Airbuses are fine machines when ever thing works properly. But when faults happen, they don't always clearly annunciate to the crew what's wrong in a clear fashion. For example, the predecessor aircraft the A310/300 the trim would move without the stabilizer motion audio sounding when it was on autopilot.
Why?
As Captain eating dinner, I'd like to know when the damn tailplane is moving. Old boeings always gave me a visual,
moving trim wheel or audible trim motion horn that I could see out of the corner of my eye or hear softly in the background. I'd get a warning that something was wrong. I'd sure like some warning that a runaway stab is likely in progress. I'd sure like some noise to know if the autopilot is over trimming because a sensor failed. It would give me a few extra seconds to worry that a trim miss match with the THS is possible and I would be on guard for a wild pitch up or down when I disconnected. It would direct me to look at the pitch trim to see if it made sense. On the first airbuses, the motion was only audible after five seconds or so. It was way too long a requirement, and since the trim wheel didn't move, and the autopilot trim system trimmed in short bursts most of the time, I never knew when the machine was trimming; so I couldn't easily detect cross controlling the trim on the tailplane.
Ah yes, Thrust Latch and a wild desperate struggle between the auto throttles and the FCP (who apparently were different departments at airbus.) The airbus "Bob Hoover" tailslide pull-up never made sense to me either. The silly thing would go to deck angle 90 degrees straight up if you let it. All it knew was to protect overspeed at all costs. And all the autothrottles knew was full rated power. It never occurred apparently to the french flight control programers to try to sync the disparate systems together? All I could figure out was that the bird didn't have a reasonable target deck angle to shoot for, since it was always hopelessly behind in the pull up (gradual for pax comfort you see), and would invariably always overspeed, requiring desperate airshow elevator and trim actions to keep from busting red line. Or maybe the original Autopilot logic was designed for smaller engines?
All I know is that Boeings, Douglas, BAe's, never did this to me. With Airbus however, you had to always be on guard to disconnect both A/P
and A/T anytime Outto was groping his way through the air.
The brands
are distinctively different, despite some of the "airbus denials" you read on these threads.
I have no experience on airbus sidestick models, but I always hated sidestick airplanes for the simple fact that you can't switch hands. What if you need to adjust your seat and wiggle: there you are; when hand flying, cemented into position like a statue unable to drink coffee with the right hand if you're an F/O or unable to turn your approach plate with your left hand if you're a Captain.
On jets with a yoke I constantly would switch hands as one become tired, use both for the takeoff, push on the tops of the ramshorns for more leverage, "fly on the trim" button alone.
In hand flying, you receive a real "feedback" with the physical motion of a large control column lever that a pressure side-stick just can't duplicate. Humans, studies have shown, are poor at monitoring automation or at judging pressure. But more importantly, being able to physically see with your peripheral vision what the other guy is doing with the huge yokes of the old Boeings was a huge benefit to understand what inputs your cpt or f/o is putting in. Instead of trying to figure out what he's doing or not doing over there in the airbus corner, with big throw/large travel yoke right next to you, there is no doubt.
And over riding the other guy is instinctive if he's losing it. You don't have to think about "Gee, how do I assert control of this thing?; push a button wait a bunch of seconds and bla bla bla.
There isn't time for that crap. In the Boeing control columns world, if he doesn't let go the differing forces with snap the two apart leaving the capt in control. But it never goes that far; that never happens because handling pilot can already see the
Body English of the other pilot leaning forward and grasping the yoke, indicating that he's about to take over because he's unhappy with the flightpath.
What happens, pray tell, when the flight path goes bad on a democratic Airbus with sidesticks? Take a survey? Take a vote? Split the difference? Push buttons and hope to regain control? Who the hell's flying the thing? Both of you? Is it the autopilot or the guy guarding his secret stick with his arm in a crack? Nobody knows! Maybe he's dead over there... Slumped down on the armrest with crumby posture like he's donating blood at the Red Cross....
Side sticks suck, they are the bygone relics of a single pilot age. They belong in tandem fighter jets, not multi-pilot airliners, imho. You should be hand flying in a conventional fashion, adding back pressure in the turns on a regular basis; preparing for the day when the AOA sensors, or all three Pitot probes fail like with AF 447, and you will, (gasp), have to use your hand flying skills in manual law.
On that day, when all those nanny protection devices go on strike at the same time because of simple sensor failure, you will be glad that you did not count yourself in the ranks of the great button pusher pilots of tomorrow, so many of who post here claiming just more training or "understanding the systems better" is all that's required to avoid a similar fate. You will instead, be able to actually hand fly your way out of a wet paper bag, if that is required of you.
No one will thank you, and the public will assume that these new computer machines just fly themselves. You however, a real pilot, will know differently since you recognize and uphold a one hundred year old tradition of actually manually hand flying the actual airplane on the line!
Or alternatively, you can lie to yourself and parrot the airbus marketing hype that flying is safer not worrying about flying on the back side of the power curve since alpha floor is here to protect everybody.
It's your choice.
Crunch - out