Before returning to the peanut gallery amongst this august group of heavy pilots, I shall once again challenge Cland.......
From A330 FCOM:
So the jet "appears" to be a pitch attitude command, and the turn implementation appears to also allow for the gee involved to maintain both the established pitch AND roll. We all know that 60 degrees of bank requires 2 gees, and so forth, huh?
Eh... unlike F-16 which has G-trim, Airbus is made to be flightpath stable, so it will achieve 1G in wings level horizontal flight, not by chasing 1G but rather by trying to keep the flightpath constant. If we don't go into details and try to build theories on them, "Stick free it holds 1G" is good enough approximation. Displacing the stick commands the flightpath change with so-and-so gees, proportional to displacement
My point is that the sucker is a one gee jet, and the autotrim will allow the pilot to relax the stick to maintain an attitude. Our pure gee command ( gear up) resulted in us being neutral WRT speed stability, so we had to use power to maintain a constant speed. Gear down we had an AoA bias to make the jet "feel" like a "normal" jet, similar to the 'bus "flare mode"
And note the phrase in FCOM "With the side stick neutral, the system maintains one gee in pitch corrected for pitch attitude" How one can assert the jet is a pitch attitude control law still bothers me. It may appear to be an "attitude control law", but it ain't. And that's why I said the actions of the THS and such could have an "insidious" effect that some may not appreciate.
Further, my understanding of aero is that a straight mechanical system that we had long ago, and in some jets to this day, you trim for AoA, not gee, not attitude, not speed. I think most of us learned in planes like that, ya think? Ask Mach or Smilin' Ed or any Navy type, and even some of we Air Force pukes. And so...
Autotrim is just automatic trim. Any aeroplane, anywhere, anytime is properly flown with reference to attitude. Whether the residual stick force after the required performance is achieved is trimmed out manually or automatically is just a minor detail.
True, we normally fly to achieve an attitude and simply keep the AoA below the stall angle. Trim to reduce the stick force requirement and so forth. However, many of us were taught to trim for a speed when climbing or descending, and especially for final approach. Not necessarily an attitude. And that's AoA, which works with thrust and the induced drag to get the "speed". Then your power controls the climb angle/climb rate, or the other way.
I do not intend to conduct the pre-flight instruction for my newbie student for most here. I just want to point out the way the 'bus is designed from looking at the manuals and such some of you presented to me.