What is “Fly-by-wire” technology in aviation? What benefits does it have and why is it used in modern airplanes today?
In: Engineering
Conventional controls: I, the pilot, think what I want the airplane to do, then try to move the controls of the various surfaces to get the desired result I want. It has to be a reasonably simple setup since I’ve only got so many limbs and my brain can only think about so many ways to do something and it will need different inputs by me depending on basic changes like speed, altitude, weight or whatever.
Fly by wire: I have a really smart computer onboard that is programmed to know how all the different control surfaces of my plane work and how all the various combinations can change to get a desired result. I, the pilot, tell that computer what I want the airplane to do (by control inputs) and the computer then figures out all the different things it has to move and adjust to give me the *optimal* result. The computer does all the calculations and adjustments for changes to weight/speed/altitude or whatever, I just need to tell it what I want.
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