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This is exactly the type of crowd I was referring to earlier. There seems to be a tendency on this site, and on reddit for people to accuse airbus of having an

This is exactly the type of crowd I was referring to earlier. There seems to be a tendency on this site, and on reddit for people to accuse airbus of having an inferior philosophy when it comes to the sidestick not having any feedback. And while some of those criticisms can be fair, there is a tendency to bring this argument into any discussion about the differences in cockpit design philosophy between boeing and airbus. They always bring up AF447 and attribute that accident to the airbus FBW system. Even with the Sully landing, questions were raised about how the aircraft limited Sully's ability to control the aircraft, completely missing the fact that on dual engine failure, the FBW system degrades to alternate law. The fact that Boeing themselves chose to implement flight envelope protections and FBW systems on their newer planes show that the industry in general is in favour of them, pretty much the only difference now is that the boeing yoke provides feedback.

snowwrestler 8y ago
I don't think Airbus has an inferior philosophy compared to Boeing, but I'm sure Airbus has a different philosophy from Boeing, and each philosophy comes with its own set of tradeoffs. And neither is a panacea. For me, that's the lesson of AF447. Adding Airbus envelope protection to the 737 Max 8 would not have prevented the Lion Air crash because the root problem was bad sensor data. Sending bad sensor data into a flight computer will give you bad output, even in a FBW system. Conversely, if the AOA sensors had been operating correctly, or triply redundant to mitigate failure, then MCAS would have worked correctly and safely, even without Airbus-style "normal law" FBW. How to safely integrate imperfect automation with human control is a major developing issue, and not just in aviation. The same concerns are coming to light in cars and trucks with features like smart cruise control, lane-keeping assist, highway "autopilot," etc. On the surface it seems like greater and better automation will make everything safer, and maybe it does in the aggregate, by covering a lot of low hanging fruit. Antilock braking and traction control certainly fit into this category in cars. But as automation gets smarter, it means that the situations where humans are required to take over from the automation will become less frequent and more unusual. So systems need to be designed to not only protect humans with automation, but also to alert and orient humans as quickly and accurately as possible when they need to step in and take over. This is why I happen to think that physically synchronizing stick/yoke movement is a good idea; it's one less thing to have to talk about in an emergency. I don't blame Airbus FBW for the AF447 crash, but I don't blame the pilots either. I thing it was the complex interaction of the two that caused the crash. That's a very complex problem to solve, and it's one that we will have to keep addressing until automation is so good that it never hands off to a human for any reason.

snowwrestler 8y ago

I don't think Airbus has an inferior philosophy compared to Boeing, but I'm sure Airbus has a different philosophy from Boeing, and each philosophy comes with its own set of tradeoffs. And neither is a panacea. For me, that's the lesson of AF447. Adding Airbus envelope protection to the 737 Max 8 would not have prevented the Lion Air crash because the root problem was bad sensor data. Sending bad sensor data into a flight computer will give you bad output, even in a FBW system. Conversely, if the AOA sensors had been operating correctly, or triply redundant to mitigate failure, then MCAS would have worked correctly and safely, even without Airbus-style "normal law" FBW. How to safely integrate imperfect automation with human control is a major developing issue, and not just in aviation. The same concerns are coming to light in cars and trucks with features like smart cruise control, lane-keeping assist, highway "autopilot," etc. On the surface it seems like greater and better automation will make everything safer, and maybe it does in the aggregate, by covering a lot of low hanging fruit. Antilock braking and traction control certainly fit into this category in cars. But as automation gets smarter, it means that the situations where humans are required to take over from the automation will become less frequent and more unusual. So systems need to be designed to not only protect humans with automation, but also to alert and orient humans as quickly and accurately as possible when they need to step in and take over. This is why I happen to think that physically synchronizing stick/yoke movement is a good idea; it's one less thing to have to talk about in an emergency. I don't blame Airbus FBW for the AF447 crash, but I don't blame the pilots either. I thing it was the complex interaction of the two that caused the crash. That's a very complex problem to solve, and it's one that we will have to keep addressing until automation is so good that it never hands off to a human for any reason.