Originally Posted by
Uplinker
I will try to explain my reasoning.
Firstly, my flying CV includes single and multi engine piston; Manual very basic turbo-props. Semi-automatic turbo-props, basic manual jets, semi-automatic Jets, and Airbus FBW.
Trimming is of course required owing to the lift equation, where changes in air speed results in changes of lift, and which therefore require changes in the THS or elevators to maintain level flight. Since the very beginning, this has always bugged me - as an engineer - as to why pitch trimming had not been designed-out. Along came Airbus, and they did just that - brilliant !
It is obvious to me that Airbus in their early days must have purchased a B737 and flown and evaluated it. After extensive flight testing, they must have said, "this is very good, but with modern technology and electronics, we can improve it further" which they did.
Many 'conventional' pilots in my experience, do not understand the Airbus FBW, and some pilots have difficulty with the FBW - hence some horrendous crashes. I have witnessed pilots in the other seat shouting "don't fight me", when the FBW was actually assisting them, if they would only relax and let it help them. I have had to explain - with diagrams - to former Boeing pilots how the Airbus GS Mini system works, (opposite to the Boeing system).
What baffles me is the decision to not have any aileron trim, rudder trim in manual flight only, and pitch trim setting required to do manual before take off, but not used in flight (emergencies excluded).
With the rudder they could have taken the same approach as with the THS: after a consistent input of the pilot, start to trim it out.
With the THS, after I put in the M/B data in the FMS, it could set the THS for me (It resets to 0 automatically after landing after all).
I am not saying they were wrong, I just haven't found the answer to why...