This topic always gets everyone going!
First off, I've only flown Boeings so I can't speak with much authority on the differences debate but I thought you might be interested to hear the gist of a recent string on my company forum.
A senior Airbus captain wrote that he was concerned that whilst through the majority of his career he had been posted on conventional control a/c and had very rarely 'reached the stops' with his control inputs, after only a few months on Airbus' he seemed to be doing so on every windy flight he did. The Airbus man wrote back that this was the Captain's fundamental misunderstanding of the flight control laws of his flying computer. Essentially the gist of his reply was that his control stick's position bore no relationship to where his actual flight controls were - the pilot asks for a roll rate and within certain pre-defined limits, the computer decides what to do to effect that roll rate. This entails Airbus pilots having to 'unlearn' how to fly an approach and (when under the additional stress of bad weather, turbulence etc.) fly in a new way (hardly touching the stick at all). Don't worry he was told, it knows what it's doing! As a bluff old traditionalist, I personally would feel happier knowing that I am reaching the limits of control rather than the limit of a computer's percieved 'allowable' rate of roll. If we were all taught to fly on Airbuses perhaps it would be a good thing but the number of pilot induced oscillation incidents on Airbuses (admittedly more on their introduction) seems to indicate that it's quite possible, especially in rough weather for the pilot to get out of synch with the computer - 3 major airlines that I know of have had pod scrapes on A320's for this reason (PIO) - one on an A320 on both engines! The history of aviation disaters, especially with regard to loss of situational awareness shows that the more pilot's are divorced from the reality of what's happening outside, the more likely they are to crash. If automation was the amazing thing it has been trumpeted as, the number of hull losses for Airbuses would be notably less than than for conventional controlled a/c but it is not. Futher, in a large number of these fatal Airbus crashes, the investigating authorities have cited human misunderstanding of the autoflight systems (including the motionless thrust levers) as primary reasons of the accidents. Not a great epitaph fpr their designers. Some would blame the pilot's saying they should have figured out how their planes flew but it's far better to 'suit the machine to the man than the man to the machine'. We all revert to type when under pressure.
Well I imagine that rant will change the minds of the Airbus design team and all you sidestick fans! I look forward to Airbus' retrofit of conventional controls on all their a/c.
Happy Christmas to you all.