Air Asia A320

[WaffenVW]

Well, to my knowledge none of the aircraft you mentioned have side sticks. How do they do it on the F-16B/D/F?

[earl1937]

Most crashes are due to pilot error, thats why computers are used to assist the pilots and preventing them from doing those errors. Qantas 32 is a good example of the advantages with FBW, despite loss of a lot of vital system the computers did the job of keeping the plane in the air so the pilots could focus on getting it back on the ground instead of fighting to keep the plane flying.

Loss of hydraulic pressure have brought down more than one plane over the years...

Most aircraft, back in the "day", so to speak, did not have hydraulic controls, but some had hydraulic assisted controls, but you could still fly the thing if you had no hydraulics'. Most aircraft had hydraulics' to lower gear, flaps and brake systems. The biggest reason they ever went to FBW systems to begin with, had nothing to do with safety, it was about the weight saved in the design of the aircraft. True, there was a lot of thought given to taking the "flight" decisions away from the pilots when they screwed up, but the computer CAN'T think!
I remember a Airbus test flight many years ago and there is a video of this on utube, but I don't have time to look it up, the thing took off, climbed about 50 fifty feet and crashed straight ahead into some woods! All the pilots had to do to save this thing was just push the thrust levels full up and take command away from the computer and they would have saved the aircraft and lived!
I know I am not going to "win" this discussion in any fashion, but there are some things on the new modern aircraft of today, which I wish we could do with out and FBW is one of them.
Case in point is the "knob" on the eyebrow of the instrument panel, by which the pilots can control the speed of the aircraft! Wouldn't pilot proficiency be on a much high scale, if they had to fly the thing all the time manually? I think it would!

[Serenity]

Well, to my knowledge none of the aircraft you mentioned have side sticks. How do they do it on the F-16B/D/F?

Does it matter? The issue in question isn't the location of the stick, but rather the effect of not linking the controls.

[WaffenVW]

On commercial aircraft only one pilot should be in command at any one time, and in the scarebus there's an audible alarm if both sticks are used simultaneously.

[Zimme83]

Most aircraft, back in the "day", so to speak, did not have hydraulic controls, but some had hydraulic assisted controls, but you could still fly the thing if you had no hydraulics'. Most aircraft had hydraulics' to lower gear, flaps and brake systems. The biggest reason they ever went to FBW systems to begin with, had nothing to do with safety, it was about the weight saved in the design of the aircraft. True, there was a lot of thought given to taking the "flight" decisions away from the pilots when they screwed up, but the computer CAN'T think!
I remember a Airbus test flight many years ago and there is a video of this on utube, but I don't have time to look it up, the thing took off, climbed about 50 fifty feet and crashed straight ahead into some woods! All the pilots had to do to save this thing was just push the thrust levels full up and take command away from the computer and they would have saved the aircraft and lived!
I know I am not going to "win" this discussion in any fashion, but there are some things on the new modern aircraft of today, which I wish we could do with out and FBW is one of them.
Case in point is the "knob" on the eyebrow of the instrument panel, by which the pilots can control the speed of the aircraft! Wouldn't pilot proficiency be on a much high scale, if they had to fly the thing all the time manually? I think it would!

That crash had nothing to do with the Fly by wire system, it was a pilot error and did not occur as you describe it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296
If something it was a false belief that the FBW system would save them from anything, it did prevent them from stalling but they had no speed to climb since they were in a near stall position.

Like it or not: FRW and computers have made commercial aviation a lot safer, it cannot eliminate all risks but it helps the pilots to avoid most of the common mistakes. If pilots had to fly manually they would be better pilots for sure, but they would also crash a lot more often. We cannot have commercial jets flying with a compass and a clock just because it was the way it was done in the past. Commercial aviation is about moving people and stuff from A to B in the safest and most efficient way. If you want to experience the freedom flying can give you then General aviation is there for you. I prefer to fly that way but just because I do it doesnt mean that i want the guys in the airliner im riding with to do the same.

[Serenity]

On commercial aircraft only one pilot should be in command at any one time, and in the scarebus there's an audible alarm if both sticks are used simultaneously.

On ANY airplane, only one pilot should be in command.

Other things that SHOULD happen:
-Birds should avoid planes
-Engines and equipment should work
-Storms should not appear without warning
-Pilots should constantly be in close communication with their crew

Just because something SHOULD happen doesn't mean there aren't extenuating circumstances. The thing with having more than one set of eyes in the cockpit is occasionally one set sees something the other doesn't, and in these circumstances, the one to see it may not be the one who SHOULD be in charge, but time may not allow communication of both the issue and the corrective action.

While you will say "There's a 'takeover button' for that!" it's not an end-all excuse. What if both see the situation, both push the takeover button, neither knows what the other is doing, the situation becomes more frantic as the one NOT in control doesn't realize the other is acting on the airplane. Beyond that, as a firearms guy, the one thing you hear a million times is "When your life is on the line, fine motor skills are the first thing that goes". How often do you think these pilots drill to press that little button in an emergency? And keep in mind, I speak from experience when I say emergency drills in a simulator are NOTHING like drills in the actual airplane.

[WaffenVW]

Pretty.

[WaffenVW]

Bruce Dickinson flies the A320! 

[pembquist]

I wasn't contrasting side sticks to yokes, Serenity understands. If what Columbo says is correct across all implentations than it is a moot point. The fact of the matter is that in the reports that I have read both the Air France and the Air Asia crashes had instances of two crew members giving opposite uncommunicated control inputs under severe stress. Unfortunately at the time they were doing this the computer was in the lowest state of "law" so staying within the flight envelope was up to the crew which as far as I can tell is an extremely rare event. I am saying that for that rare event when the fly by wire is degraded it seems like the existing design is suboptimal. And as for training, which is not airbuses fault, it seems like the crews had not trained enough to recognize and react when they were more directly in control of the aircraft, thats why they call it pilot error.

Before airbus crews flew perfectly good airplanes into the ground when their instruments went wonky so I'm NOT BLAMING AIRBUS for the crashes, I'm just wondering why they have this one particular design feature that doesn't help offset human fraility but aggravates it and as a lay person seems kooky.

I'd buy the argument that statistically airbuses probably prevent way more crashes than they "cause", (just like ABS and stability control in autos,)  but that isn't a reason not to scratch against the itch of suboptimal crisis-ergo design.

[NatCigg]

the pilots crashed the plane.? ok. we can fix that right? better training and wallah, and besides the point, how many times has this technical flaw been correctly handled by the pilots?  but what is really scary is how come a faulty solder joint went a year without fixing until the plane crashed? 

"In the AirAsia disaster, the system that regulates the plane's rudder movement kept malfunctioning because of a cracked solder joint. Aircraft maintenance records found it had malfunctioned 23 times in the year before the crash, and the interval between those incidents became shorter in the three months prior to the crash, Indonesia's National Transport Safety Committee said in a report."

[Serenity]

as a lay person seems kooky.

As a pilot, I think it's downright retarded.

[Brooke]

Incorrect. There is a "take over" button on each stick,  the logic is the last person to push the "take over" button has priority. The other person has to release and press their button to resume control. If they're doing that, then there is a bigger problem in the cockpit then how the plane is designed.

"It's mine."

                             "No, mine."

"NO.  Mine."

                             "It's mine."

"Mine!"

                            "No! Mine!"

"MINE!"

[WaffenVW]

Pilots behave that way? They should all be shot! 

[FTJR]

"MINE"

                            "No! Mine!"

"MINE!"

We laugh about it,  a farcical situation.   Its more like:
"your control"
                   "I dont want it, YOUR control"

[Masherbrum]

I'm quoting all of you, because you ALL bit off on the sidestick-vs-yoke, rather than the more important argument: "Why can both controls be moved in opposite directions?!"

The original post wasn't so much about the physical object you're holding, but rather the fact that whatever object it is can move in two different directions at once.

I'm no commercial pilot, my personal experience is fairly limited (SGS-232, SGS-233, Lark, Samba XXL, Cessna 172, Cessna 182, Cessna 206, T-6B, trivial time at the controls of a C-17 and CH-53E), but EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE AIRCRAFT had something in common: When one [insert control object here] moves, the other moves in the exact same direction, at the same rate. To my knowledge, it has been this way throughout history. And for a good reason. Airplanes are not inherently more dangerous than other objects, but they are IMMENSELY unforgiving. From experience, when things go wrong, they go wrong quickly, and you have ZERO time to discuss the matter. I've done everything from dodging birds and deer, to losing control surfaces, to hydraulics, and plenty of other issues among most of these aircraft, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've had time to do so much as say "oh $%#@!!!" before having to do something fairly drastic with the controls. Even in the T-6, er brief before every flight, "If you see something AND HAVE TIME, say it. If not, grab the controls, and muscle it over to avoid the situation. If you feel me jerk the controls away, let it go, I see something you don't, AND TALK ABOUT IT WHEN WE HAVE TIME." There are MANY situations where you don't have time to discuss what's happening, but in every other aircraft design, if someone sees something and slams the stick over, he doesn't have to say anything to the other pilot, that guy can FEEL that something is being done.

FTJR flies commercial airliners for a living.   I differ to him to be honest.