Originally Posted by Packer Backer
Personally I liked the fact that my envelope was limited. It meant that if I got a GPWS, I could pull back on the stick as hard as I could and the Airplane would give me the max it could, just shy of snapping off the wings. In a Boeing, since I don't have a g-meter on my butt, I would probably tend to be more conservative with pull up because the fear of snapping a wing would be on my mind.
I never flew an Airbus, but I agree that its "hard" control limits yield better terrain-avoidance performance than Boeing's "soft" limits. This is based on an award-winning technical paper presented at the SETP symposium a few years ago by my former Edwards colleague Ron Rogers (then chief of ALPA's new aircraft evaluation committee). They tested several scenarios, and Airbus did a little better in all but one. It was noted, however, that pilot reaction time is by far the most important factor. He who hesitates....
