Many thousands of words have already been spoken and numerous papers written extolling the virtues of fly-by-wire and the control configured vehicle. Most of these issue from control system specialists and avionics engineers anxious to sell their new technology. Aircraft designers and development teams, including test pilots, must adopt a cautious approach to these new developments and ask the questions “What has it to offer?” and “What's the catch?”.

We must always balance performance rewards against development risks, ensuring that the risks are carefully evaluated and that we do not suffer from what the Americans call “Second Degree Ignorance” (we don't know what we don't know). If we can define the development problems, we are well on the way to solving them; if they remain obscure then the benefits will elude us. If the risk outweighs the reward a conservative solution must be adopted; it is this consideration that so often makes us, like Hamlet, “rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of”.