Originally Posted by
gums
[Editorial comment: Cockpit layout something for another thread, IMHO. My friend was the captain of the Cali disaster, and the stoopid FMS had duplicate designations for a fix. The two of them realized that somethig was awry when the coupled-autopilot turned the wrong way, but continued their descent after correcting their course. Can talk about that tragedy someplace else.]
As I understand it, it was the paper map that was in error, listing Rozo (the correct waypoint) as "R", when it should have been "ROZO". What the AA965 crew did was type in "R", which brough up a list of matching waypoints, then simply hit "EXEC" twice, which sent them to the Romeo beacon near Bogota. The correct sequence was "R-O-Z-O-[EXEC]".
Conventional "feel" is what airplanes let you know when the pilot or "system" commands a change in flight path or rate of descent or.....
Agreed, but the basic tenet of the FBW Airbus design is that flight deck layout and feel should be common to all aircraft across the range, from the A318 to the A380. Traditional "feel" is an obstacle to that goal.
The biggest thing for we pilots was that the thing "felt" like what we all had flown for years.
Which is undoubtedly a good thing when you're talking about the first generation of a design. Boeing wisely made the 747 behave like a big Cessna, as it was the first airliner of that size.
But once the concept is proven, it makes sense to bring other parts of the technology a step forward. Based on experiments on a Concorde airframe (which was itself reliant on a primitive analogue FBW) with a spring-driven sidestick, Airbus elected to try the technology in a small narrowbody. The A320 airframe design was as conventional as they come (airliner airframe design having been mostly static for nearly four decades), but progression of the control system technology was the target.
While an ostensibly significant difference in flight deck layout, the design had pilot input from the get-go to make it feel relatively intuitive, and if pilot reaction to the control system had been negative, Airbus would have backtracked. Instead they were toe-to-toe with Boeing within a decade.