3 ms·
The decision to standardize controls and use fly-by-wire was made for practical reasons. The Airbus philosophy was to use fly-by-wire to make different airplane
by snom390 12y ago
The decision to standardize controls and use fly-by-wire was made for practical reasons. The Airbus philosophy was to use fly-by-wire to make different airplanes of different sizes handle the same, reducing the requirement for pilot training when moving between models.
That in itself doesn't explain the averaging design choice, but it does explain why they decided on the particular fly-by-wire design they have, where in normal law the stick inputs don't have a 1-to-1 correspondance with control surface deflections (like you have on a small airplane for instance).
- inflagranti 12y agoBut fly-by-wire does not preclude the sticks being mechanically or electronically (force-feedback anyone?) linked together. This would seem to me a much better design choice which gives immediate tangible and visual feedback to the other pilot. Instead the whole system relies on the pilots to coordinate using communication and by reading the instruments, which happen on a much higher cognitive level than the tangible input IMO and are hence very hard to maintain under stress - as unfortunately illustrated by this tragedy. Hence I'd say this is much more a design issue than it is pilot error, as both senior pilots were advising the right course but the interface design allowed the inexperienced pilot to silently override control. Yes, this junior pilot probably had too little training and reacted terribly; but what's the point of having multiple pilots if they apparently don't add any additional safety because coordination amongst them has to rely on non-technical means instead of being facilitated by intuitive interface design? Where's the iPhone revolution in planes?