Originally Posted by
PEI_3721
Airbus does not currently use active force feedback; the technology was unavailable at the time of design.
With respect, you are incorrect on the latter point. The technology was available, but to use it would have added extra technological complexity in the first instance, and in the second it would have undermined one of the design goals - namely that the Airbus FBW fleet should appear to handle in a more-or-less identical fashion regardless of whether the specific type being flown was a short-haul narrowbody or a long-haul widebody.
Originally Posted by
Turkish Delight
If the stick position is motored to show the summed flight surface movements, it would be easy to provide the means to show the uncoupling in jammed control conditions by making the individual sticks show the movement in that side only.
But that undermines another positive aspect of passive flight controls - namely that by being able to override the opposite control and not have to physically work against the deflection, control of the aircraft becomes easier (think EgyptAir 990).
Originally Posted by
Turkish Delight
It's putting the pilot back in the loop, something Airbus neglected from the start.
Not only incorrect, but blatant prejudice. By making the sidesticks passive, all Airbus was doing was acknowledging the fact that since the advent of hydraulically-powered controls, the "tactile" feedback through the column was a simulation only, and a simulation which risked misleading pilots if the systems driving the feedback suffered a malfunction.