some good points F4Retired but...
human nature has been taken care of to a certain degree but not completely. We must move away from this "I must have ultimate control" flawed logic.
In the early days of military FBW there were a number of relevant events.
One in particular comes to mind. One FBW fighter had an onboard system which prevented spins and stalls. One particular fighter pilot felt this system limited his dog fighting abilities and so disabled it. "I must have ultimate control". He promptly crashed overcooking it.
Yet that itself doesn't really indicate anything. Had he been shot down with the system enabled that was wrong too. So we need other indicators of a working safe system.
The A320 is one of the safest commercial airliners out there. So it has proven both its safety and design features. This is a fundamentally safe aircraft minus stick feedback and throttle feedback. Tells us a lot.
I do not advocate engineers have it 100% right and one of my earlier posts called for more forward thinking pilots in order to improve on what we have. Fundamentally safe technology.
I could agree more with your points if we were talking about unsafe technology. We are however in the safest period of commercial flying ever. The overwhelming majority of a/c are new technology. This is no coincidence.
Analogue Boeings have stalled and crashed, Boeing pilots have been confused by blocked pitot and static ports and crashed. None of your AOA indications, stick shakers, yoke feedback helped in any way at all. Its pure nonsense, sorry but it is.
Where I totally agree with you is on the together bit. But that requires many of you letting go of the past.
Last edited by Safety Concerns; 16th Aug 2011 at 11:26.