Originally Posted by
Joe le Taxi
...............how come Airbus gets away with this exemption just because the stick is on the side, while Boeing are required to create perfectly progressive stick feedback force, all the way to the extremes of the envelope, and in trying to meet the requirement, create MCAS? Progressive pitch force is a major design headache, from single engine homebuilts, right through to airliners..........
It’s not because Airbus has a “stick on the side”, and Airbus are not “getting away with anything” - they went through extensive certification to have the system approved. It is because the Airbus FBW has a well sorted, properly integrated fly by wire flight control system - as do many military jets. The side-stick instructs the five computers which in turn operate the flight controls, (even when flying manually). The Boeing 737 however, only has rods and cables and mechanical linkages from the 1950’s to operate its control surfaces.
An analogy might be modern cars having ABS braking systems. Cars without ABS require the driver to prevent locking the wheels in slippery conditions, ABS performs the anti-locking function ‘in the background’. Cars with ABS are safer in slippery conditions than those without.
(ABS also works on individual locked wheels. The driver of a non ABS car can only release or apply brakes to all the wheels simultaneously).