17 years young

When the first A320 was delivered to launch customer Air France in October 1987, it represented a revolution in commercial aircraft flight control technology and also featured the most extensive use of automation and computerization on any civil transport flightdeck. Today, with Boeing having embraced fly-by-wire in its two most recent new aircraft programs, and when even regional jets such as the Embraer 170 offer it, it may be difficult to recall the controversy generated by the aircraft.

Although the "pilot-in-command versus computer-in-command" argument no longer is a staple of air show debate, a question remains: With the program now well into its second decade-middle age for an airframe-how well have the airplane and its systems held up? Judging by the marketplace, where the A320 continues to battle neck-and-neck with the 737NG for every new order, the answer has to be pretty well. Airbus continues to deny that any major overhauls are in the works. "Is a Mark 2 version around the corner for the A320? No," comments Stuart Mann, director-product marketing. More than 3,100 aircraft of all marques have been ordered by more than 121 customers and 2,200-plus have been delivered.

Operators do not appear to be calling for any major changes. Customers are continuing to add A320s and other family members to their fleets and are mostly happy with the upgrades that keep the oldest A320s looking and running like the youngest-even if they may grumble about the price of doing it.

The single-aisle series shares some upgrades with other members of the Airbus family. A new touchscreen flight attendant panel that monitors everything from the inflight entertainment system and intercom to the status of the waste tank and water was used first on the A340-500/-600, standardized on the A318 and then offered on the other single-aisle models. An electrically powered alternate braking system first was used on the A318.

The A318 has liquid-crystal display primary and backup flight instruments and this technology now is being offered on all aircraft in the family, replacing CRT primary displays and electromechanical backups that are getting long in the tooth. "We were slow to do it," Mann admits, "but we were not happy about legibility, reliability and an assured supply. Now we are." The A320 family also will be available with the Thales Digital Head-Up Display System, which is being developed for the entire Airbus product line and will be compatible with enhanced vision system sensors.

While a new A320 is indistinguishable from the first from the outside and barely different in the cockpit, there are important divergences under the skin due to an intensive program that addresses the reliability and longevity of the avionics and other systems. Overall, says Pierre-Henri Brousse, senior manager-systems development for the single-aisle product line, the A320's avionics have not experienced failures with increasing age for two reasons: "The original design was efficient and the failure rates were at a good level, and no aircraft has been left in its original condition."

Adds Bruce Burnett, director-acquisitions and engineering for America West Airlines, "It stays on the cutting edge." Toulouse offers a stream of upgrades to hardware and software that make the onboard systems "faster and smarter." The process is continuous: "We thought Windows 95 was the cat's meow," says Burnett, "but nobody has it today." The same has happened with the A320-"The newest technology is always the fastest-moving."

AWA tries to keep its 53 A320s and 32 A319s-including the high-time A320, No. 52 off the line-as close to a common standard as makes economic sense. It is putting a new Thales flight management system on all its aircraft (Airbus also offers a Honeywell FMS) because it provides new functions and options and is easier to use. "It has a more precise vertical descent control, it takes fewer keystrokes to create a waypoint and has more capacity for data," says Flight Technical and Training Director Paul Rheudasil. The new FMS also is easy to install, says Burnett: "A nice thing about Airbus is that a lot of systems are plug and play." The unit requires "a small amount of wiring" on older aircraft, but that is about all.

Rheudasil gives Airbus good grades for implementing upgrades without creating unnecessary differences between old and new aircraft, remarking, "There's more difference between a 2003 and 2004 Cadillac than between our oldest and newest aircraft." On the other hand, there are differences in the electrical system between earlier and newer A319s and AWA will live with them, accepting a small amount of difference training for its crews. Also, not everything is quite as simple as plugging in a CD-ROM and waiting for the Install Wizard to appear: For most of the computers, upgrading software means removing the box and putting it on a laboratory bench, although on the newer aircraft some systems can be upgraded via a floppy drive.

There is one drawback to the manufacturer's continuous improvement of the A320: Being continuous means that it never stops. "Something that's occasionally frustrating is that we feel like the in-service evaluator for Airbus," says Rheudasil. "The evolution of the boxes is constant," adds Burnett. "If we constantly chase the latest software we can spend a lot of time and money, and some of those are prohibitively expensive-especially when you're buying 85 copies." Says Rheudasil, "We've seen new upgrades six months after the last one was released. We've gone from version 5 to version 9 in a few years." AWA occasionally has chosen not to perform a particular modification, but there can be a snag-as with Windows, the user can find that a desirable upgrade does not work unless a previous upgrade is installed.

Lufthansa operates A320 No. 69 with more than 33,500 hr. and 29,000 cycles. It was delivered in October 1989. The reliability and stability of the avionics have changed dramatically since those days, says Eckhard Ewald, LH Technik systems engineer-structures: "There were a lot of resets, but they are very rare now." Overall, the flight control system is the most reliable unit on the aircraft, requiring no more attention than equivalent systems on mechanical aircraft.

In some cases, Ewald echoes America West's attitude to software changes: "If you don't get one change, you can't get the other, and that works in favor of the manufacturer." Lufthansa has not decided whether to reequip its entire fleet with Honeywell's new Pegasus FMS, used on its A340s, but it is testing the system on a dozen aircraft. The main advantages of the new FMS are on longer flights and LH's A320s average 50-min. segments.

Like AWA, Lufthansa has stayed up to date with upgrades to the A320. "Our oldest aircraft have been brought up to the standard of the newest aircraft, especially where operations are involved," says Ewald, and the airline sees no significant differences in reliability between the oldest A320 and 7,200-cycle whippersnapper A321s. In fact, in some respects maturity is good. "Some changes were made to save money in production after aircraft 700," he remarks, "and some of them had to be reversed later on." Indeed, MSN-69 is one of the best aircraft in the fleet.

Other avionics changes are less visible to the customer and address a besetting problem with digital avionics. State-of-the-art in 1987, the A320's computers were designed around chips like the Intel 8086 used in the then-hot IBM PS/2. Nobody makes those any more and, above all, nobody is interested in making such things in the piffling quantities that Airbus needs-a mere 300 shipsets per year.

The manufacturer and its partners saw this coming several years ago, says Brousse. "We set up a partnership and pushed them to manage the problem, anticipate it, be aware of obsolescence and discuss ways out of the problem. If we had no choice but to replace components, we wanted to know in time, and we wanted to be in the loop when components were selected." Suppliers meet with Airbus every six months to look for oncoming problems and so far the plane-builder has not been taken by surprise. In some cases, Airbus and its partners placed "last-buy" orders; before a production line closed they ordered enough chips to last until 2020.

Some parts can be replaced with a different interchangeable component. "If it's something small, a resistor, we can manage it," says Brousse. The part number specification is amended to accommodate the new part. There has been some "limited redesign of secondary computers," he says, "but no major programs linked to obsolescence." For example, the elevator/aileron computer has been redesigned. In that case, "the key, primary design driver is that the hardware is back-retrofittable-there is a single part number valid for all types." The new computer is more efficient and more reliable, but many of the old ELACs still are working fine and most of the flight control computers have not been redesigned.

Lufthansa, which once pioneered the "rollover" replacement of its fleet, is in no hurry to replace any of its A320s, even its first one. "Once we sell [MSN-69], the airline that buys it gets a good deal," says Eckhard. Both AWA and Lufthansa say that the upgraded older airplanes are essentially the same as the newer jets. Comments Brousse: "There are no 1987 A320s around."