THIS!!! PLENTY of planes have crashed while the PNF had full view of the PF's improper yoke inputs right in front of their face. No head turning/peripheral vision required.

My lowly little regional, as well as many others have adopted PROPER stall recovery training. My company did it more than 3 years ago. Do a search, it's been covered multiple times. As opposed to the outdated/archaic FAA PTS standards that had NO semblance with reality.

 

That's great to hear!! As I said, I haven't flown an airliner in nearly 10 years, but I had heard rumblings that it was to be revised after Buffalo.

And that means that their deaths, while tragic, were not in vain.

 

My opinion: Sidestick. Reason: It's more comfortable to be in the Airbus cockpit than any Boeings that I've flown, which are 727, 737, 757, 767. It's all about ergonomics for me and the 'Bus has ergonomics, the Boeings don't. That's from 4,000 hours of A-319 & A-320 time and the other 18,000 in Boeings.

As has been said in this thread a few times, you want to see what the other guy is doing, you look at the other stick. It's no more trouble than looking at a yoke.

I've yet to fly an airplane that doesn't work like this: pull back to raise the nose, forward to lower it. Left is left, right is right. Not enough, then do more. Too much, back off a little. Doesn't matter a bit about control laws, that's what you do whenever you fly an airplane.

I'm a patriot, buy American and all that if there's a choice. But I don't have an American made dirt bike because they don't exist, and I like Airbusses because they're quiet, comfortable, and they don't have that big steering wheel in the way of everything, and that scenario doesn't exist in any Boeing. But then, I don't give a crap how fast, how high, or how good on one engine, or how nice it lands. I care about my own comfort. They're all flyable, and if you can't fly one, you can't fly any. And rumor has it that Boeing 787s are pretty much made everywhere but in America, so there goes that argument.

That said, I'm flying Boeings right now but will soon bid back to the 'Bus because its the same pay scale as the 757 at United, and that's what I fly 95% of the time.

I don't think it will ever be definitively proven one way or the other whether AF 447 would have had a different outcome or not if there was a yoke instead of a stick, but it's pretty commonly known that the guys flying that plane were not acting like trained professional aviators so who's to say what they would have done if there'd been a couple of yokes in the thing instead of sidesticks?

TW

 

An AOA gauge?
Does it have one?

 

Yep, but how frequent compared to human error?

And yes, an AOA gauge would be a good start.

 

Yes, the FAA changed 121 stall recovery training after Colgan.

 

I agree that a sidestick makes sense in a FBW aircraft, but it needs to have a feedback mechanism so you know what the other guy's doing.

That wouldn't require a punch of cables and pulleys, just a couple small servo-actuators on each stick. You can go buy a video-game joystick that does that right now.

 

You'd think so, but in practice, tactile feedback is a non-event. You can see the stick on the other side of the cockpit as easily as you can see a yoke in your lap, and the airplane responds to any control input just like any other airplane, so even if you didn't look over and see the other pilot moving the stick, you'd feel the airplane respond. It takes getting-used-to, not unlike pretty much everything on earth.

Also, if a pilot was in a situation where he or she needed to overcome the other pilot's input, it's a matter of selecting the priority switch on the stick as opposed to possibly needing to forcibly overcome the other's input.

There's always going to be some argument as to which is better, otherwise this thread would not exist. Having flown a bunch in both, my preference is Airbus sidestick over any yoke. I've never had any reason to think otherwise, but there are plenty who disagree either way. Very common cockpit conversation is the discussion of what the other's previous flying experiences are. A purely unofficial observation on my part is that the vast majority of those that don't like the Airbus (the sidestick is but one aspect of it) are those that have never flown it.

In fact, I didn't like it until I'd flown it for half a year, but I got over it, as do most.

TW

 

Yes, but the pilot (at least a male one) responds quite differently to the tactile feedback of a column briskly directed to their nether regions - most would hardly call it a "non-event!"

 

Yup. I agree.