Hate to disagree, "gone", but you do not need to get the nose down well below the horizon to break the stall.
- problem is pitch authority. In our little jet we simply ran out of pitch authority and the sucker also had a point on the pitch moment curves due to our ceegee where we would settle into a nice stall and the FLCS kept commanding "nose down" even tho "nose up" stabilator command still had some authority. So they put in a pure manual override feature and we could "rock" the sucker outta the deep stall.
The 447 jet was in a "deeply stalled" condition ( not classic "deep stall") and the THS and elevators were still capable of inducing a nose down pitch moment or at least reducing what existed.
- By manually trimming nose down and holding nose down stick, 447 would have reduced AoA and maybe sooner than most folks think. No need to have the nose down 10 or 15 degrees or more. Hell, prolly could have broken the stall with 4 or 5 degrees nose down, It's the AoA!!! It is not the pitch attitude.
The folks here that duplicated the accident in sims knew what they had to do and still took over 10,000 or 15,000 feet to recover. I think a good test pilot could beat that, but you have to play the cards you are dealt with the crew.
- The trimmed THS played a large role, IMHO. We had the same problem in the Viper, but we could use our trim roller wheel and the coolie hat to help. Nevertheless, we did not have a clear indication that the FLCS had trimmed to the max position for the stabilators, and I am not sure the 'bus does either.
Oh well, .......