Weight saving A fly-by-wire aircraft can be lighter than a similar design with conventional controls. This is partly due to the lower overall weight of the system components and partly because the natural stability of the aircraft can be relaxed (slightly for a transport aircraft; more for a maneuverable fighter), which means that the stability surfaces that are part of the aircraft structure can therefore be made smaller. These include the vertical and horizontal stabilizers (fin and tailplane) that are (normally) at the rear of the fuselage. If these structures can be reduced in size, airframe weight is reduced. The advantages of fly-by-wire controls were first exploited by the military and then in the commercial airline market. The Airbus series of airliners used full-authority fly-by-wire controls beginning with their A320 series, see A320 flight control (though some limited fly-by-wire functions existed on A310 aircraft).Dominique Brière, Christian Favre, Pascal Traverse, Electrical Flight Controls, From Airbus A320/330/340 to Future Military Transport Aircraft: A Family of Fault-Tolerant Systems, chapitre 12 du Avionics Handbook, Cary Spitzer ed., CRC Press 2001, Boeing followed with their 777 and later designs.
Weight saving A fly-by-wire aircraft can be lighter than a similar design with conventional controls. This is partly due to the lower overall weight of the system components and partly because the natural stability of the aircraft can be relaxed (slightly for a transport aircraft; more for a maneuverable fighter), which means that the stability surfaces that are part of the aircraft structure can therefore be made smaller. These incl!ude the vertical and horizontal stabilizers (fin and tailplane) that are (normally) at the rear of the fuselage. If these structures can be reduced in size, airframe weight is reduced. The advantages of fly-by-wire controls were first exploited by the military and then in the commercial airline market. The Airbus series of airliners used full-authority fly-by-wire controls beginning with their A320 series, see A320 flight control (though some limited fly-by-wire functions existed on A310 aircraft).Dominique Brière, Christian Favre, Pascal Traverse, Electrical Flight Controls, From Airbus A320/330/340 to Future Military Transport Aircraft: A Family of Fault-Tolerant Systems, chapitre 12 du Avionics Handbook, Cary Spitzer ed., CRC Press 2001, Boeing followed with their 777 and later designs.