On Sat, 30 Sep 2006 17:01:37 +0100, Thomas Borchert
wrote:

RK,

but when this technology is
extended to airplanes whose occupants don't have the option of pulling
a handle when things go badly then we must be very careful. I'm sure
the problems can be solved, probably with multiple redundancy, but a
century of experience with aviation shows that we must always consider
the possibility of failure.


And your worries show in the accident statistics of the Boeing 777 and
the Airbus 32x and up exactly where, after over 20 years of service?

Umm...20 years of service? They've got a way to go before they rack up
that much service experience. However, I have few doubts. The
engineers share my concerns, that's why they've provided multiple
redundancy.

My Warrior has non-redundant cables operating the control surfaces. As
long as metal continues to obey physical laws and they get looked at
once a year, I have few worries. However, there are people who suggest
FBW is in the future for light aircraft. That worries me. How is a 777
flight control system going to scale to a Warrior? Is there going to
be some kind of cost-saving breakthrough or are they going to cut
corners?

RK Henry