tubby, others, I deleted the post temporarily as I was unhappy with it. Sorry for the loss of signal. This stuff has to be done so carefully so as not to cause wrong understandings and lead others down blind rabbit trails! - pj
Originally Posted by MurphyWasRight #1476
If I understand correctly the Airbus sidesticks do not provide any feedback, they are "input only".
The following schematic may help:
Machinbird;
Re "one of the most experienced A330 pilots"...Perhaps so, perhaps not.
We have to approach this article with the same caution as any which "arrive" in the publice venue.
We have absolutely no way of verifying that this is from an A330 pilot.
As with the comments from a Professor Hüttig last week, (who I do not believe was "an Airbus pilot" because he doesn't tell us what exactly his Airbus/airline experience is), we have no information on this author who claims to have 4500hrs on the A330. Probably does but the stakes are far too high, the desire for accurate information too great, to expect others will take an internet posting as the truth. Establishing credibility takes time, discussion and a good smeller.
Whoever he is, I think he's wrong on comparing the airplane to a video game and he's wrong on the artificial feel matter; the non-moving thrust lever item has been around for decades and won't be resolved by his or any others' comments; they are, for the many who are experienced on the airplane, a non-issue.
The A330 is what it is in these specific respects and I think it is reasonable to state as an experienced airline pilot that after one is trained and finishes an informal "apprenticeship" in real airline operations one gets accustomed to one's airplane, especially after 4500 hrs on the machine. One gets used to "what is" and, as a professional, maintains a regime of continuous learning by staying in the books and practising one's craft by hand-flying including disconnecting the autothrust.
In reference to the article, it is worth asking oneself the question, Why are people saying the things they are saying? Motivations are numerous and very complex and no question, no comment is "innocent". Do we follow the money, the ethics, the lofty goals of learning? All are choices which we make, for the most part, subconciously, when something either feels right or smells a bit. Why would someone "go public"? Attention?, setting the agenda?, enframing the discussion? We are not told who wrote the article. We are free to judge that for ourselves. Is that intentional or done naively unaware that others would ask such impolite questions?
How many who continue to pronounce on "the dangers of Airbus" and the "confusion of laws" have ever flown any airplane at all let alone the A330? How many here have had the A330 Course and flown it in-service in real life?
I submit that the act of summarizing the details of the A330's AFS laws and trying to make academic sense of them either to oneself or others is the same kind of cognitive act as trying to describe to someone exactly which specific muscles to move, and when, to walk up a flight of stairs. One googles "smart-cockpit" and like so many who use the internet for personal qualifications, consider themselves sufficiently knowledgeable to actually say something about the airplane without ever having flown it. If it were that easy and that simple, we wouldn't need the training and checking regimes that regulators require and airlines routinely provide.
That the design and execution of the design most definitely deserves comment and critiquing. There
are some serious questions to be asked.
Dozy...re, "No, he's wrong. When autoflight trips out, the trim and power settings remain at their last assigned setting. Thrust will not change from that setting no matter what detent it was in until one of the pilots manually moves those levers.
This makes me highly suspicious of his credentials - if he's flown those thousands of hours in an A330 and doesn't know that then I'd be a little leery of getting on his aircraft. "
Yes, exactly. He may be who he says he is; doesn't matter. THR LK has been around a long time, but not forever. I flew the A320 without thrust lock. One remembers very quickly how to disconnect the autothrust. But when the engines went to the donuts, it was a non-event...an embarrassing cause for questions from the back but nothing beyond that.
For those who seem to believe that CLB or even MCT at FL350 on the CFs or RRs is cause for a huge pitch-up followed by an immediate overspeed or an uncontrolled climb for the A330, it needs to be understood that there is not much residual thrust remaining and the aircraft response from what "boost" there is, is emminently controllable. On the A340 one could likely leave the CFM-56's in TOGA and you'd take all day to overspeed the airplane...they didn't call them hair-dryers for nothing.