Originally Posted by
Lyman
I am reasonably convinced that the lack of Pilot/Pilot interface engineered into the Airbus cockpit was not arrogance , nor ignorance.
The dynamic, ignored in the lack of interconnectivity with hand controls, shows a confidence in the human factor that has created problems in flight. The knock on the platform early on, "What's it doing now....?" has in some instances been replaced by "What are you doing now...?"
The design clearly shows a lack of attention to this dynamic factor, cockpit management. It certainly reflects on a lack of concern for the importance of either handling position relative to controller orientation, aircraft attitude.
It is worth reading and watching what information there is from the time from the pilots involved in the design. I only did so recently, it opened my
eyes a bit to the aims of the design
beyond the engineering.
Not only is it clear that they did pay attention to exactly what you say they didn't, but they also rejected the first sidestick design after flight test (not sim, flight) and sent it back to the engineers not for a bit of tweaking but for radical design changes.
Do you know what they scrapped, at flight test, and rejected in favour of what is there today ?
...
Interconnection. Yes. Really. They had interconnection and they scrapped it after test flying it. Apparently it was great in theory but didn't work when you actually tried flying it (even with test pilots). Interesting, no ?