The Smart Marty Sky Dispatch
The Airbus A220's Unique Fly-By-Wire System That Sets It Apart From Every Other Narrowbody
The A220's fly-by-wire system was not designed by Airbus. Bombardier built a hybrid that combines Airbus protection with Boeing handling feel.
The Airbus A220 uses a fly-by-wire system with a sidestick and envelope protection characteristic of Airbus, but it requires manual trimming and provides speed stability similar to Boeing.
The triplex flight control computers that run this system were designed by Bombardier’s CSeries engineering team in Montreal prior to Airbus’s acquisition of the program in 2018.
According to the engineers, the team studied the A320 and the 777, rejected both approaches, and developed a hybrid system that blends Airbus-style protection with a Boeing-like conventional handling feel.
Chief test pilot Chuck Ellis described the system’s behavior as similar to a familiar training airplane, noting that it “behaves like the Cessna 152 the pilot trained on,” highlighting the pilot handling characteristics.
In summary, the A220’s fly-by-wire is a Bombardier-origin design that merges Airbus protection with Boeing handling cues, rather than being an Airbus-designed system.