I have been on the bridge of a ship, as an Officer of the Watch in the Royal Navy. Ships have both open loop and closed loop control systems. Closed loop is th

I have been on the bridge of a ship, as an Officer of the Watch in the Royal Navy. Ships have both open loop and closed loop control systems. Closed loop is the normal mode of operation, but there are open loop systems to fall back to. The procedure tends to involve sending someone down to the rudder to communicate back the actual angle of the rudder. The difference between a warship and a most other vehicles is that you can't simply stop a warship and get out. You need to be able to fight even if you've lost the feedback loop from the bridge to the rudder. For the comparison to the blackhawk, in a ship you can at least do something about mechanical failures in control systems.