I flew B737-200/300/400/800, B747-400, B777-200,
A300-600R, A310-300
After five years in the Airbus, albeit not a FBW type, when I got out of it for the last time, I never even looked over my shoulder at it, as the crew bus drove away. All that was going through my mind was " Thank goodness that's over ", and I made myself the promise, that from that point on, I would never volunteer for another 'Bus assignment.
What put me off ? The disquieting feeling that I was never really in charge of the machine. At the time, probably 80-90 % of all Tech-Log write-ups were written off as " Re-racked - unable to fault, please report further ". On the very many occasions I saw the machine do or "say " something totally inexplicable out of left field, and went to an engineer to ask, " Hey, what's all this about ? ", the most common response was for them to look a bit sheepish, shrug their shoulders and say " Sorry, no idea ". The Frenglish manuals were seldom of any help. They don't want you to know how ( or why) they built it that way, they just want you to know the absolute basics of how to operate it. (The same, of course, could be said of the B777-200.)
One can never imagine getting ourselves into a situation where you could come out of cloud, pointing at a hill, but plenty of our colleagues have done it in times past. IMHO it would be cold comfort to hit the hill knowing that no flight envelope limitations have been exceeded.
If you look back over the last 50 odd years of jet transport flying, plenty of them have landed battered and bent, sometimes throw-away items after exceeding a lot of design limits, but landed safely nonetheless. Not many of them were Airbus.
If everything is going according to plan ... Magnificent piece of machinery ! For anything that requires a problem solving solution, outside of the square, as for all aircraft, be extremely careful. The technique of flying Airbus requires that a great deal of trust be put in the PNF, far more so, IMHO than any Boeing. When it gets really down and dirty, the sheer complexity of the design and operating philosophy could bring two good men undone. I used to think in those days, that the difference between the two, was that, for the Airbus, the skipper would need far more available RAM after doing his own job, than in the equivalent Boeing. On a good day, any mug can just sit there and play with the buttons, but the Airbus, in a severely degraded mode, really requires an Aircraft Commander who has a third eye on the rhs of his scone.
The salesmen, from both manufacturers would tell you " It is so easy to fly that even a trained chimp could do it ". The reality is maybe a little more complicated.
The earlier Boeings, although a tad agricultural, were pretty much "what you see, is what you get ". Functional , not flash, but with very few vices and no real tricks or traps that I remember. Uncomfortable ? Of course, but if you took a problem to any engineer over say 35 and asked " What's this about then ?", they would either be able to tell you on the spot, or at least go an look it up.
My all too brief flirtation with the B777-200, was a case of mixed feelings. The gee-wizz aspect of the toys was great ( EFB excepted ... what a POS ! Great idea, truly lousy execution.) I was wary of the FBW, but took some comfort in the sense that, if you asked it to do something radical, it would in it's own way. ask you, " Are you sure you really want to do that ? " If the answer was " Yes ! " it would at least let you do it. I was reasonably confident that a jet-upset was recoverable if unconventional technique was required.
So, that's my ten cents worth .... If you wish to discuss it further, PM me and I'll supply an address for the delivery of a case of nature's finest.
Of course this doesn't address the lifestyle, bid-line , domicile etc, etc. But that's another case.
This post is chardonnay assisted, and I'll deny everything.
Fly safe.
Regards Tpad
PS : If the chart table really means that much to you Airbus afficionados, maybe, just maybe, you need a holiday... ( On a boat !! )