7x7,
I'm not sure, I went looking for the material but couldn't find it, when I find it I'll post it. I'm not sure what airframe design feature causes the "relaxed pitch", the material I read didn't specify how it was achieved. I did read however that since FBW was "faster" in response, that meant the 777 horizontal control surfaces could be smaller in design, thus saving weight. However I don't see how that helps the pilot if reversion to Direct Law occurs.
What bothered me about the "relaxed pitch" was both the reversion to either Direct Law or mechanical reversion. Can you imagine what it would be like in mechanical reversion to be rolling the airplane with the number 4 and 11 spoilers (why spoilers 1 and 14 weren't chosen I don't know), and then trying to control the pitch with the stab trim? My undertanding is that ANY change in airspeed requires retriming the stab. While changes in horizontal trim generally occur in all aircraft with changes in airspeed, I'm talking about a much more pronounced effect with "relaxed pitch".
If "relaxed pitch" was indeed designed into the 777 airframe, then I see this as part of an overall problem in FBW implementations where pilots are being isolated from some of the "real world" aerodynamics acting on their airplanes. To me, this can pose safety problems when "envelope protections" are lost when either pilots turn one or more of them off, or partial system failures turn some of the "protections" off.
To me it seems dangerous for the FBW pilot to lose his/her "daily awareness" of the aerodynamic limitations of his aircraft, that pilots of conventionally controlled aircraft can never afford to forget. FBW aircraft are still subject to the same aerodynamic limitations as any other aircraft, and if a failure causes a FBW aircraft to lose some of it's "envelope protections", then the pilot is being asked in an emergency to suddenly "recall" those aerodymanic limits in an aircraft where he's not often exposed to them, and where the failures provide reduced controllability.
All three issues that I brought up at the beginning of this post revolve around this central issue of isolating the pilot from intimate knowledge of the aerodynamic limitations of his airplane.
[This message has been edited by Flight Safety (edited 11 January 2001).]