Hi Dozy,
Have been reading the ongoing back and forth on A vs B, sidesticks vs yokes, FBW control, etc. I know you are knowledgable on Airbus control systems and defend Airbus practices when challenged. So in that there is not much going on relative to AF447, I though it might be good to put some things in perspective, A vs B.
Boeing designed the 767 & 757 aircraft in tandem with the idea of shared cockpit design features so that pilots could obtain a common type rating to operate either aircraft. Boeing continued to selected conventional control systems for both aircraft.
Airbus had a difficult time initially selling A300 aircraft as a replacement for either the MD-10/11 or the Lockheed Tri-Star and decided on a new approach to the soon to be A-320 which would compete against the Boeing 737. For this airplane and those that followed, a FBW system was designed and the yokes used in the A-300 were replaced with sidesticks.
Boeing finally decided to introduce a FBW system for the new 777 aircraft being considered. In the design of the Boeing 777, Boeing changed the way it went about designing aircraft. On previous aircraft, Boeing pretty much selected the design and presented the aircraft to the customers. For the 777, eight major airlines had a role in the development of the aircraft. The airlines were, All Nippon Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Delta Airlines, Japanese Airlines, Qantas and United Airlines. It was the first aircraft completely designed entirely on a computer. It was decided to retain conventional control yokes rather than change to sidestick controllers. Along with traditional yoke and rudder controls, the cockpit featured a simplified layout that retained similarities to other Boeing aircraft. However, the FBW concept used was slightly different than what Airbus designed for the A320. The differences are in philosophies.
Airbus designed its FBW jets with built-in protections or hard limits. Boeing, on the other hand, believed pilots should have the ultimate say, meaning the pilot can override onboard computers and therefore built-in soft limits. So here is the issue. Should pilots or a computer have the ultimate control over a commercial jetliner as the plane approaches its design limits in an emergency? There were and are strong arguments by pilots on both sides of the debates. Some pilots are of the opinion that computer protection of the A320 and subsequent designed aircraft are very good whereas other pilots support the Boeing philosophy that they must have the final say in controlling the aircraft. There are valid arguments both ways.
One argument was the Boeing 757 Cali Columbia crash where the pilot didn't retract the speed brakes after receiving a terrain avoidance warning. In a A320 the retraction would have been automatically accomplished by the computers. On the other hand, the A320 Habsheim crash was the result of the pilot going below a 50 ft threshold in which the computers assumed the pilot was trying to land. The plane did exactly what it was suppose to do according to the computers and landed in the treetops. The first five accidents involving A-320 aircraft were the result, in one way or another, of misunderstandings between the computers and the flight crews. Obviously this has improved through pilot training, familiarity with the computer control systems, and refinements of the computer control systems by Airbus. Over time, there have been 50 incidents on A320 aircraft involving "glass cockpit blackout". The most serious occurred on a United Airlines aircraft where half of the ECAM displays, all radios, transponders, TCAS and attitude indicators were lost. Due to good weather and daylight conditions the pilots were able to land at Newark airport without radio contact.
I should point out that the Boeing 777 FBW aircraft have suffered only two hull-loss accidents and 6 other "occurrences" with 1,009 aircraft currently flying. Neither hull-loss accidents involved the FBW system. One was BA's mishap landing at Heathrow (engine problems) and the other was an onboard fire in the cockpit due to a faulty oxygen tube while the plane was at the gate in Egypt, there have been no fatalities.
Personally, I would fly on any aircraft in commercial service that either A or B have produced. Each are different in some respects but both share very good safety records when you take away the outlying causes such as hijackings and deliberate crashes. I flew on A320s back and forth to the West coast of the US last week, uneventful, pleasant flights and a nice comfortable seating arrangement by Delta Airlines.
Just trying to be fair and balanced when it comes to a statement like this:
Until it doesn't (just because it hasn't gone wrong yet doesn't mean it won't). One of the things I used to find amusing about the A v B debate were the B people who swore up-and-down that Boeing's latest models weren't entirely computer-reliant, and the presence of the moving yokes proved it.
They'd overhauled the ailing MD by the early-mid '90s. In any case the point still stands, because the MD/Boeing merger would have produced a company that consistently outsold Airbus year-on-year if Airbus themselves hadn't done something about it.
The merger of Boeing and MD had nothing to do with the commercial aircraft side of the ledger. IMHO, it had everything to do with the military side of the ledger as MD was near or at bankruptcy. The US DOD arranged a "shotgun wedding" to save the production of several lines of military aircraft from folding. At the time, there was no redeeming value on MD's commercial side of the ledger.