Here is your new computer that meets your "no fly-by-wire" thinking!
Fly by wire is unreliable give me a mechanical linkage I can trust with no electrons or software in the control path.
I agree. I really like my 2009 Camry but am frustrated that the control devices seem to only accept my commands as suggestions.
Here is your new computer that meets your "no fly-by-wire" thinking!
I am reading a WEB Griffin book about OSS operations in WWII
The USAF was being slaughtered trying to bomb the german sub pens. They came up with the idea of a radio controled B 17.
The problem was there was so much slop in the wire controls they couldn’t make it work. They had to fly it close as they could and have the pilot bail out and complete the final run on radio control
Also, he says Lt Joeseph Kennedy was involved in the project
What this means to me is that the drones now so successful owe that success to fly by wire.
Unfortunately here is not a car sold in America today, and I daresay anywhere in the planet with very few exceptions, that your wish is simply not possible anymore.
Electronics control the spark timing and the fuel injectors. The only thing that could be mechanically linked would be the throttle body butterfly itself, but there is still a potentiometer to sense throttle position for the engine management system.
There is one exception, however. Build your own hot rod and top off the motor with one of these babies:
Cables and levers rust, springs break and weaken over time. I am not at all sure that FBW is less reliable than traditional methods, and it seems to me FBW should be more reliable in practice if implemented correctly.
I wonder which is more prone the effects of aging and lack of maintenance, though I suspect that mechanical systems are probably inferior. I realize that electronic systems have mechanical actuators, but the effects of mechanical failures and aging are probably easier to isolate with electronics.
In the case of the Audi 5000 it appears that that problem was more human factors engineering than mechanical failure. The brake and accelator pedals were identical in shape, close together physically and provided similar tactile feedback. (They felt the same to the foot.) The driver thought (s)he was depressing the brake pedal when actually flooring the accelator. I wonder how many of these "sudden acceleration" incidents are driver error.
I recall reading that automobile brakes originally relied on mechanical linkages, and the much more reliable hydraulic system had to overcome a similar prejudice against newfangled technology.
Also, even if the reference to "no electrons" is just a picturesque way of referring to electronics, please bear in mind that so-called mechanical and contact forces are in fact electrostatic in their fundamental nature. If you're pulling a string, you are relying on "electrons in the control path," strictly speaking.