PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - AF447 wreckage found
View Single Post
Old 31st Jul 2011, 16:55
  #2346 (permalink)  
ChristiaanJ
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: France
Posts: 2,315
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by before landing check list
I think a little humor is needed right about now.
Nice to see somebody else here likes Asimov and has been reading "I Robot".

But no, the Airbus FBW flight control systems are not 'robots' and don't 'think'. They were an evolution of the basic AFCS (automatic flight control systems) that existed well before the A320.
Whether the designers should not have taken more authority away from the pilots (as they did), is an interesting question.

I can't remember the "Three Laws" being pinned up in our design office... maybe they should have been.

But even Asimov's robots were not programmed to deal with every aspect of human stupidity, and neither is the Airbus system (Habsheim comes to mind, again....)
ChristiaanJ is offline