WB - Modern FW are more stable that RW by orders of magnitude. You only have to look and the moment of inertia and radius of gyration given by long wings and a long fuselage. I have no doubt an uncontrolled FW might end up upside down, but it would take a lot longer than 2 seconds or so compared to a heli that has no wings and thus a very low moment of inertia in roll.
As I mentioned earlier, a swash plate freeze (yes, hydraulically powered) is catastrophic but as I also mentioned it boils down to how many failure modes and their probabilities an FBW has compared to pushrods and hydraulic pumps.
As I also mentioned, I don't really "buy" the cost thing. People will fly if they need / want to and cost saving of FBW in the great scheme of things is minimal per passenger mile. Especially for helicopters where the economies of scale apply much less in overcoming the initial design and certification costs
On the "hand flying" thing, FW are different I believe because a non FBW hand flown is just the basic aircraft and aerodynamics, whereas any IFR heli has at least some level of autopilot between the pilot and the swash plate that gives artificial stability and makes it infinitely easier to hand-fly. We never fly without this engaged except in emergency or for training. So that benefit doesn't really apply, the more so on modern types that have very sophisticated autopilot functionality always present when in flight even when "hand flown".
So I still don't really "get" why full FBW would be to my advantage?
Bravo, do you actually have anything to contribute to the discussion or do you just get your kicks out of sniping? Perhaps you could try attacking the arguement rather than the arguer? It might be interesting (though I have to say I somehow doubt it!)
Last edited by HeliComparator; 22nd April 2013 at 23:15.