[TalBlack]

“With all due respect to your husband, would you mind asking him how a plane with fly-by-wire flight controls needs to be “wrestled” with by the human pilot and not the computer? “

Ask the pilot of the damaged spy plane who landed it on a Chinese controlled field. It took every ounce of his strength and endurance to get the plane on the ground.

[tanknetter]

Ask the pilot of the damaged spy plane who landed it on a Chinese controlled field. It took every ounce of his strength and endurance to get the plane on the ground.

That was an EP-3 Orion, which was based on the 1950's-era Lockheed Electra airliner. Really old flight-control tech. Rods and cables, possibly with some hydraulic boost.

Modern jet fighters like the F/A-18, F-16, F-22, F-35, etc employ "fly-by-wire" technology. The pilot no longer provides direct input to the flight controls (rods and cables) but rather to the aircraft's computer, which manipulates the flight controls via servos and hydraulics.

This is supposed to eliminate (or at least significantly reduce) the need for the pilot to "wrestle" with the aircraft. The pilot tells the computer where to point the aircraft and then the computer and the electro-mechanical mechanisms do all the wrestling.

The issue that arises is when the aircraft is pulling so many Gs that the pilot's hands are effectively pinned into position. This is what Wiser Nows husband was saying, I think.