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I have posted here before because I like to get answers from experts
about aviation. I have been interested in the media reporting on the Air France Flight 447 crash. More to the point, I'm curious if you all think they are missing a bigger story. The Airbus planes employ something called fly-by-wire technology. As I understand it, that means the actuators that move the control surfaces of the aircraft are triggered solely by electrical wiring. They don't rely on a hydrolic system to move the surfaces based on the moves of the control stick. So as I'm hearing about flight 447, the thought crosses my mind that if lightning hit the plane just right, would it be possible for that to send the wrong signals to the control actuators? Perhaps pushing them in different directions and locking them there as the electric connections failed due to the lightning strike? Or at the very least severing the electric connections by frying the wires and making it impossible for the crew to control the airplane. I know it has redundant systems and lots of insulation on the wires, but it seems to me that such an all-electric system makes a problem like this possible where a hydrolic system does not. I keep hearing aviation experts saying that a lightning strike wouldn't bring down a plane of this size. I also seem to recall NASA declaring that foam strikes wouldn't damage the shuttle enough to cause it to break up on re-entry. I'm just wondering if fly-by-wire has an undocumented (or unannounced) fatal flaw. What do you think? |
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