I think we'll have to disagree that maintaining coordinated flight is "straightforward." Or especially performing a crosswind landing, which is the controlled de-coordination of an aircraft so that it can hit the ground at exactly the right orientation.
If someone insists that it is 'straightforward' I'm left to conclude that either they're a very experienced pilot who has been doing it for so long that it's difficult for them to remember what it was like to learn, or they don't have an understanding of what's involved.
Consider this: You're flying an airplane. The elevators are trimmed to maintain level flight. Now you turn the yolk to deflect the ailerons, and the aircraft rolls. In this rolled state--say we're rolled 20 degrees from vertical--the elevators are no longer horizontal. They're 20 degrees off the horizontal meaning their force is no longer 100% pitch. It's now a combination of pitch and yaw. Firstly this means that they're no longer trimmed properly to maintain level flight and the aircraft will begin to pitch, secondly they are now causing the plane to yaw into the turn. So now you have to bring the rudder into the equation to compensate for the elevators, but it's also no longer a 100% yaw control surface, it now affects both pitch and yaw and you are left with a situation which should look very similar to that in the Zeppelin NT.
Describing the problem of coordinated flight, you end up with calculations which would be quite difficult to do by hand, and one might conclude that "no human" could hope to pull it off while sitting in a cockpit. Yet it is something humans can not only do, but with a bit of practice can do without even having to try very hard, by learning to "feel" the aircraft.
I think the author's joystick is neat and I congratulate him for making it. My only point is that the author errs in saying that "no human" could directly handle the Zeppelin NT's control surfaces. I think is error is not in overestimating the complexity of the problem but in underestimating the human ability to handle such problems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMvLuUJFHYk
If someone insists that it is 'straightforward' I'm left to conclude that either they're a very experienced pilot who has been doing it for so long that it's difficult for them to remember what it was like to learn, or they don't have an understanding of what's involved.
Consider this: You're flying an airplane. The elevators are trimmed to maintain level flight. Now you turn the yolk to deflect the ailerons, and the aircraft rolls. In this rolled state--say we're rolled 20 degrees from vertical--the elevators are no longer horizontal. They're 20 degrees off the horizontal meaning their force is no longer 100% pitch. It's now a combination of pitch and yaw. Firstly this means that they're no longer trimmed properly to maintain level flight and the aircraft will begin to pitch, secondly they are now causing the plane to yaw into the turn. So now you have to bring the rudder into the equation to compensate for the elevators, but it's also no longer a 100% yaw control surface, it now affects both pitch and yaw and you are left with a situation which should look very similar to that in the Zeppelin NT.
Describing the problem of coordinated flight, you end up with calculations which would be quite difficult to do by hand, and one might conclude that "no human" could hope to pull it off while sitting in a cockpit. Yet it is something humans can not only do, but with a bit of practice can do without even having to try very hard, by learning to "feel" the aircraft.
I think the author's joystick is neat and I congratulate him for making it. My only point is that the author errs in saying that "no human" could directly handle the Zeppelin NT's control surfaces. I think is error is not in overestimating the complexity of the problem but in underestimating the human ability to handle such problems.