Originally Posted by
Dan Winterland
I was told to treat the sidestick like it's your mates dick. Touch it as little as possible! Good advice at it worked for the ten thousand hours I flew on the Airbus FBW types.
Several people told me similar things, but it was very unhelpful to me because it did not explain what I was doing wrong, (which was not centring the stick after every input: I was holding each input too long, and the attitude went beyond what I wanted so I had to correct in the other direction, hence a PIO). Vilas's reply in #12 explains the system and use of the arm rest very well and would have helped a lot.
After teaching myself how to correctly use the side-stick and FBW combination, I became quite proficient in handling the aircraft, (he says modestly
).