LSAS
If you could watch the elevators of an MD-11 in flight at airspeed and altitude you would see what looks like an insainly fast fultter of pitch imputs.
Due to the length of the plane LSAS corrects pitch inputs quicker than the human is capable of to correct "PIO's" that would not just make the pax in the aft and the pilots queezy but could get quite violent. Similar to the actions of a yaw dampner in preventing "dutch roll" in intent but more active.
It was designed on the platform of latter DC-10's but not worth the cost to deem necessary as I have been told by some Long Beach instructors.
Must make the clear distinction that LSAS is an FCC but not autoflight function. The autoflight function has it's own longitudinal stabilzation.
Pitch trim becomes automatic with the autopilot enguaged and I believe it is also an LSAS function after certain degree of elevator input while several inputs of manual trim are of cource available while hand flying. The extent of pitch trim and LSAS's relationship I am not 100% sure on, just vague memories of tech training.
Last edited by muduckace; 25th Feb 2010 at 18:02.