Viper versus 'bus protections
I do not like correcting Doze or others, but have to clear up the comparison with the 'bus "protections" and the Viper "limits".
Make no mistake, the intent and implementation of the AoA and gee and pitch rate and roll rate limiters on the F-16 were exactly what we have been talking about. Duhhh? Gums! What do you mean? ( now that PJ has opened up, I feel I owe all the same courtesy)
I was one of the biggest advocates of a mechanism to override the F-16 limiters. Problem was I didn't understand FBW system implementation or design. This is back in 1974.
I flew the VooDoo 1966 - 1967, and it had an AoA and gee limiter in some modes. It also had a "pusher" for excessive pitch rates as well as pulling thru the mechanical limit for AoA. So I was there with some of the "interference" with we cosmic pilots that could do anything, fly anything , heh heh. Nevertheless, the sucker had an electro-mechanical analog system for flight envelope protection and an actual flight path autopilot ( called it the coupler). I even used the coupler to launch a Genie rocket at a drone because it was better able than me to steer and avoid the dreaded "pitch up" ( had a poor set up, and was sorried about pulling too hard). I also used it every now and then for a coupled ILS approach, but we didn't have autothrottle, so we pilots still had a few duties ( think Asiana airspeed monitor duties).
The Viper limiters were exactly what we are talking about with the extreme envelope 'bus "protections". They are there to keep Joe Baggodonuts from over stressing the bird or losing control at the edge of the envelope. But the 'bus folks go way beyond that, so we have pitch corrections for attitude and bank angle limits and such in the "normal" mode. It is more like a Playstation or old Atari game than the Viper.
So my point is we lowly lite folks had a system ( first fully-electronic FBW in active service with no mechanical back of any sort) that allowed us to fly to the limits of the jet no matter how hard we pulled or rolled or.... As with the 'bus, our operational/mission requirements ruled. I will grant that we had a vastly expanded flight envelope ( big time), but the intent and the implementaiton was almost the same.
The biggest difference was our degraded mode. We had only one, and that was there in case we lost air data or selected alternate flaps!!! It used fixed values for the "gains" depending upon the gear handle position. So you can see why I got interested in AF447. Our back up was almost transparent, and we did not lose all the other "goodeis" that the 'bus has because we didn't have them at the outset. The deep stall override function was not considered a back up mode, but it was direct command of the stabilators as the 'bus has in "direct".
So that's my story, and I am stickin' to it.