Apart from the technical challenge, is there any reason why these side sticks could not be arranged to move together?
I know that plenty of aircraft with conventionally linked controls have had accidents, but an aircraft that can have one set of controls set in opposition to the other, seems less than optimal.
It might be "less than optimal", to what degree is subjective?
In day to day ops, it is pretty much a non-event. The "Dual Input" audio has been added as a mitigation. In training, or when 1 pilot does something completely off the wall (AF447), it is not ideal.
However, given the large numbers of ab-initio cadets that transfer successfully to the 320 series, I would say that the requirement to link (or force drive?) the sidesticks is not compelling enough to:
- Redesign the whole cockpit hardware
- Redesign and certify the software
- Retrain all crews to the new design and SOPs
- Take aircraft out of service, modufy them at great expense
- Run training and operations for a considerable time with both the "new" and "current" systems