There are several obvious answers to the question “what is the world’s greatest aircraft” and most of them are ruled by the heart rather than the head. So I thought I’d be a little controversial and apply logic, rather than passion, to my nomination.
The A320 may lack the romantic image of the 1930s’ piston airliners or the early post-war jets, but the fact is that it has almost single-handedly returned Europe’s aerospace companies to the forefront of civil aviation.
When it was launched in 1984 it was a huge gamble – not only financially but also technologically as it set new benchmarks for flight control systems and cockpit design. And only a brave analyst would have predicted that the aircraft would better the 500 sales forecast at launch and anyone who suggested a production run in the thousands - as is now a reality - would have been locked up.
When the A320 entered service 20 years ago, it brought fly-by-wire to the masses and raised the bar for operational efficiency in the single-aisle sector.
And this was something that benefited everyone, as like Apple’s I-Pod it forced the rest of the industry to raise its game.
Boeing re-invented the 737 into a more than worthy competitor – something all-737 operators like Southwest and Ryanair are very grateful for – while the McDonnell Douglas’s DC-9-based narrowbody families withered and died as they could remain competitive in the new era that emerged.
So the A320 gets my vote – a modern classic that was way ahead of its time.
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Do you agree with this choice?Why not nominate your own favourite of the following categores in our "100 Greatest" area:
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