Dozy, you wrote:
Ul
timately engineering is there to solve problems, and the FBW advances were designed to solve the problems of reducing weight and thereby extending range and capacity, exposing less of the hydraulic system to risk by making more use of redundant electronic controls and as an added bonus, using obsolete, reliable computer technology to assist pilots with the workload.
To hear you talk you'd think that the FBW systems of both Airbus and Boeing were designed with no pilot input at all, when in fact pilots were heavily involved in the specification for both.
First, those two statements somewhat contradict each other. At least it demonstrates the heavy unbalance of input, as the commercial pressure certainly would dictate.
Second, I consent that some pilots were involved in design. But which ones?? Most probably management pilots and technical pilots. Now most experienced line dogs will agree, that they are not bad guys, but somewhat estranged to daily operations.
The statements of some manufacturers when launching new technology emphasized way more on how to protect everything from pilot’s mishandling and gaining weight, than giving pilots the right tools to overcome the threats out there, whatever they may be, wherever they originate.
The big issue with Airbus was and still remains the lack of feedback on controls. They let their aircraft use one single channel to communicate with the pilot, the one through the eye, meaning an intellectual, a serial input to the brain. To a small degree they use the audio channel as well, however in this particular case shows how small: The THS movement is not audio connected, you can’t hear it moving, you need to look at it again, with your single serial channel.
Don’t bother mentioning the weight issue, with columns and thrust levers. We don’t need the absolute direct and precisely interlinked feedback from the different systems, what would make the thing heavy. You can buy a rumble joystick and a simple thrust level duplicator for a few bucks in any game shop (not wanting to implement such a cheap solution remains therefore a matter of pride and principle).
A simple movement in the direction of input from the collegue or from the AP/AT is sufficient. We only need the tactile feedback serving the other channel input to our brain. That one works parallel to the intellectual one, thus not impeding it. Additionally we all know that such input is some factors faster than the intellectual one.
It boggles my mind that this has not been sincerely addressed by the regulators or investigators:
WHY DEPRIVE THE HUMAN OF AN INPUT CHANNEL INTO HIS CONTROLLING DEVICE? A CHANNEL THAT IS OLDER AND MORE INSTINCTIVE AND MUCH FASTER THAN THE ONE HE LATER AQUIRED, THE INTELLECTUAL ONE?
As a pilot being placed into the modern cockpit to supervise and program the automation and to intervene when it screws up, I need all the channels and inputs I can get, especially the parallel ones, as my brain starts working more constrainly in stress.
You can point at the not using the unreliable speed checklist, badly using the stall recovery procedure, not realizing the THS position, not knowing that the stall warning goes out below 60kts, being slow in realizing that the AT was off, the lever position not where the power was, having tocheck on ECAM and click up and then down with it, etc. etc. (all single channel eye-brain operations).
But what bugs me more is the switching of stick priority back and forth, no double inputs, as this is not allowed, the swinging of the stick up-down-left-right, the moving of the thrust to TOGA-idle-TOGA and so forth, the shouting “I have no control”.
It reveals a completely lost PF(no feedback on his tactile channel), a PNF that has no clue what the PF is swinging (again no tactile feedback).
Not that this would be the initial reason for the crash, but to me it certainly points to a huge weak spot of the Airbus design.
I know however that I will be cried down by the lobbyist and all others will shrug their shoulders and say “so what, there are so many ABs flying around and so much money involved, nothing is going to change”.
Let us thus wait for the next pilot error