Kev writes:

Boeing thinks along those lines. They have soft limits vs. Airbus'
hard limits.

I agree strongly with Boeing.

The whole justification for a pilot is to have a human being aboard
for unexpected emergencies. Computers are superior to human beings
for handling _foreseen_ emergencies, so pilots aren't needed in those
cases. They are also superior for controlling normal flight. The
real advantage of a human pilot in cockpit, though, is that human
beings are extremely good at dealing with completely off-the-wall
situations for which computers haven't been programmed in advance. If
an aircraft finds itself in an unusual attitude that the programmers
of the on-board computers have not foreseen, the computers will
probably make catastrophically poor decisions, or they will just fault
or reboot. A human being, on the other hand, will adapt and make
decisions that are at least moderately appropriate to the situation,
no matter how bizarre.

Given this, not allowing the pilot to override the computer makes no
sense at all. Why bother with the pilot, if all he can do in a
situation that the computer doesn't understand is watch himself and
his aircraft plummet towards the ground?

To make a pilot useful, you need a button that says "I have the
controls," and turns the computer completely off. The pilot is then
on his own, but in some situations, that may be what saves the day.

Computers aren't all bad. Consider all the traction control etc
computers in cars these days. (I actually don't like them
second-guessing me sometimes, but for the majority of drivers they're a
good thing.)

Computers aren't bad at all. Look at the widespread use of autopilots,
which are simply a type of computer. But you need to be able to
switch off the computer, just as you can disengage the autopilot,
otherwise the time may come when you'll watch helplessly as your
computer kills you and destroys your aircraft with poor decisions.

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