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Call me paranoid, but I have no trust in fly-by-wire technology. I'd feel a lot safer if the pilots had a mechanical connection to the control surfaces.

They do. The rudder and horizontal stabilizer still maintain the old "conventional" rigging in addition to fly-by-wire. In full manual reversion, with all computers lost, it is still possible to fly the aircraft to a safe landing.

There is a heck of a lot of redundancy in the FBW system on the Airbus. No single computer controls any flight control surface, and the redundant computers use different processors running different software to prevent a single glitch from disabling the entire FBW system.

The computers are far from being bleeding edge tech. For instance, the Flight Management and Guidance computers use 8088 processors - old, slow, but well-tested technology. FBW software is about as debugged and reliable as you can get. Not perfect, nothing ever is... but dang close.

DD, wouldn't a well fed Pelican sucked into the roters of an engine on an Airbus under strain (as in that infamous turn) cause the motor to disintegrate and send pieces parts into the fusilage and thus tear pieces off of the hide? ... [We're gonna have to get a handle on these terrorist pelicans, eh?] I'm amazed at the number of folks who appear to WANT this to be a terrorist attack. Haven't we gotten back to the basic stats on airline accidents yet? This is likely a very tragic accident, not some terrorist attack.

They do. The rudder and horizontal stabilizer still maintain the old "conventional" rigging in addition to fly-by-wire. In full manual reversion, with all computers lost, it is still possible to fly the aircraft to a safe landing.

Thanks, that's a bit of a relief. I didn't know there was a mechanical backup. (Can you tell I've been on more than one plane that was lucky to get on the ground in one piece? :) -- the last one had stuck right slats, it flew in a circle for an hour or so and then the pilot said they thought they'd be able to land it. Talk about white knuckes...)