Quote:
Originally Posted by xcitation
Rubbish. When you let go of the steering wheel, the steering returns to centre/neutral. In an Airbus, the Stab Trim happily stays at the full back trim position. Just what I don't want! Nerds designing features into aeroplanes that shouldn't be there. If you're hand-flying, you should be trimming. Much less likely to manually trim full back into a stall..
My point was that pulling the stick back for 4 minutes is what took down AF447. The stab trim was a secondary consequence of the stick back. If you know your plane then you are aware of this consequence and can over ride if you chose to. However in some situations this runs the risk of potential damaging the control surface by over loading forces which has happened in boeings.
All that matters is to know your a/c whether it is a boeing, bus or whatever. To your point the Airbus clearly has a complex matrix of flight laws and protection modes which are harder to master than the simplistic boeing model. One could argue that
in extremis the extra complication of different modes in airbus overloads the pilot. However they are easier and safer to fly in normal law with protections. It is a trade off. Then again in a bus you can always power off HAL to turn it into a boeing.