Originally Posted by
CayleysCoachman
If some of you are actually airline pilots, this is a profoundly disturbing thread. The AAIB report referenced above laid bare the appalling weaknesses in airbus philosophy. I’m sympathetic to how they got there, but not their absolute refusal even to discuss that they might be wrong. Declining professional standards plus this kind of nutty design add up to foreseeable problems that may kill.
To answer
Uplinker , I asked them, from a professional position of authority, and they didn't have an answer. Being ‘able’, in terms of flight deck layout and illumination, to see the opposite sidestick, and being able to monitor it continuously and effectively and in a sufficiently granular way without detriment to more general situational awareness, are hugely different things. Interconnected controls, and the fabulous nature of the human haptic system, are the answer, unless you live in Toulouse.
It might not be the best solution, but it works quite effective. There are procedures to follow and "override" function. Illumination is just the indication. If you need to take-over, illumination will not happen.
After operating Toulouse engineered aircraft for almost 20 years and instructing almost half of that time, I never had a single issue with that design. And I trained quite significant number of cadets, including base training.
Comparing a Toulouse designed aircraft with a Seattle ones, there is quite obvious difference in the number of incidents recorded by NTSB
