I think someone who is allowed to fly an A380 should know how to fly it and what is safe and what's not. If he's not able to control such an aircraft without the FBW "protections" and all that stuff, he should't be sitting the the cockpit of an aicraft like this.

No one is saying you need protections to fly the aircraft, that is a complete misunderstanding of the philosophy. The protections are the calculated maximum performance of the aircraft in a given scenario, the exact figures that any pilot can reference from his his FCOM, although I doubt any pilot could recall every figure from memory, especially in a high stress situation.

 

The common misconception is those (hard) protections are interfering, that is completely untrue, to the average line pilot on the A3xx those protections will be completely transparent for his entire career, except for his sim check every six months.

 

Kyle, I'm not sure of your depth of knowledge regarding the laws on the A3xx, if the aircraft is in an abnormal situation it gives you full control, if not you can put the aircraft in ALT or Direct law if you fancy some stunt flying.

 

you reference flight 261, if that happened in an A3xx the aircraft would have reverted to abnormal law and the crew would have full control to try and recover the aircraft like any other machine.

 

I see a lot of post's on the net regarding the FBW and protections however it seems most don't truly understand how it operates and believe HAL9000 is in charge on these machines.

 

Regards

Don't take this too far, but tell me any professional driver who uses stability/traction control. Granted, that's a completely different job, and a lot fewer people are injured if they screw up because of the lack of protection, but the overarching theme prevails: when it needs to get done and the automagic is preventing it, or even delaying it, bad things could happen.

 

 

Lots of them,

 

F1, Indy, WRC, ALMS, any club guy who drives an EVo or a GTR will tell you they are much faster and easier to drive with all the electronic trickery

 

Lots of them,

 

F1, Indy, WRC, ALMS, any club guy who drives an EVo or a GTR will tell you they are much faster and easier to drive with all the electronic trickery

Exactly, and of course all professional pilots use the automatic aids available to them too. Autobrake, antiskid, FADEC, turn coordinator, etc. The flight control system of the Airbus is not interfering with pilot inputs any more than that of the 777.

I find it very difficult to believe that the protections are bad. Today we have an aircraft that is literally can't be stalled. This is an amazing feature that minimizes pilot error and only let's the aircraft fly in it's flight envelope. That can not be a bad thing.

Just see, how many planes have crashed because of the Airbus protections : zero. Have many planes have gone down because of pilot error: Not zero!

 

Computers are powerful, but they're very dumb.

 

They may be dumb but they are very good calculators. They know exactly when the airplanes is in the safe margin.

 

 

What happens if something mechanical got messed up, but the logic wouldn't allow me to fly in a way that permitted me to live? As I'm sure you're skeptical, remember ASA261. The crew, at one point, attempted to fly the aircraft upside down because of an uncontrolled pitch down command, resulting from a mechanical malfunction (something the logic cannot predict).

 

And did anyone survive the ASA261 accident? (rhetorical question) If there is a mechanical problem it will kill you any way. If you think that the protections work against you can always turn the off on the overhead.

Checking AF447 you can see that the systems are quite redundant. Usually there are 3 systems, if 1 or 2 show different information they regard it as invalid meaning that the probability of something malfunctioning without the computer knowing is basically zero. In the AF447 the computer clearly told that the aircrafts (normal law) isn't working, unfortunately they had incompetent pilot who stalled the aircraft.

I just picked one "pilot error" from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia....ines_Flight_604 This accident would not have happened in a Airbus since it would have stopped it. I am sure that any pilot is able to keep an aircraft stable if he think about it but as soon as lack of training and distraction comes together bad things happen. Just go back to some standard accident theory. If you drive in bad weather most likely nothing will happen, if you drive on a bad road nothing will happen, if you have in super heavy traffic nothing will happen, if you drive in a bad tires nothing will happen. Mix these 4 together and voilà, an accident.

 

If you don't like the computer you should remove GPS navigation as well since it is quite high tech, if the clock just is 1 microsecond wrong you get an error of 300 m. The atmosphere is a problem as well since it can give different pulse times between the Satellite and the user. Luckily there are algorithms, phase and code augmentations that help against that. But it still computers that give you a position calculation that help navigating and they usually don't look at the GDOP.

 

 

Kyle, just wanted to say that this text isn't meant to be against you, I just took your quotes to illustrate my point of view on the Airbus protections.

 

Regards,

Manfred

If you turn off FAC1 on the overhead you will force the aircraft into Direct Law and will remove all protections, the Airbus then becomes like a Boeing, that is if you push the stick left and leave it there, you will roll over.

 

Regards

Kirk

The etern Airbus vs Boeing conflict.

 

Since both manufacturers main concern is the same: security, I think both philosophies are based on common concepts but with different point of views, though. I think is a very good thing that the last link in the chain, the passenger, have all the redundancy options and concepts possible in security matters. Airbus? Boeing? Embraer?, Cessna?, Bombardier?...so what? Don't forget that fortunately for us, each manufacturer have to pass many and many strict quality controls, which obviously include the matter we're talking about

They don't need to simulate FBW, every aircraft in FSX already has it... Through your USB Port.

With all due respect, that is not a simulation of FBW.

 

FBW has been simulated in FSX and FS9 by Airbus addons with varying success. I think the main problem with simulating FBW on the 777 would be the way it deals with "soft" limits by increasing control forces and so resists being pushed beyond the set limit. Thus attitude limits and stall protection probably won't be included because of the way they work using control forces. Some features FBW such as the way the rudder automatically responds to thrust asymmetry or the way attitude is automatically maintained in a turn, should be able to be simulated and I hope PMDG do simulate these features.

 

With all due respect, that is not a simulation of FBW.

 

FBW has been simulated in FSX and FS9 by Airbus addons with varying success. I think the main problem with simulating FBW on the 777 would be the way it deals with "soft" limits by increasing control forces and so resists being pushed beyond the set limit. Thus attitude limits and stall protection probably won't be included because of the way they work using control forces. Some features FBW such as the way the rudder automatically responds to thrust asymmetry or the way attitude is automatically maintained in a turn, should be able to be simulated and I hope PMDG do simulate these features.

 

With all due respect... It is. Fly by wire just means, as the name implies, substituting the conventional controls (cables or hydraulic tubing) with an electronic interface. Nothing more, nothing less. What you are talking about is, amongst others, envelope protection. Automatically altering control surface positions CAN be part of a fly by wire system, but doesn't have to be.

If I take a standard Cessna 182, replace the backed of the yoke with HAL sensors, connect them via wires to servos at the control surfaces, I have created a Fly By Wire system. Does it have any kind of protection? Nope.

 

Don't take this too far, but tell me any professional driver who uses stability/traction control. Granted, that's a completely different job, and a lot fewer people are injured if they screw up because of the lack of protection, but the overarching theme prevails: when it needs to get done and the automagic is preventing it, or even delaying it, bad things could happen

 

 

I think that’s a very bad analogy. The racing car driver has an entirely different objective. His objective is to get round the track as fast as possible. The racing driver WANTS that lack of control that enables him to slide sideways and take a corner he otherwise couldn't.

 

 

In an Aircraft, the objective is different. The objective is NOT to lose control, because to lose control is to stall, lose all aerodynamic lift and kill your crew and passengers.

 

when it needs to get done and the automagic is preventing it, or even delaying it, bad things could happen

 

That would be a good point, if it wasn’t for the fact that dangerous incidents where the automatics prevented the pilot manoeuvring are unbelievably rare. You are far more likely to be saved by the automatics than killed by the automatics, hence why Airbus engineers designed the system in the first place. Better to have built in protection for the majority of the potential accidents, than the very rare accidents that hardly ever happen.

 

I'd argue that you're incorrect that the Airbus logic will put you on the edges on the envelope. There's going to be a built in margin

 

That wasn't my point; the Airbus logic enables you to manoeuvre in a care free way, without fear of stalling or losing control. In an emergency situation, the pilot doesn't have to think; he can whack the controls right over, or right back, and very quickly push the aircraft close to the edge of the envelope, plus that small safety margin.

 

Now imagine the same situation in an aircraft with no flight envelope protection... The pilot will always have it in his mind that he is extremely likely to stall the aircraft, and kill all onboard. Therefore he has to "guess" while in a stressful emergency situation, just how far he can push the aircraft without killing everyone.

 

Now the important question is, can that pilot estimate precisely where the edge of the envelope is? No, of course he can't, so he will always be manoeuvring the aircraft with probably an even greater safety margin that the Airbus flight envelope protection would provide.

 

Imagine it this way, an aircraft is heading in low vis toward a mountain, the airbus pilot sees it and instantly pulls the stick right back and keeps it there, the pilot doesn't even have to think, he can act instinctively.

 

The Boeing pilot on the other hand can't do that, he has to guess where the edge of the envelope is, guess just how far he can push the aircraft... and always in the back of his mind he will have the nagging fear of a stall. That fear will inhibit his actions.

 

What happens if something mechanical got messed up, but the logic wouldn't allow me to fly in a way that permitted me to live? As I'm sure you're skeptical, remember ASA261. The crew, at one point, attempted to fly the aircraft upside down because of an uncontrolled pitch down command, resulting from a mechanical malfunction (something the logic cannot predict). Sure, it's the 0.00000000000000000000000000001% scenario, but I'm sure if you asked those passengers if they'd like protection from the stupid, obvious stuff (pilot-induced stalls, etc), with the potential side effect that the crew couldn't do what they needed to do at a moment's notice, or the ability for the crew to do what was necessary to try to save them, they'd argue for the latter.

 

Now ask yourself how many accidents have resulted from the "stupid obvious stuff" and how many accidents have occurred as a result of very rare scenarios like the one you mention above.

With all due respect... It is. Fly by wire just means, as the name implies, substituting the conventional controls (cables or hydraulic tubing) with an electronic interface. Nothing more, nothing less. What you are talking about is, amongst others, envelope protection. Automatically altering control surface positions CAN be part of a fly by wire system, but doesn't have to be.

If I take a standard Cessna 182, replace the backed of the yoke with HAL sensors, connect them via wires to servos at the control surfaces, I have created a Fly By Wire system. Does it have any kind of protection? Nope.

Yes, what you describe is a form of FBW, but I don't know of any digital FBW control system that does not modify the controller input in some way. Perhaps you do?

 

Airbus (and Boeing) FBW is not just about envelope protection. FBW can also modify the pilot's input within the envelope to provide a measure of auto stabilisation. In the Airbus case the sidestick input is a roll rate command in roll and (in effect) a normal acceleration command in pitch. Therefore, FSX does not simulate FBW as inplemented in the Airbus and the 777. Such modelling has to be added by the addon designer. Which makes your pedantic comment irrelevant.

Where did I say FSX implemented FBW the way Airbus or Boeing do it? Oh, right, I didn't.

 

What you describe is not what FBW is about, but what you can do with it. And because you don't seem to see it... My original comment was a joke...

Where did I say FSX implemented FBW the way Airbus or Boeing do it? Oh, right, I didn't.

 

What you describe is not what FBW is about, but what you can do with it. And because you don't seem to see it... My original comment was a joke...

Actually you did, in effect. The OP was asking specifically whether PMDG will simulate the 777 FBW system. You directly answered that question by saying they didn't need to. So in answering that question you were referring to Boeing FBW (and just about everyone else's FBW implementation), like it or not.

I think if you read the original post again, you'd see that the Original Poster asks whether FBW will be included ON the 777, not LIKE the 777. Ergo, your statement, that I would be referring to a specific implementation of FBW, is erroneous.

I think if you read the original post again, you'd see that the Original Poster asks whether FBW will be included ON the 777, not LIKE the 777. Ergo, your statement, that I would be referring to a specific implementation of FBW, is erroneous.

What other kind of FBW would the OP ask about PMDG modelling on their 777 sim, other than "like the 777"? Come on, who would seriously imagine PMDG would model anything else?