Originally Posted by
jcjeant
[Ziegler] was educated in the École Polytechnique (1954), as an engineer
That was his education, but his profession was as a pilot - he was not an engineering pilot from what I've been told. While still at the ARB, Gordon Corps had been working with the technology from the original Concorde "minimanche" experiments in the late '70s where the aspects of the design were refined - that was why Airbus hired him. This all happened before the A320 project was formally begun, and before BZ ever entered the picture.