OT: Plane crash at Toronto (Pearson) airport, Air France A-340 Options

[Mark Henry]

Burning on the side of the 401...overshot the runway in a lightning storm.

Could be 200 on board...hope it's not too bad. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/unsure.gif)

That's all I know...Canadians tune into CBC news for details.

[JWest]

This is kind of a fuel injection vs. carbs type debate, but I'll get in anyway (I'd be pretty surprised if anyone here knows more than me about digital flight control systems).

We (the areospace industry) have been flying with "electric jets" since the 914 was still in production.

Basically, a fly by wire system allows aerodynamic designs that are impossible for a mechanical system to control. Beyond that, the system can be extremely pilot friendly with angle of attack limiters, different control laws for various parts of the flight envelope, control surface mixing, etc., etc., etc....

BUT, it also allows the designer to really screw up if the design philosophy or testing is misguided (the airbus "I won't let you do a low level pass" is an example of something that should have never made it into the control laws, and definitely should not have made it past the first test software release.