NJayM

You appear to have a real Bee in your bonnet about FBW so I thought id remind you about the A320 that ditched in the hudson.

Everything talks about the Pilots skills etc and quite rightly, however the dirty secret taht no one likes to mention is that it would have been a damn site harder if not impossible in an aircraft without FBW, because the pilot would have had a bigger fight on his hands to maintain attitude.

As For AF344? The Pitot static system iced up manual or FBW makes no difference beacuse all the information presented to the aircraft or crew is unreliable.

Not being FBW didnt help the 757 with a blocked pitot head a few years back either.

I had a huge distrust of FBW ever since the A320 hit the trees at the airshow back in the early 90s (I think). I remember all the speil about how the plane took over from the pilot and wouldnt let him fly. In reality a lot of the problem was Pilot error.
As an engineer I have developed more faith in the sytem, and of course now i have a better knowledge of the reality of that incident – not just the headlines I am more than happy with FBW.