BOAC,
Dozy Wanabee has a tendency to regard Airbus FBW through rose-tinted spectacles, but he provides a comparatively mild, rational counterbalance to the ill-informed bigotry of many armchair critics who, like himself, have little or no flight time on them. Seems a pity that, despite all the time you have devoted to the AF447 threads and others on the subject, your own knowledge of the Airbus cockpit remains unashamedly negligible.
As for the SNPL, their opinion has to be seen in the light of their consistent opposition to Airbus technology since the introduction of the first two-pilot glass cockpit on the A310 in 1983, and the Habsheim affair in 1988. As usual, some of their demands are rhetorical; others may be arguable.
In case anyone infers otherwise, I've argued in principle against non-driven throttle levers and non-interconnected sidesticks since 1986, despite flying them full-time from 1988 - 2001. I doubt that even the highly-respected Gordon Corps (Lyman, please note) could have overruled Mr. Ziegler on those fundamental engineering issues. But the overall package is a good one. The fact that airlines discouraged, or even banned their pilots from timely removal of certain automatics (such as A/THR, AP and FD) is ultimately their fault, and contributed to AF447.
Last edited by Chris Scott; 30th Dec 2012 at 00:28.