Kev writes:

An experienced pilot can crash any aircraft, so that's no argument.
The upside of the Airbus system is that the plane can automatically
avoid the most common death traps, like stalls on go-around or
microbursts.

So can experienced pilots.

Essentially Airbus tries to substitute wired-in logic decided upon by
designers and engineers for pilot competence. What Airbus doesn't
seem to understand is that you cannot simultaneously keep the pilot
out of the loop in dangerous situations _and_ allow the pilot to
handle dangerous situations. Unless, perhaps, Airbus is trying to
eliminate the need for a pilot altogether, which I think is unwise and
very premature at this point in time.

That's why I said I don't know the moral of the story At first, I
wanted to argue that more real-life training before moving to airliners
would've helped. But his reaction was par for a twin engine piston
with a dead engine, where banking into the good engine is not uncommon.
So you could argue that if he'd only ever been trained on a 747 sim,
he might've not had that tendency to use the yoke.

Indeed. I think the most logical conclusion is that it's best to
train with whatever you plan to fly (or with a simulator that
simulates whatever you plan to fly).

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.