Airbus philosophy vs. Boeing philosophy

[SUBMAN1]

I see all these people saying Airbus is fine, but I have to ask, just what are those pilots doing up there? Might as well take them out of the cockpit since they have no real authority anyway.

Airbus has these restrictions on a pilot:

On all Airbus planes other than the older A300 and A310, computers prevent the pilot from putting the plane into a climb of more than 30 degrees where it might lose lift and stall. The maximum bank or roll allowed is 67 degrees. The plane's nose-down pitch is limited to 15 degrees. There are protections against overspeed.

And the computer won't allow the plane to make any extreme maneuvers that would exceed 2.5 times the force of gravity....

Boeings philosophy:

.... But Cashman said such limits keep a plane from performing at its absolute capability.

"When you fully automate and protect the system, you have to take away some of the capability," he said.

"It makes no sense to us to limit the pull up capability, say to miss another airplane or the ground. . . . We feel the pilot should have that capability and should be able to achieve it by use of normal controls, providing cues that he is getting close to those limits but letting him exceed them if necessary."

These so-called "cues" tell the pilot the plane is approaching certain speed, load or attitude limits. As the jet nears its stall speed, for example, much more force is needed to pull back on the control column. The same is true as the "g" forces on the plane increase.

Planes are generally designed structurally to have more capability than what the book says, Cashman noted.

Does anyone see the safety problems associated with this type of soft limits? Again, I ask what the pilot is in the cockpit for? Computers can completely replace them nowdays if they have no authority anyway.

-S
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