Originally Posted by
G0ULI
Airbus arrived at their cockit design through wanting to save as much weight as possible. Less weight in the aircraft fixtures and fittings means more passenger and cargo revenue and lower fuel costs. Side stick controls meant the cockpit could be made smaller allowing a bit more room for the passenger cabin and an extra row of seats.
With respect, I beg to differ.
Sure, weight and complexity savings were a factor and it would be daft to deny it. But such things were in fact very much secondary factors. I've touched on this before so I'll try to keep it brief, but the Airbus FBW flight deck is designed as it is for a primary specific purpose, and that is
to have an unprecedented level of flight deck commonality across the fleet, regardless of whether the type is a short-haul narrowbody or a long-haul widebody.
In the early '80s, Airbus was still something of a newcomer and they used the fact that FBW technology was tried-and-tested by the military and space programmes of the '70s to offer something no other manufacturer could. In effect, they turned their status as a newcomer with only two proven legacy types into an advantage. The fact that the British and French aero research industry had collaborated on the Concorde "minimanche" project (from which the Airbus sidesticks were developed) also influenced the decision.
Another factor leading to the "clean slate" thinking regarding the flight deck was that the traditional linked yoke design was an outgrowth of the days when the flight surfaces were directly linked to the light surfaces by cables. That one crew member could see/feel what the other was doing was actually a side-effect. The *real* reason they were linked was because in a situation where one person's muscle force was insufficient to work against the aerodynamic pressure against the flight surface, it was possible to combine the muscle force of two to do so. In real terms, there was no significant need for "follow through" outside of a trainer.
With the advent of large widebody types came all-hydraulic control systems (i.e. there was no manual reversion) - simply because the flight surfaces (and the forces acting against them) were so large that muscle power alone would be insufficient to move them. The last western narrowbody jetliners to have manual reversion were the B737 and the DC-9, and I've read plenty of posts on here from airline veterans which made clear that even airliners of that size were very tough to handle in the manual reversion scenario. So much so that Boeing's intended replacement for the B727 (i.e. the B757), despite being smaller than the widebodies, had no manual reversion at all (i.e. it was all-hydraulic).
Once you remove the "extra muscle power" requirement that goes with direct cable connection, then you effectively remove a significant reason (arguably the most significant - as this is an airliner, not a trainer) for the controls to be connected.
Obviously, back in 1988 there was a degree of consternation from the piloting community as to how this evolution would pan out - after all on paper it looked like a significant change from what had gone before. But I'd say that a safety record that holds its own now we're at 26 years and counting of this technology being on the line suggests that the design has proven itself. Undoubtedly there are pros and cons in an ergonomical sense, but that comes with the territory.
As PJ2 has kindly pointed out, the fact is that there are currently more accidents involving aircraft with traditional controls where the PNF has not picked up on what the PF was doing than there have been with the passive sidesticks.
The scuttlebutt that has Airbus working in league with the beancounters to make pilots' lives harder is as pernicious as it is false.