Originally Posted by
bubbers44
PJ2, I loved the early 737's and 727's but didn't want the automation of the Airbus so stayed away from it. Only because it took a lot of your control away and let automation take over.
When pilots cannot control an airplane because automation is doing something they don't understand I don't like it. Maybe I am too old and don't understand the new technology but I love the feeling of being in control no matter what the computer thinks. My 757 let me do all of that.
We need to be careful here. The automation on the A320 and her widebody sisters is in fact not a great deal more advanced or restrictive than that in your 757, and never was. The difference was that in the 757 the safe limits were coded into the autopilot, whereas on the A320 those same limits were handled by the protections in the FBW logic.
It's very important to separate the automation concepts from the FBW concepts in order to understand them properly. There is some crossover in the case of the protections and autopilot limitations, but it stops there. What I think you're talking about (and correct me if I'm wrong) are the "what's it doing now?" incidents that came with automation - and they were as prevalent on the 757 and 767 as they ever were on the Airbus FBW types. Yes, you can turn it all off on the 757 - but you can turn the automation off on the A320 too.
As I said earlier, there was a greater leap in automation between the 727 and 757 than there was between the 757 and the A320.
If you're talking about the A320's protections - which only go away if there's a significant systems failure - then that's a very distinct aspect of FBW which has nothing to do with automation, and in any case you only encounter them if you try to do something dangerous. Otherwise, as PJ2 and others have testified, the A320 and her sisters hand-fly beautifully. It's not taking control away from you so much as helping you maneouvre safely within the limits of the airframe.
Originally Posted by
bubbers44
Also a side stick with a single pilot plane would be just fine.
Looks like it works just fine on a two-crew plane as well, going on the evidence - even with yokes, only one of those two pilots should ever be controlling the aircraft, after all. The sidesticks were nothing to do with automation, they were an outgrowth of the fact that big, heavy yokes weren't necessary on fully-hydraulic airliners, and even less necessary with FBW.
I realise that psychologically a connection could be made between the transition from big, heavy yokes to the lighter and less-obtrusive sidestick and the belief that pilots were relinquishing more control to automation, but as I've said above it just isn't the case. FBW/protections and FMS/automation are two very separate and distinct things, and it's important to bear that in mind.