A poster was mentioning that the crew was experiencing "shuttering" which I suspect could be flight spoiler reaction. At least on the previous airframe, the A300/310/B4's, the bird had no inboard ailerons at all like Boeings and Douglas used for cruise, and the outboard aileron is locked out once clean: a feature, no doubt, adopted to save money, complexity etc.
But the downside to this reliance strictly on roll spoiler mixing software for roll control when clean, is that once again you are reliant on lots of questionable computer code. Every heading change was jerky since popping boards up in cruise to bank cause an undesirable yaw, which had to be either countered by an opposing flt spoiler deploying on the other side, or an input by the yaw damper, or a combination of both. When it rained hard in the tropics, the system would give up and fault right when you needed it most: a high bank command. Even when it didn't rain, the system would give up sometimes over 300 kts banking in a high speed descent under ten thousand. This was a normal high speed descent legally permitted in some international operations but the airplane couldn't hold it together and deal with a thirty degree bank down low. A number of distracting flt spoiler faults (five was common) would light up amber and roll control would be partially lost causing the A310 to overbank uncommanded to 45 degrees. It took full opposite control input to right the ship, or a smart non-handling pilot to reset the overhead ignoring the ecam procedures. We got tired of this happening, so quit writing it up since the damn thing was always signed off "byte checks O.K.". It was clearly a known deficiency with Airbus flight control design, in my humble opinion. But you-know-who certified the airplane to fly like this, so we lived with it. Those of us who experienced this unsettling anomoly, would speculate that maybe the software engineers just never envisioned someone operating at over 250 knots below ten thousand.
I have never flown FBW but have jumpseated with the sidestick boys and it makes me nervous. Not modulating your own bank angle and putting your own back pressure into the turns Means Manual Law skills are lost after a time, doesn't it? But they all have
faith in the design of their machine, something that I am in short supply of the last few years regarding the industry's over-reliance on automation.
What happens when these FBW airframes get older and cannon plugs and connectors suffer inevitable corrosion? When Airbus flooded the market, a lot of us worried about the composite airframes but our suspicions about an aging vertical fin for example, inspected by an outsourced low-cost maintenance provider was dismissed as Old School paranoia. Surely, we were told, anything new and advanced that the government sanctions must be better for you, right? Next thing you know, one breaks up over new york and the pilot is blamed for using the rudder. A memo comes out telling me not to use the rudder if I can help it!
I just don't know anymore. Let's face it: like the Titanic and the Hindenburg, some vessel designs were doomed right at the drafting table.
Could you miss the mountains in a pull up with this type of g-limiting and bank-limiting A320 FBW sidestick?
No, I don't think you can. FBW will save the airframe from overload first, but ultimately hit the rocks as I understand it. It will reject the pilot's command to pull say seven g's. FADEC will slow spool the engines to save TBO but hit the trees as it did in Toulouse. Flying around on Alpha mode on the back side of the power curve is insane below ten thousand feet but simulator gods, test pilots and check airman seemed unconcerned about fostering such a dangerous habit when we first got the airplane.
At least that was my observation: that illogical reverence for a bunch of software code was committed on a daily basis by the Airbus Cult. "It's Advanced! It's Advanced!" they would all sing in unison. While I
was impressed with the power-to-weight performance of these light twins as compared to the older heavy boeings, I sure was not impressed with any of the automation. So I just turned it all off and hand flew it. It was a predictable decent flying airplane when you operated it at the lowest level of automation: da pilot.
But that went over about like a fart in church with the standardization mafia. "I needed to get the Airbus Religion" I was told when I objected to the classification of hand flying as "John Wayning" the airplane. They wanted me to use all these nanny protection devices
all the time.
They were nuts imho. The next thing you knew machines were wrecked all over the place due to inability to make normal hand landings.
I don't know about both the A320 and the A330. I don't know about Trent engines either.... on the 777 or the A380. Just like the Comet they all have a good safety record now, but just like digital home computers, corruption may be lurking.
I never did like ETOPS either, or getting my bags and balls x-rayed to go flying. I think I'll avoid all those things from now on if I can. I think I'll only ride on 411A's L-1011 or a nice redundant 747 in the third world somewhere where they treat you nice in security.
I know, I know.
Just let me get my coat and hat....