Munch

Can a person who learns can you drive with a manual transmission crossover to an automatic and vice versa?

Yes, with a little extra training. I assume that pilots are given a little extra training but I could be wrong. Switching between the aircraft on a regular basis would be interesting say the least.

IMHO, linking the controls together is a much safer design. The pilot should feel both the input from the copilot and feedback from the control surfaces. (Perhaps, I'm biased. Flying a small plane, the pilot can feel the stick or yoke to tell how close the plane is to stall speed.)

Suppose a car had two steering wheels and the direction it steered was a combination of both...

"This arrangement contrasts with the more conventional design where the stick is located in the centre of the cockpit between the pilot's legs, called a "centre stick".

In the centre stick design, both the pilot's and co-pilot's controls are mechanically connected together so each pilot has a sense of the control inputs of the other. In typical Airbus side-stick implementations, the sticks are independent. The plane's computer either aggregates multiple inputs or a pilot can press a "priority button" to lock out inputs from the other side-stick.^[3] However, if both side sticks are moved in different directions (regardless of which pilot has priority), then both inputs are cancelled out. Examples of this occurrence include the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 (an Airbus A330 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris), and the 2015 crash of Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 (an Airbus A320 flying from Surabaya to Singapore).^[4][5]"

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-stick}

How the French ever captured Boeing I'll never know. (Although, I think that the Boeing 737 MAX with its big engines far forward is hard to fly without extra computers) The French system seems so lazy, and then there's their MCAS BS. The new breed of pilots are so hooked on video, they will do O K, I suppose. next step I-phone swipe controllers, and bunk beds.

‘Captured’? As is ‘caught up to’?

Many of the details of Boeings’ designs can be found in the technical literature. So Airbus could take advantage of what Boeing found that worked and could avoid what didn’t work.

And of course, massive direct government subsidies to Airbus helped a lot.

Recently discovered "The Flight Channel" on YouTube. Highly recommended. Vivid computer simulations of actual flight disasters, complete with cockpit crew communications. One of the videos is Air France Flight 447 which you mention. Title: "Falling over 12000 feet per minute into the Atlantic ocean" - the result of one pilot trying to correct the other pilot's error and both inputs cancelling each other out...

You must hold an Airline Transport Pilot rating (license/certificate) in order to fly an airliner.

• The airline transport pilot (ATP) is tested to the highest level of piloting ability. The ATP certificate is a prerequisite for serving as a PIC and second in command (SIC) of scheduled airline operations. It is also a prerequisite for serving as a PIC in select charter and fractional operations. The minimum pilot experience is 1,500 hours of flight time. In addition, the pilot must be at least 23 years of age, be able to read, write, speak, and understand the English language, and be "of good moral standing." A pilot may obtain an ATP certificate with restricted privileges enabling him/her to serve as an SIC in scheduled airline operations. The minimum pilot experience is reduced based upon specific academic and flight training experience. The minimum age to be eligible is 21 years. [Figure 1-24]

In addition, pilots must be trained and rated for each type of aircraft they wish to fly.

So, if not trained in each type, they can not fly it.

Sidesticks aren’t very new. The F-16 military jet has sidesticks and it was designed in the early 1970s.

One advantage of the center control unit is consistency from aircraft to aircraft. The pilots and the airlines all like consistency, since it decreases the likelihood of errors.

Boeing all the way.

I’ve heard pilots who fly Boeing jets refer to Airbus as Scarebus.

Newer generation of pilots have not much problem with "joy sticks" and video screens so they adapt pretty well. Airbus is a very new very high tec. Airline, and each component is built and transported from sometimes far away. If you would like to.see a high tec boeing aircraft (for its time) look at the china clippers of the late 30's. First class service. And first commercial airliner to fly around the world. Dec. 7. To Dec. 30 1941.

Captain "Sully" said, "in a pinch, I'd rather be in a Boeing cockpit with a "yoke" in my hands, knowing my copilot could see and feel every move I made, or vice versa"

I worked for Collins Radio which was Boeing's major avionics supplier. Boeing's philosophy has always been to let the pilot fly the aircraft. If the pilot wants to stall the aircraft out, they can, and yes even in the fly by wire avionics (the 777 being the first one) the controls yokes have servos to feed back the aerodynamic forces from the control surfaces, and both pilots can input control.

Airbus overrides the pilot inputs (it is a fly by wire system), the pilot can not stall the aircraft, even if they want to convert the last needed airspeed to lift, to not land short of the runway, (which has occurred several times). Same with engine control, the ability to spool them back up is limited so they don't stall the compressor blades, and that results in landing short of the runway, or flying into trees (airshow event that killed demonstration crew).

It's two different design philosophies, one is to let the pilot fly, the other to prevent the pilot doing stupid stuff.

If properly trained, either way works to be safe enough.

As for the 737Max failure, that took marketing on the Boeing side to overrule any internal system engineering, and a supplier that screwed up the implementation of the software (failure to display mismatches AOA sensors), but in the end a single point failure was introduced into a critical system that requires triplex sensors to be safe, and it's only a dual sensor system (the third sensor would be using airspeed and attitude data to compute that it's not near stall conditions). For that Boeing will have the FAA 'in their pants' for a long time, before the trust in DER's is allowed for certification.

As for USBPORT's Scarebus comments, that talk was used at Collins as well, as Airbus only used European avionics suppliers until recently. About the only content from Collins back then were the Communication and Navigation radios as options. Otherwise we were locked out of flight control or flight display content.