That's a great article Philip, thanks for finding and posting that! It sure didn't take long for that to come out! I wonder why ETNZ didn't protest asap, when Oracle had won 3-4 in a row?

From 1996-2000 I flew the MD11, (an updated DC 10). It also has a SAS, it helped to control the pitch with the elevator. The MD 11 is known to be a squirly airplane to hand fly, due to it's small elevator and the SAS system you are using to fly it with. Pete Melvin started out as an Aeronautical Engineer for McDonald Douglas, I think he may have worked on the MD11 as well.

http://photos.plane-mad.com/0/large/610.jpg

I wonder why ETNZ didn't also have a SAS installed?

So....where/how was there "crew intervention", between the computer and the foil controls??

That kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Why have automation if you are then going to run it through a human?

That may sound good for the Press, but I'm betting that's not -really- how it works!