If, hypothetically, an Airbus had a problem in the same region of flight would it even be detected in flight testing? As far as I'm aware it wouldn't be as direct mode is a reversionary mode intended to get the aircraft safely on the ground.
They cannot be greater than a set level (essentially, an average strength pilot), particularly when performing critical manuevers.
This was actually the whole reason MCAS was engineered in the first place: to lower the effective stick force required to within the acceptable limits in certain scenarios.
So presumably Airbus in direct mode could still have similar issues flagged in direct mode, if the plane behaved in such a way as to require unacceptably high stick force to move control elements (even if it was a 1:1 mapping).
One thing I'm not sure about is whether Airbus would have to demonstrate proper controllability (i.e. adherence to control force regulations) in all phases of flight and corner conditions.
You could have a scenario where by they have a complete control reversal on the approach to stall but under normal law the pilot would be oblivious. This would obviously show up in direct law.
I'd hope they would have to demonstrate both things: (1) that a given mode can or cannot be active in a certain scenario, and (2) how the plane behaves in all tested scenarios under all modes potentially active.
Is there a reason this necessarily wouldn't be the case?
But that's not commerical aviation - that's combat aviation. That's "you fly faster or the missile catches you and you die anyway" aviation.
Building intentionally unstable airframes for civilian aviation is a very different proposition. And unrelated to the use of fly-by-wire.
> Airbus jets carry passengers and have been fly-by-wire for decades
a response to
> instability of high performance jets
?