Few points to address, so here goes:
@gums - I think what might be worth bearing in mind is that your Viper was intended to be flown by fast jet pilots, and as such they would routinely be trained in the limits of the aircraft when making extreme manoeuvres. That kind of EFCS exists because the aircraft itself is inherently unstable (in order to maximise manoeuvrability) - a completely different set of requirements from those which would be needed in an airliner.
As such, protection features such as those in the FBW Airbuses and Boeings would be inappropriate in the Viper, because Viper pilots would be expecting to fly the thing at or near the limits on a fairly regular basis - which is absolutely not the case in the airliner use case. What may be "trying too hard" in the Viper may be just about right in an airliner.
Again, this is something I've brought up before, but the Airbus (and later Boeing) FBW "hard" protections are not just about sparing the blushes of the flight crew, and while this aspect was emphasised to the general public (who in 1985 had seen one of the worst years for airline safety on record), the other equally important aspect was that the hard protections allowed the crew to deliberately use full control deflections in an emergency scenario without worrying about stalling/spiralling the aircraft or overstressing the airframe. This is important because - unlike your Viper crews - airline crews would not be regularly expecting to take the airframe to its limits and would therefore not train or practice the need to manually hold the aircraft within those limits.
@Turbine D:
IMHO, what wasn't recognized in the '80s was where the source of pilots was going to come from in the later decades. While Gordon, Bernard and others of the '80s came out of the military experiences of flight training...
To be fair, I think it's worth noting that the situation in Europe regarding airline hiring was somewhat different to what it was in the USA if we're talking about the period between the start of the '60s and the mid-'80s. I recommend Blind Pew's book for a fascinating insight into BEA's cadet programme in the '60s, for example. I think in general, you tended to get fewer ex-military folks crossing over to the airlines on this side of the pond.
That's a bit of a tangent though - the whole point of the Airbus FBW/EFCS development was to be able to encode the experience that Gordon and the other test pilots had gained when testing the airframe into the computers, so that pilots of any ability would be able to draw on that experience transparently. As such, one could almost say that they were absolutely preparing to deal with a wide range of piloting abilities from
the very beginning.
Did Gordon and Bernard take this into account when developing the Airbus FBW systems and sub-systems, or was it based on their personal experiences?
See above. I should also take this opportunity to point out that BZ would have only been involved in the specification of the systems at a fairly high level - it would have been GC and his team who did the actual test cycles and feedback sessions. From what I've been told, it would be inaccurate to speak of the two men in the same breath/sentence in that regard. BZ was senior VP of engineering (and as such largely a ceremonial figurehead), whereas GC was a lead test/engineering pilot in the programme.
What kind of personalities did they have in their leadership roles at Airbus? ... open to changes/criticisms to the FBW systems they promoted, or were they overbearing/dismissive to subordinates with their supposed greater knowledge and experiences?
I can't speak for BZ - though, as I said above, he wasn't really involved in the day-to-day testing/feedback/redesign/tweaking cycle that GC's team were. As far as the A320 project goes, BZ would have been on the flight deck for "marquee" flights (e.g. first prototype flights), particularly where the press were involved - but he would not have been involved in the regular testing and development schedules. GC was the lead engineering pilot and would have been in charge of the "real" work.
I've been fortunate enough to correspond/speak with a couple of people who knew GC - and both of them said that the way he came across was as personable, knowledgeable, meticulous, methodical and inclined to listen and mediate within discussions as BZ could come across somewhat brash. This is one of the reasons why GC had the role he did. I should also point out that GC was involved in the Concorde "minimanche" experiments (where what became the Airbus sidestick design was first developed and tested), whereas BZ was not.
Something which folks may find interesting is that the groups who are most vocal in criticising Airbus like to bring up BZ's character, chequered history, brashness and his foot-in-mouth tendencies at the drop of a hat - but in my experience barely acknowledge GC at all, either in terms of his character or his greater technical contributions to the project. My personal belief regarding this is that to do so would tend to rather undermine their position and argument.
I've repeatedly put forward the viewpoint that had GC lived longer, the festering distrust in some piloting circles towards Airbus would never have taken hold - and I think the manner of his passing speaks volumes about his character. After the A320 testing project concluded, he transferred to the position of deputy flight safety director. In that position he did not necessarily have to personally visit accident sites, but clearly felt compelled to do so. Sadly this led to his death from altitude sickness when personally overseeing Airbus's safety team on a crash site in the Himalayas.
even beyond that of what was happening with two seat cockpits, i.e., elimination of the flight engineer.
Two-seat flight decks had been the norm in Western narrowbodies/short-haul types since the mid-60s (e.g. BAC 1-11, DC-9, Jurassic 737). The A300 may have been the first two-seat widebody (and indeed the first long-range twinjet), but Airbus were only following an already existing trend - the B767 was also a two-seater twin, flying for eight years before the A320 went into service.
@PJ2 - As usual, a very cogent post, though I have to wonder:
It was the first time in my career that I had done my entire transition to a brand new type entirely on the autopilot
I suspect you'd have faced the same situation had you been doing a type conversion to, for example, the B757 (which had an FMS/autoflight setup practically identical to the A320). On balance, everything I've read indicates that a move to increased use of automation was industry-wide and related to the period of time rather than the type.
I'm just "thinking out loud" here, but I wonder if the emphasis on training the automation in the early days of the A320 may have had something to do with the fact that most of the short-haul crews undergoing conversion training at that time would have been used to aircraft two generations older (e.g. Caravelle, BAC1-11, DC-9), and as such, the change in automation technology might have been considered the biggest change to overcome, and prioritised accordingly?
It was a long time before Airbus actually began to engage "ordinary line pilots", the airline and their collective comments;
May I ask how long, in your experience? Again, based on what I've read I agree absolutely that Airbus did seem to drag their heels in that regard - but at the same time I wonder if other builders were much different back then. There have been several examples I can think of where manufacturers were reluctant to respond to queries/criticism (e.g. Bryce McCormick to Douglas regarding possible total hydraulic loss on the DC-10 and Boeing's efforts to suggest B737 rudder PCU problems were in fact handling mistakes by the crew).