From two posts from COMPUSERVE'S AVSIG forum in 1994:
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#: 637883 S4/SAFETY
13-Aug-94 13:54:56
Sb: #637565-#A330 flight tst crash
Fm: John M
To: Raymond C
>In that case, it makes me wonder if Airbus designed their cockpits a bit TOO differently from what pilots who flew 747's, DC10's and L1011's are used to.<<
It would be worth getting the list of pilots and pilot union groups who had a DIRECT input into the cockpit design for the A320/330/340 range. You might be very surprised to find that Airbus supplied the cockpit requested by fellow professionals after many years consultation. I can't help feel that the collective professional "We" have got no more than we asked for with this flight deck design. So perhaps we should take the time to learn to use it properly, thus avoiding unpleasant situations.
There is 1 Reply.
#: 637901 S4/SAFETY
13-Aug-94 14:33:31
Sb: #637883-#A330 flight tst crash
Fm: Howard B. Greene
To: John M(X)
John:
You've got the origin right; a lot of the A320 "wierdities" were the direct result of the early A320 customer input. Of course a different lot of them were initiated by AI as a "good idea". But the FMGC layout (which I abhor) was directly spec'd by the customer, the displays, fbw scheme, even the autothrottles, if not spec'd by the customer, were certainly blessed by them. The Unions of the world also had a big say, but different union groups give different answers, hard for any manufacturer to sort out and make everybody absolutely happy. First priority generally goes to the customer technical pilots (they're the ones who carry the bags full of money around), second to union groups.
Of all the controversies, the biggest two that remain controversial even to
this day (with pretty strong pilot opinion polarization) are:
hard limiting;
non-moving autothrottles.
Of all the accidents, the autothrottles have been a piece of only a couple, hard limiting in none, although the 330 accident got close; limiting was active in the last stages of recovery, but too late to have an impact on outcome.
Berk
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FYI, Howard B. Greene's (Berk) was from his own autobiography:
"Walked right into the 767 program, managing the FAA's swallowing of the new "two crew" concept. In the succeeding years I've been the chief FAA project pilot for flight test and certification of the 737-300, 747-400, EMB-120, ATR-42, and now for the 777 and A330/340."
Very unfortunately, Berk passed away about two months after the above post.