"Ernest Christley" wrote in message
. com...
But it is obvious that you have spent years in the industry designing
flight systems for large aircraft.

Actually, I've only worked on one large aircraft MD-11 Propulsion Controlled
Aircraft. The rest of my time has been on the F-15 HIDEC Propulsion
Controlled Aircraft, the F-15 ACTIVE (mostly the research processor and
engagement and reversion logic), X-35 directional control law (STOVL), and a
bunch of other "stuff". So, I tend to be very conservative in my design
approaches, since an error in controlling a highly unstable air vehicle can
quickly result in a lost aircraft.

At the end of the day, if you can't overpower the
the electronic gizmo with moderate effort then leave it on the ground.

A system can also get you into oscillations that you're not going to be able
to stop in a heartbeat if it's not tuned right or you operate it beyond it's
performance limitations. So, being able to statically overpower it isn't
nearly enough.

Smooth flight in a light plane is predicated on a lot of small inputs
made early. The earlier it's made, the smaller it has to be.

Early nudges mean lots of lead in the system, which translates into lots of
noise and spiky output.

into the system through a couple of springs, and if you're asking for
more force than what they deliver then you've already gone off the wrong
side of the page.

Putting springs also puts lag into your system. More tendency for
oscillatory behavior.

Do not even bring up the subject of 'fly-by-wire'. I'm a software

Well, the thing is, any level of automatic stability augmentation has to
deal with the same types of issues, whether it be a rate damper or a
full-authority FBW system.