airline only buying Boeing and Airbus? And why others aren't making bigger planes to compete?

There are really only 2 choices. There is a third, Embrarer. They have most of the market in small regional jets in some cases, but those are in reality very different than say a 777 or 787. These two choices are conglomerates of what used to be a much larger set of manufacturers. In short Boeing, Airbus and it's suppliers are basically what is left of all the old big aerospace manufacturers.

Indeed. Embraer (Brazil) does jetliners carrying up to around 150 pax. So did Bombardier (Canada), though they sold their C-Series to Airbus (now the Airbus A220). Then there's COMAC (China) and UAC (Russia; also a conglomerate of Sukhoi, Tupolev, etc.).

These compete with the smaller versions of the Airbus A320 family (like the discontinued A318 "Baby Bus") or Boeing B737 family.

So, in that narrow-body and regional jet segment there are a few players.

But in the big wide-body (=2 aisles) long-range jets, there's only Airbus and Boeing.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#63
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These two choices are conglomerates of what used to be a much larger set of manufacturers This. The entire market has been allowed to be monopolized through mergers and buy-outs. Russia used to have their own aerospace industry (and that fleet was reliable enough to be allowed to fly in Europe) but then Russia happened.

>Russia used to have their own aerospace industry (and that fleet was reliable enough to be allowed to fly in Europe) but then Russia happened. It's absolutely irrelevant what Russia did or could have done here in this industry. Same with Chinese planes. If they ever manage to make a competitive passenger plane, it will not be allowed certification by US and European authorities purely for political reasons, the same…

Emirates, Qatar, and Etihad all seem to have fleets that are approximately 50/50 between Boeing and Airbus though.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#64
post #48

There's probably going to be ongoing attempts to be less reliant on the US while Trump is going on about needing Greenland and the like. His last odd 'truth' about it was six hours ago https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1166240468099...

"Truth Social is currently unavailable in your area"

Pity, in Hong Kong I cannot read the wise words of the king.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#65
post #47

This is a noob question but wondering if anyone here could answer. There are plenty of choices for Small and Medium size plane as well as private jet. Why are most commercial airline only buying Boeing and Airbus? And why others aren't making bigger planes to compete?

Industrially boeing / airbus are 100k large companies, i.e. need 300m+ base country size (or in EU case, block size) to support specialized workforce large enough for modern commercial aviation. Economically, fuel costs, i.e. engine maturity makes any entrant that's doesn't have parity engine core tech automatically none viable because simply higher costs due to lifetime fuel costs. (Geo)politically, there's lots of…

> Economically, fuel costs, i.e. engine maturity makes any entrant that's doesn't have parity engine core tech automatically none viable because simply higher costs due to lifetime fuel costs.

Neither Boeing nor Airbus make their own engines. They get them from CFM, GE, Rolls-Royce. Like everyone else. That's not the differentiator.

But it just costs insanely much to get an airliner certified. Even Boeing has been held back by its clients demanding a shared type certificate for the 737max which caused all those deaths due to mcas.

There were of course more players but they've been bought up. And some emerging brands that are excluded from our markets due to sanctions like the Chinese Comac and the Sukhoi Superjet. The superjet is particularly affected because some of its systems were designed by western companies like Honeywell and they've had to make last-minute replacements after the Ukraine war that didn't exactly work out well.

And there's some other players. Embraer is creeping closer to the 737/A320 market.

But anyway so it isn't just Airbus and Boeing really.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#66
post #64
post #48

There's probably going to be ongoing attempts to be less reliant on the US while Trump is going on about needing Greenland and the like. His last odd 'truth' about it was six hours ago https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1166240468099...

"Truth Social is currently unavailable in your area" Pity, in Hong Kong I cannot read the wise words of the king.

You're not missing anything. It was just a dumb picture of Trump's face looming over an unsuspecting Greenlandic town. Ominous but nothing with any news value

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having doors flying off one of your planes and engine failure causing part of the cowling to bust a window and sucking a passenger out of another is definitely not a bit of politics. Nevermind the bullshit 737Max nonsense. At this point, I'd imagine any Boeing orders left are only in place because Airbus can't keep up. Politics didn't need to come within 10 miles of this decision. It's just the free cherry on top.

Yeah - the mass casualties with regards to Max, changed things a lot. Boeing used to be about enginering; that quality dropped indeed decades ago. Not sure why or how.

> Boeing used to be about enginering; that quality dropped indeed decades ago.

I just pointed out in a different thread that software is going through that right now.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#68
post #7

Meanwhile Switzerland is being taken to the cleaners. F35s that had a fix cost in contract with Lockheed are no longer fixed cost because the US says so. Patriot systen permanently delayed and price going up and up. Stop payment resulted in the US pulling from the pre payment for the F35s...

> Stop payment resulted in the US pulling from the pre payment for the F35s... Which Switzerland then reluctantly agreed was allowed under the terms. As you say, totally being taken to the cleaners, and it is unclear how they escape in the short term. The more this happens though, the more deals like Italy's make senese, irrespective of the performance comparison of the two planes. If the US is going to be an unrelia…

It’s not just Europeans who are beginning to realize that the U.S. can’t be trusted; Australians are still waiting for a hypothetical delivery date for their AUKUS submarines.

The Gulf states find themselves with too few interceptor missiles and a war in Iran.

The Japanese and Koreans are building as many war ships as they can.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having doors flying off one of your planes and engine failure causing part of the cowling to bust a window and sucking a passenger out of another is definitely not a bit of politics. Nevermind the bullshit 737Max nonsense. At this point, I'd imagine any Boeing orders left are only in place because Airbus can't keep up. Politics didn't need to come within 10 miles of this decision. It's just the free cherry on top.

If we're stringing random facts together to try and make a point, Airbus was found guilty two days ago of manslaughter in the 2009 Air France crash that fell into the ocean. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czd2qmdvmq6o It's the same airplane as the MRTT, A330.

If you actually read into the case it's more complicated than just it's Airbus fault. It was caused by one of the confused pilots input. Why they were confused is a complicated story.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Industrially boeing / airbus are 100k large companies, i.e. need 300m+ base country size (or in EU case, block size) to support specialized workforce large enough for modern commercial aviation. Economically, fuel costs, i.e. engine maturity makes any entrant that's doesn't have parity engine core tech automatically none viable because simply higher costs due to lifetime fuel costs. (Geo)politically, there's lots of…

> Economically, fuel costs, i.e. engine maturity makes any entrant that's doesn't have parity engine core tech automatically none viable because simply higher costs due to lifetime fuel costs. Neither Boeing nor Airbus make their own engines. They get them from CFM, GE, Rolls-Royce. Like everyone else. That's not the differentiator. But it just costs insanely much to get an airliner certified. Even Boeing has been he…

>That's not the differentiator.

It's differentiator in sense engine manufactures are part of western aviation industrial complex and can limit access, i.e. COMAC sanctions. Unless you're western core, you do not have guaranteed access. I think Embraer is creeping on to bottom end of narrowbody, but they're far from wide body. And with respect to topic, modern strategic tanking are wide body size, i.e. Embraer E190 is not same heavy league as KC46, MRTT, Y20, Il-78, and Embraer has not demonstrated ability to go beyond regional narrowbody. Fielded widebody options is really just Airbus/Boeing duopoly, AVIC/Xi'an, UAC stumbling along from legacy USSR stack.

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