Chief Test Pilot for A320 development was Pierre Baud.

Chief of Engineering was Bernard Ziegler.

Gordon Corps was a Flight Test Engineer.

Pierre Baud became Airbus Chief Test Pilot in 1978, succeeding Bernard Ziegler (A300 Chief Test Pilot) who moved over to Engineering. After the A320, Mr. Baud remained as Chief Test Pilot on several programs until 1994.

The A320 first flight was piloted by Pierre Baud, and co-piloted by Bernard Ziegler. Gordon Corps was the observer.

That's for the company in general. I'm talking about the roles on the project itself, not the time period.

Baud and Ziegler were both "Veeps" (i.e. senior company vice presidents of flight division and engineering). They'd chair meetings and take the thing up on marquee flights, such as...

...but they wouldn't be the people doing the actual day-to-day work of engineering the systems and ironing out the bugs, as I said. Gordon Corps was the one with the real in-depth knowledge and understanding of the systems.

So our friend M. Ziegler seems to be a bit of a Gallic Mr. Sutter - also head of engineering on another well known aircraft, although from what I have heard and read, Sutter was very hands on (nuts, bolts, and slide rules), often down on the floor solving engineering problems - although the story of the Sutter Twist, (the work-around that precluded a complete and very expensive redesign of the 747 wing) is admitted by Joe himself as being a group realization and effort.

In the video you linked, Mr. Corps covered the thing that most impressed me about the A320 FBW system - the autotrim function (nicely done in normal flight) extending out to an engine out scenario. Being a key engineering test pilot, I would imagine GP had not only extensive knowledge but indispensable feedback to offer on the system. I agree that it would have been nice to hear more from this gent, particularly (for me) the Anglo point of view on the history of the programme.

I will delve into our other discussion when the sun is over the yardarm and am mainly responding to thank you for your links and information good sir! :ok:

Hmm - kinda-sorta... As you say, Joe Sutter could and did act as a hands-on engineer for much of the 747 project, whereas M. Ziegler was more of a project manager/high-level concept man.

Well, as you can tell from the video, GC was very adept at showing how the technology was there to assist pilots when manually controlling the aircraft, as opposed to the somewhat mangled press narrative popular at the time - which many people took to mean that the A320 was designed to be almost entirely flown under automation (an assertion which was utterly incorrect - the autoflight system on the A320 was no more intrusive than that of the B757/767).

One of the anecdotes I read regarding GC and the A320 was that when he encountered pilots who were somewhat sceptical of the technology, he'd invite them for a simulator ride in which he'd demonstrate the protections, explain why the technology was there to assist rather than hinder or replace and give the pilots a chance to pit their reactions against the EFCS. Which would invariably if not always end up with the systems demonstrating a significantly improved safety margin and the pilots walking away at least somewhat more convinced that the technology was sound. With 20/20 hindsight I think this was not only an apt example of understanding how pilots could best be won over, but also a very necessary counterpoint to the misguided reference to concierges which BZ became infamous for.

[EDIT : Managed to dig up the reference on here - first-hand, no less - http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/4...ml#post6117850
Partial quote:
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My time on this forum has been an invaluable learning experience in many ways, not just technical - one thing it has confirmed is that pilots do tend to be very protective of their professional pride and tend to react badly if that sense of pride is undermined. BZ seemed disinclined to take that into account, and the SNPL and press made hay with it.

F-WWAI
 

Now here's what cars and planes have in common in France: WW
WW means unregistered / delivery.
Recent changes to French plates now have only one W.

1986/87/88