Fuel Controls Are Smarter Than Pilots
Had a chat the other night about digital fuel controls and the possibilities modern electronics provides that never existed before. A comment was made about the ability for some digital fuel controls to determine when the need for Maximum engine power (to the point of destroying an engine) outweighed obeying normal engine limits or OEI limits as normally used.
That seems a bit amazing to me and when I did some research....I found there exists a US patent for such a system.
That begs some questions....which aircraft/engines have that ability? How do we as pilots know the fuel control has usurped our command authority and gone to this "supercontingency power setting" and how does this affect our maintenance costs, standards, defect reporting and such?
From my experience teaching in a Simulator....I know some pilots will quite happily fly into the ground because they refuse to demand performance from the aircraft/engine that exceeds "normal" limitations.
Thus it appears the engineers can design a fuel control that is smarter than some pilots in that regard. I just wonder how the electron brained thing knows when to pull its palace coup and pull the guts out of an engine?