That complexity is also one of the reasons that there are so few A320s in the sim world. It's all nonsense of course, and with almost 5000 A320s built since 1987, the A320 is one of the most popular short-haul aircraft of today. Even today, the advanced nature of the A320 (along with the A330, A340, A350, and A380, who follow the same design philosophy) isn't trusted by some Boeing pilots, who see themselves as 'real pilots', whilst the A320 pilot is seen more as a 'skilled passenger'. It was advanced stuff and during the early years, a lack of understanding of the systems caused many incidents of pilots 'fighting' with the aircraft, as well as a few crashes. The fly-by-wire system was designed with protections to stop pilots getting the aircraft 'out of shape.' The pilot is not the last in the chain of command in an Airbus cockpit. Another controversial feature the A320 offered was its computers. To say it caused a shock in civil aviation would be an understatement.Īirbus were redesigning the whole pilot experience. In their place a state of the art fly-by-wire system flown from a simple joystick mounted on the cabin wall, leaving the area in front of the main displays open. The standard yoke with cable connections to the control surfaces were completely removed. Inside the cockpit though, everything was changing. The cabin was made slightly wider, it was to fly faster at Mach 0.84, and the wing was to be made more efficient than the old 737.

In 1981 the new aircraft was renamed the A320 and work began on an aircraft that would not only compete with the B737-200, but would beat it. The idea was to produce a single aisle short haul aircraft to compliment the A300 and A310 aircraft. There are no winners, but there many myths and misconceptions that surround both. Its Blur versus Pulp, The Beatles verses the Monkeys, tea versus coffee. The A320 is part of that never-ending battle on 'which is best', when compared to the older Boeing 737. There are lies, damned lies and the Airbus A320.

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