Fly-by-wire

For other uses, see Fly-by-wire (disambiguation).

The Airbus A320 family was the first airliner to feature a full glass cockpit and digital fly-by-wire flight control system. The only analogue instruments were the radio magnetic indicator, brake pressure indicator, standby altimeter and artificial horizon, the latter two being replaced by a digital integrated standby instrument system in later production models.

Fly-by-wire (FBW) is a system that replaces the conventional manual flight controls of an aircraft with an electronic interface. The movements of flight controls are converted to electronic signals, and flight control computers determine how to move the actuators at each control surface to provide the ordered response. Implementations either use mechanical flight control backup systems or else are fully electronic.[1]

Improved fully fly-by-wire systems interpret the pilot's control inputs as a desired outcome and calculate the control surface positions required to achieve that outcome; this results in various combinations of rudder, elevator, aileron, flaps and engine controls in different situations using a closed feedback loop. The pilot may not be fully aware of all the control outputs acting to affect the outcome, only that the aircraft is reacting as expected. The fly-by-wire computers act to stabilize the aircraft and adjust the flying characteristics without the pilot's involvement, and to prevent the pilot from operating outside of the aircraft's safe performance envelope.[2][3]

  1. ^ Fly by Wire Flight Control Systems Sutherland
  2. ^ Crane, Dale: Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition, page 224. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. ISBN 1-56027-287-2
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference unstable was invoked but never defined (see the help page).