Birds of Prey: Boeing Vs. Airbus: A Battle for the Skies

Annoying is the lack of aviation expertise on the author's part ( a fine business writer, if this book is any example) such as swallowing the old canard about Britain building only fighters in World War II and leaving the postwar big airplane market to the Americans with their bomber experience. This ignores an awful lot of Avro and Handley Page bombers over Germany, and a swarm of US fighters over the entire world. British civil aviation failures are covered (incompetence of the Brabazon committee, BOAC not knowing what it wanted, the Concorde debacle, etc.) and I am surprised that the editor let a few howlers get by.

All in all, this is a very good book about the state of civil aviation just before the Boeing/McDonnell Douglas merger.


Worth the read   October 27, 1997
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This book is written and paced well. Some interesting tales are contained within, and it provides a good general summary of the Boeing-Airbus battle. It was a bit light on real analysis, but still insightful.


a thrilling but technically inaccurate account   September 20, 2000
Claudio Bompadre (Rome Italy)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

This work on Boeing (USA) and Airbus (Europe or what they call UE) competition is undeniably compelling. Unfortunately some faults about technical aspects make it a little bit incomplete. Anyway, once the book has caught the reader attention (forgiving the mistakes) it is hard to throw off its spell.

A precious facet is the historical reconstruction of political and economical process, describing the post war crises of aeronautical companies in Europe in the civil market. Emerging from the war, european countries were eager to start a new life. The aeronautical skill (grown during belligerent times) was put to work in leading program like the Comet, Caravelle, Trident, BAC 1-11, etc. . Unfortunately management and political control were so conservative that they were unable to drive the new technology evolution in full swing. So each european State basically never developed a sound industrial strategy (i.e. for shortsighted nationalistic interest). The nemesys of national designs and firms (as autonomous entities in the market) led to the pooling of energies called Airbus. This part of the book is quite organic and it is a clever description of cut-throat struggle with another arab phoenix like Boeing (the company emerging from internal US competition).

Many technical flaws appear from the narrative, two are important for the plot. First,Boeing 707 project was a masterpiece being the first design that made civil aeronautical "know-how" to grow fully (so far for DC-8 and Convair 880). Initially it was developed as a strategic tanker and, of course, research & development funding was available to boost the design during the cold war. Many advanced technologies were put to fruition from research centers (federal or private) and a "full steam ahead" was given to any study capable of making them affordable. Airbus never got the same opportunity. Second point, the airliners market is divided in segmets and even if new technologies are not enough cheap to change aicraft shapes, the quest for more efficient planes compels consolidated knowledge to mature completely. So 2engines Boeing 757 is the 727 replacement because they were designed to fulfill the same segment (according to lower unit cost per machine and equipment, in order to respect more restrictive regulations). To be more precise each segment is divided into specialized sectors; each manifacturer design a basic adaptable project for a segment, then engineers "customize" the plane for a particular requirements (just look at the Boeing 777, initially developed in "A" version, reveallingly dubbed "A" market, and in the "B" version or "B" market).

In the end lack of aviation expertise is quite limiting in this bold work, compromising a basically sound effort. Nevertheless this is an admirable attempt to reveal the insights of the most terrible struggle between two major corporate conglomerates in airliners industry.


Nice insight, but too casual to be a serious book   June 22, 1998
hoffmafj@t-bird.edu (USA)
Sometimes I felt that I was reading a thriller which was good, because I had to read the book for educational purposes. Problematic about the book is that the author is taking a very casual approach on the matter, which lets me wonder if I can trust the analysis presented in the book completely. If he would have sticked more with the bare facts, I might have more of a trust in his conclusions. Especially in the beginning, I felt that he was taking too much of an American view on the battle between Airbus and Boeing. I changed my opinion a little bit on this towards the end, but I still believe that his choice of expressions should be more conservative and serious. What is good about the book, is that it shows that the airline industry is full of politics and how the Europeans have developed a successful industry out of nothing.