A good point from
Doze:
Think about it. Cable controls, electro-mechanical devices, hydraulics - they're all "technology", and they ended up feeling natural. Why not this setup?
Trust me,
Doze, I learned in planes that were basically 1930's technology. You prolly did as well, as many of us here. I was never one to resist the advances in technology that went to irreversible hydraulic controls, yaw/pitch dampers, etc. That being said, I was taught the basics of how planes fly and what to do when things went south.
In the 70's a new system came along designed purely for enhanced performance made possible by FBW. Talk to any other Viper pilot and we all had the same concerns, but they were about the control system reliance upon electrons to do the same thing that we had done for 30 years with irreversible hydraulic controls. We also balked at the limiters ( "protections" for the 'bus). We adapted. But we still understood the good, bad and ugly. We still understood the basic aero, and we were prepared when sierra happened.
We all worried about the Atari generation coming to us in 1980 ( Nintendo and Xbox were not on the scene then). So we explained in excruciating detail how the plane used basic aero to zoom about, and how the flight control laws helped to keep them flying at optimum performance. Then we demonstrated it for real. We had no problems, and many of the young nuggets went to Eagles later and had no problems with a conventional system.
I don't see that with some of the current crop of folks in the commercial planes, and it scares me.
There has to be some basic philosophy about flying jets that is ingrained in the pilots/crew that seems to be fading.