Is there any difference in the "feel" when flying different variants of fbw planes?
I saw an old thread where a 737 pilot who flew both the -700 and the -800 compared the flight handling characteristics of the two. Ofc, it was as ppl would generally expect, the -700 felt a bit more nimble, whereas the -800 felt a bit more "sluggish".
This made me wonder, is this also the case for more modern fbw airliners?
If we compare 2 fbw aircraft from the same family, for example the A318 compared to the A321, or maybe the 787-8 compared to the -10. In theory, in a fbw aircraft, the flight computers use a mix of pitch rate and G-command from the side stick deflection depending on the speeds (at least that's the case for airbus, I am not sure abt the Boeing's fbw), so except for the engine thrust, shouldn't the controls should feel exactly the same regardless of the size of the aircraft?
Ofc, there are some exceptions to this. For example in the A330, the designers purposely made the controls a bit sluggish so that pilots who transitioned from the older hydraulic wide bodies would better adapt to the (then newer) a330 platform, tho I do believe that was removed in the neo variant and never repeated again.