wrote in news:1125931002.073241.151470
@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

And I suppose that pilot didn't notice any flight handling
differences, either.

He may not have noticed any flight handling differences, but he sure should
have noticed all the visual and voice warnings.

But there is a bit of difference between a fly-by-wire aircraft with dual
flight control computers, quad redundent flight control data busses, and up
to triple redundent flight control actuators (hydralic, electric and direct
linkage), with the flight control software specifically designed to handle
battle damage and still complete the mission ...


.... and your standard issue general aviation aircraft, where fly-by-wire
refers to the steel cables in the control system.

It is completely possible for a F/A-18 (or, if it's wearing Canadian
colours (which is where *I* got my experiance), a CF-188) to fly and be
"completely" controllable with up to half of it's flight control surfaces
damaged, missing and/or inoperative. With more than half of the flight
control surfaces unusable; as long as both wings are intact out to the
wing-fold or better.

BTW, I've seen these photo's before, and this was an actual incident.
Although I've moved on and no longer work for the Canadian Department of
Defence, I keep in contact with some of the people I worked with.

Terry Aardema
ex-CF-188 Mission Computer Programmer
ex-CF-188 Flight Safety Invesigator (but only the computer side of things,
don't ask me about the physical side of things!)