Originally Posted by DozyWannabe
One of the biggies for me is conflating FBW (which is the technology used in the flight control systems of the A320 through A380, as well as the B777 and B787) with FMC/FMS (which has been a standard component of every major airliner for the last 3 decades or more). The latter of which is essentially a fancy term for advanced autopilot and is the exclusive domain of the "what's it doing now?" problem.
Who conflated anything? I told an old joke in the context of an Airbus pilot who might not know exactly what his machine was doing at all times. A3-TWENTY said this. "Note:I fly the airplane for almost 10 years and like it , but I assume it has imperfections.". jcjceant answered with this, "I hope you will not have to suffer the imperfections that you assume exist on the Airbus .. for to assume means not knowing exactly who they are and therefore you risk finding yourself in a situation that you will not understand ..".
I followed with an old joke to illustrate that pilots do not always know what the airplane is doing. Nothing in that joke denigrates Airbus. If anything, it's pilots laughing at each other.
Next. Actually, FMC/FMS is not a fancy name for an advanced autopilot. I've flown more than one jet type with an FMC/FMS that used the same autopilot as a raw data airplane. My 737 type was flown entirely raw data on an airplane with an FMS. I assure you the autopilot was engaged as much as possible and functioned quite nicely without the FMS/FMC. I've flown Lears with FMS/FMC and without FMS/FMC and the autopilot was the same in both aircraft. I've flown DC9-83's with FMS/FMC and DC9-83's without FMS/FMC and the DFGS (autopilot) was identical in both airframes. The autopilots of those airplanes cared not whether the FMS/FMC was operable or on the DMI list.
Your comment just isn't correct. An FMC/FMS is a "flight management computer/flight management system" and most of them are simply fancy navigation computers integrated with aircraft performance computers.
The 320 autopilot flies quite nicely using selected speed/heading/vertical speed. It doesn't need an FMC, therefore I conclude that your comment isn't even applicable to the airplane you try so hard to defend.