Sidestick

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Cockpit of the Airbus A380 , which is equipped with two sidesticks.
Sidestick of an Airbus A380 with priority pushbutton (red)

The term Sidestick [ ˈsaɪdstɪk ], German side stick , describes a joystick- like control stick that replaces the conventional control horn or the control column of an aircraft .

In contrast to the control horn, which is positioned in front of the pilot, the sidestick is next to the pilot. It is only operated with one hand.

In commercial aviation, electronic sidesticks are used particularly in aircraft made by the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus . Here the electrical control signals of Sidesticks run in a computer together, and there is the fly-by-wire - technology used. The sidesticks used in Airbus aircraft are equipped with a so-called "side stick priority pushbutton". This means that the autopilot can be switched off by briefly pressing the button. If the button is pressed for more than 30 seconds, the second sidestick is deactivated. This is necessary because there have been near-accidents when the captain and copilot operate their sidestick at the same time and possibly in opposite directions, which is not provided for.

There are also newer fighter jets with electronic sidesticks. Mechanical sidesticks are used in the Speed ​​Canard , for example .

"Active Sidestick"

With a classic control stick design, the forces that act on the aircraft during flight are transferred to the control unit in the form of resistance and deflection. This feedback does not apply to the conventional electronic sidestick. So-called "active" sidesticks, which implement electronically controlled force feedback , have been tested since the 2000s . Such systems were developed from the early 1990s and presented by UTAS at the Le Bourget Air Show in 2008. As early as 2001 it was Active Inceptor System of BAE Systems for the F-35 is selected. In military aviation, the system is used in the KAI T-50 , the F-35 and the Embraer KC-390 . The system was first used in civil aviation in the Gulfstream G500 . An Active Side Stick can also be used to the pilot a better situational awareness (Engl. Situation Awareness ) to convey the extent to which the flight path over side stick control inputs at the moment can ever be affected even in a certain direction; this is the pilot via a suitable ausgestaltetes Force Feedback feedback on in a particular direction control (rash direction of the side stick) available control reserves to reach a control limit given.

Incidents

Only a few are known of incidents that are causally attributed to sidestick technology. In 2001, for example, as part of maintenance work on an Airbus 320-200, wires for the aileron control were swapped when changing a connector on the left sidestick, so that the ailerons deflected in the opposite direction to the input on the left sidestick. The second pilot took control immediately, corrected the aircraft's bank angle with the right sidestick and was able to land safely. Since fly-by-wire technology is also used in the control horn design of modern aircraft, the error would be just as possible there.

According to Chesley B. Sullenberger , an expert on aviation accidents, the accident on Air France Flight 447 in June 2009 with a Boeing that uses classic control horns would have been less likely because these are mechanically coupled and every control input from one pilot thus clearly recognizable for the other pilot.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Website with information on sidestick operation. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 3, 2014 ; accessed on September 11, 2009 .
  2. ^ BFU publication on a disruption caused by incorrect use of the sidestick. Retrieved January 30, 2014 .
  3. ↑ MC-21 ushers active sidesticks into commercial aircraft cockpits , flightglobal, April 21, 2015
  4. ↑ [1] , airpower.at, October 21, 2001
  5. ↑ Gulfstream's next generation private plane is getting some fighter jet tech , Businessinsider.com, December 28, 2016
  6. ↑ Florian JJ Schmidt-Skipiol Haptic feedback when operating fly-by-wire aircraft. Lower Saxony Research Center for Aviation, Braunschweig 2018, ISBN 978-3-947623-01-3 .
  7. ↑ Publication by the BFU on a serious malfunction after maintenance work. Retrieved January 24, 2013 .