posted 08-18-2006 10:24 PM                    

quote:

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ESA supplied the aircraft to offset the cost to NASA of carrying ESA experiment equipment to the station as part of two future Space Shuttle flights.

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posted 08-19-2006 08:41 AM                    

quote: Michael Schaffer

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but when he is called on to actually serve his country as in performing jury duty

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Humm, I never refused to do Jury Duty... I will definately make fun of the jury duty selection system.. or lack of it and I definately would not want to do jury duty but would do so if they insisted. There are plenty of retired folk they can tap for that purpose that have all day to do nothing. When I got my notice earlier this year I wrote on the return notice that they'd have to contact me through my employer if they needed me and that I'd probably have to drive back from Wyoming or Montana. IE: Since I am the only road tech for a large area it would have created a hardship for my employer and the Mormon legal system here happens to be sensitive to that .

As for Boeing VS Airbus... I have to admit that Airbus will never catch up to Boeing. The relative sizes of the Jets is irrelevant and the 747 will continute to outsell the Giant Airbus by a long shot because its prooven and more practical. A Boeing Jet lands or takes off somewhere in the world about every 2 seconds, One of the 5009 delivered 737's lands or takes off every 4.5 seconds.... While I am somewhat of a flag waver I still prefer to present the facts. Statistically Boeing also builds safer Jets.... # of crashes vs. hours of safe flight time.

Mark

posted 08-20-2006 02:50 AM                       

quote: Michael Schaffer

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always ready for flagwaving

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Exactly why now is it bad to flagwave? Or is it just bad for Americans to flagwave? This seems to be a common thread through the world that when Americans wave their flags they are seen as pushy and self serving, but any other country does it and the same people look at them and say to themselves "how darling".

And so many Americans in general seem to be ashamed to flag wave. I say lets get behind American companies and help them along. Lets tout what we have, not try to find some other alternative somewhere else because so many people here are suffering from some inner child problem.

GO AMERICA!!!

posted 08-20-2006 05:53 AM                    

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen

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Its apparent that Boeing will have a hundred 787's flying before there are 6 of the new Airbus aloft.

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Quite possibly true, but hardly a valid comparison; have you ever considered a career in advertising, Mark? I'm sure that Airbus will sell more medium-sized passenger aircraft than Boeing will sell LCFs.

In recent years I've flown in four aircraft types; boeing 747, 767 and 777, and Airbus something, I'm not sure of the number, 340 possibly. I would say that I liked the 747 least, the Airbus next, and the 767 and 777 best; there were both advantages and didadvantages to the larger aircraft. Which company makes the better aircraft; I don't know, ask an airline; many of them operate aircraft from both manufacturers. By what criteria do you judge 'best' anyway? The accountants, maintenance people, pilots and passengers, amongst others, would no doubt all have different answers to that one.

From my point of veiw as a passenger, I would say that the airline involved made a much bigger difference than the make of the aircraft; come to think of it, the two aircraft that I liked least were operated by the airline that I liked least; they were also the older models; maybe that had something to do with it. I would certainly say that Continental were, in my limited experience, a much better airline than Virgin. Their aircraft were maintained in better condition, in terms of the passenger environment, I'm not suuesting that the Virgin craft were badly maintained in mechanical or safety terms, their cabin crew were much better, and there was far less annoying junk that you couldn't turn off on the seat-back monitors.

How much of Boeing aircraft are made in America, and how much of Airbus ones in Europe anyway? Many of the visible components are the same in both, and are clearly made by the same companies, no doubt in many different countries. If I was thinking of buying an aircraft, one of the last things I'd be considering would be where it was built, there are many other factors which would be of greater importance to me; even more so if I was simply thinking of flying in one, rather than buying it.

In terms of safety figures, I have no idea how Boeing and Airbus compare. Even here, you have to be careful. For most of it's life Concorde had a safety record which showed it to be the safest aircraft in the World, in terms of the number of passenger km flown; overnight it suddenly became one of the worst. Was Concorde any less safe after that accident than it had been the day before? Of course not, the issues which were involved had always been there. If Concorde had been retired a few years earlier it would have had a perfect safety record; as it is, it has a rather poor one, a large proportion (one) of the aircraft built were lost in serious accidents. I can't remember exactly how many Concordes were built, but if the same proportion of say 767s had been lost it would be seen as totally disasterous; Was Concorde a safe or an unsafe aircraft? I would tend to say that it was unsafe, even if that accident had never happened, because the design faults which led to it were always there. If the accident had had happened many years ago, and the remaining aircraft had been modified early in their lives I think it reasonable so say that it would have been a safer aircraft, even though the same number would have been built, and the same number lost.

Does America make things better than anybody else? Absolutely not. I don't see that many everyday things over here made in America, most things these days are made in Asia. From what I do see of American-made products, both here and over there, they are just as capable of producing total junk as any other country in the World; they also produce some of the best stuff, there's a huge variation in quality, probably greater than in most other places. I think there is some similarity with this country, in that expensive, high quality, small volume American made items, the Technicolor camera would be a good example, tend to be of the highest quality, whereas cheaper, everyday items, many domestic electrical fittings for example, often tend to be of rather poor quality compared to those made elsewhere. Of course in this country we've got round that problem; we no longer make anything .

posted 08-20-2006 05:59 AM                       

quote: Dave Williams

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Exactly why now is it bad to flagwave? Or is it just bad for Americans to flagwave? This seems to be a common thread through the world that when Americans wave their flags they are seen as pushy and self serving, but any other country does it and the same people look at them and say to themselves "how darling".

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quote: Michael Schaffer

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I said Mark is always ready for flagwaving but when he is called on to actually serve his country as in performing jury duty, the patrotism goes right out of the window.

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