Originally Posted by
peekay4
Btw you may want to read about Bernard Ziegler. .
I know who BZ was - if you look at my earlier posts we covered a lot of this stuff - repeatedly. He was the nominal head of the A320 project, but the grunt work of development and testing was done by Gordon Corps and his team. The sidestick design was developed from the "minimanche" experiments on Concorde, which BZ had nothing whatsoever to do with (and neither did Henri - this was an experimental development involving the engineers only). It was absolutely *not* "[BZ]'s design" or his "decision".
In fact, I have a strong suspicion that if Capt. Corps had not died tragically and prematurely (of altitude sickness visiting a crash site in the Himalayas), a lot of the hearsay doing the rounds regarding A320 development would have been nipped in the bud.
(If you go and Google Flight's archives on A320 development, you'll note that BZ is briefing the mainstream press, but when it comes to technically explaining the system, it's GC that is providing the information.)
Originally Posted by
vapilot2004
That's not quite right, my friend!
It is if you read what I said.
It may not be the only reason it is there, but that is the only reason it *has* to be there in a computer-controlled backdriven design.
dual input summing makes me agree only if you remove the offending words in bold and replacing with something along the lines of 'encourages.'
The system goes out of its way to discourage dual input with visual and aural warnings, so it follows that the only way it should be happening is with the full consent and intention of both flight crew.
[EDIT : @Winnerhofer - I strongly doubt that BZ "stole" anything. As I've just discovered, Air Inter had been using HUD for years on their Caravelles long before the A320 project even began:
(this is not a Caravelle, but this article (in French) -
http://www.headupflight.net/lami/historique.htm - uses it to illustrate the point...)