Hornet aero
Salute1
Well, Dozy, the Hornet and her prototype - the YF-17, were "conventional" in terms of static stability. Still are.
The YF-16 could be flown with a "conventional" forward c.g., but allowing it to move aft provided a dramatic increase in several parameters. The Airbus utilizes it's FBW system to reduce trim drag, but that's about it. In the Viper, we saw a dramatic change in pitch rate when we had to balance fuel forward to reduce the chances of a deep stall. And BTW, none of we operational pukes had a deep stall the first year or so. The phenomena was discovered by the golden arms at Edwards after the flyoff and the YF-16 was selected.
The guys in our initial cadre had several pilots from the flyoff. They all liked the way the YF-17 "felt". OTOH, it could not maintain the same turn rate as the YF-16, failed the transonic acceleration requirement, and it was a gas guzzler.
Before I post "part two" of the changes in flight controls, here's a tidbit.
We have had pitch and yaw dampening augmentation since the 50's. By the end of the 60's, we began to have "augmentation". Clever devices "helped" us to fly smoother and have better control response without losing control. Good example was the A-7D and Navy model. We had "control aug". When following lead on the taxiway you could see the control surfaces jumping all over the place. The inertial inputs were moving the control surfaces to achieve the pilot's commands. Hmmmmm.
For all the active pilots here ( and recent pilots), tell me if you see the control surfaces jumping on that Airbus in front of you when it rolls over cracks in the concrete and such.
So much for "direct control". A true direct control would leave the control surfaces "frozen" unless the pilot moved the control stick.