Yeah,
JT, a good question.
Wiki has a fair explanation, but one of my original posts has a link to the Viper's design WRT static stability.
Longitudinal static stability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Have to look at my website files to get a link for our design.
Found the Code One articles on my website:
http://www.sluf.org/misc_pages/codeone_v1_n2.pdf
http://www.sluf.org/misc_pages/codeone_v1_n3.pdf
The deal with the 'bus is that what we all knew as "normal" was if you let go of the stick the plane would try to achieve the trimmed AoA ( not gee). So the cee gee was well forward of the center of aero pressure. This meant that when cruising along that the elevators were actually creating a force opposite of the main wing to keep the nose up. By moving the cee gee back and having HAL to help, you could have the elevators creating upwards lift and dramatically reduce "trim drag". In short, both the elevator and main wing were generating lift upwards.
From my A330 manuals, the thing never has an extreme aft cee gee as we had, but it does allow it to be further aft than most of the other jets. This helps for range due to reduced trim drag. Because HAL is helping, you don't feel like you are flying on the tip of a needle if you turn the AP off.
The 'bus direct law is one implementation I described. The electrons directly command control surface deflection via the actuators, just like the old days when our yokes/wheels/sticks moved a valve for the hydraulics. Because the plane has positive static stability, it is still flyable by mere mortals.
What bugs me is that the 'bus reversion sequence is not real clear as to the AoA bias on pitch. At first look, you think that you have some degree of AoA limits and actually command AoA. Then you read all the footnotes and find that some data failures do not provide the expected control response related to AoA. So the jet is still trying to achieve a gee, and the AoA can go to 40 degrees, as we now know can happen.
later from this old dinosaur...