Lemurian,
Aerodynamically, the aircraft is just like any other "un-protected" product, and they generally don't fall from the air in droves !
Agreed, I'm not arguing that the A320+ series aircraft are naturally speed unstable , I know they are not, but the question is how do they appear to the pilot who is interacting with them through the side stick via some subtle control law logic? If I have misunderstood how C* works, then perhaps someone could put me right, but as I see it, in normal and alternate laws, the stick commands vertical acceleration, while the speed is controlled by the AT. if AT is disconnected then the pilot has to control speed directly through via the thrust levers, but the aircraft will have no tendency to regain any particular speed once disturbed. If this is not the case, could someone explain how the pitch control laws change when the AT is disconnected? It was noticeable that the encyclopaedic description of control systems posted a few hundred posts ago dealt with the 'hip bone's connected to the thigh bone' aspect of the system, and not with how the confounded thing actually works. In partial answer to your reply to Meikleour, I think 'the airplane still crashed' because it wasn't easy to control it in those circumstances (night , turbulence, no speed indications, warnings coming at you every 3 secs, and no natural speed stability), and understanding of the subtle differences between these FBW aircraft and conventional ones is not good.