I just rode jumpseat on a USAirways A319.
Impressive cockpit - spacious, comfy, great air conditioning, pleasing to the eye.
But I must say - as far as Situational Awareness, it was definitely lacking.
-It was hard to tell who was the PF (I figured it out when the PF rotated, but only by leaning forward to see who was handling the "joy sticks". )
- I could not really tell how much control input the PF was making.
- PF told me that when hand flying, he could turn the stick left, then let it go - the plane would stay at that exact bank attitude and hold altitude. WTF?? Who's really flying the plane, the pilots or George?
- In the descent, I had a lot of trouble correlating the fact that the engines were at Flight Idle while the throttles were stuck at climb power position. WEIRD!!!
"Retard, Retard???" in the flare?? WHO comes up with this BS! Do we really need a computerized voice to remind us to take the power off? What's next, a voice to tell us to use the lav if we have to pee.
Airbus Human Factor engineering = EPIC FAIL, in my opinion... sorry to you Airbus enthusiasts, but I'm a pilot first, not a bloody computer game operator.
When I'm hand flying, I want to turn the yoke/stick, put some nose up trim, and make whatever control inputs necessary to hold altitude.
When the autothrottles are on, I WANT to see them move! Visual and tactical cues are extremely important in the area of Situational awareness.
Finally, I WANT to see my yoke/joy stick move when the other pilot makes an input. Otherwise we risk another AF447 scenario - one pilot is not aware that the other is holding the wrong control input.
Staying Boeing....
73