It's not the hitting the birds that would be different as much as the glide to the terra firma. The Airbus is very good at not letting pilots fuck themselves and in this situation it would be very easy to get fucked.
Going from thrust producing rocket to barely farting in the wind in a 100k lb jet means going from a 15 degree nose up attitude to almost 10 degree nose down and that's just to maintain positive control of the airplane and not fall out of the sky (very common fatal accident scenario is a single engine airplane that experiences an engine failure after takeoff, they stall and spin because the transition from powered climb to unpowered glide is dramatic and often under compensated for by the pilot). Airbus always shows a green dot known as the L/D max airspeed where lift is maximized and drag is minimized, commonly known as best glide speed if you're engine out. It's my impression that no matter the input on the sidestick, Sully wouldn't have been able to fly below L/D max speed by design of the Airbus flying logic. Unlike other aircraft which may present this data, there are no preventions from letting the pilot fly what could be an unsafe speed.
Now I'm not certain he flew green dot to the Hudson because I believe they were attempting to do a windmill start which requires higher airspeed which means they fly to the ground faster, but I'm unsure exactly.
I'm not typed in the airplane so this could be all bullshit.
Going from thrust producing rocket to barely farting in the wind in a 100k lb jet means going from a 15 degree nose up attitude to almost 10 degree nose down and that's just to maintain positive control of the airplane and not fall out of the sky (very common fatal accident scenario is a single engine airplane that experiences an engine failure after takeoff, they stall and spin because the transition from powered climb to unpowered glide is dramatic and often under compensated for by the pilot). Airbus always shows a green dot known as the L/D max airspeed where lift is maximized and drag is minimized, commonly known as best glide speed if you're engine out. It's my impression that no matter the input on the sidestick, Sully wouldn't have been able to fly below L/D max speed by design of the Airbus flying logic. Unlike other aircraft which may present this data, there are no preventions from letting the pilot fly what could be an unsafe speed.
Now I'm not certain he flew green dot to the Hudson because I believe they were attempting to do a windmill start which requires higher airspeed which means they fly to the ground faster, but I'm unsure exactly.
I'm not typed in the airplane so this could be all bullshit.
