Clandestino

Actually, that's not what I meant to convey. What I wanted to point out is that the crew that has lost situational awareness and is unable to regain it will make a mess out of flying no matter if flying FBW, conventional or "conventional" aeroplane. Manual or automatic trim also doesn't have much impact if the pilots don't know what is going on and what they need to do.

True, with a bunch of caveats. I'll just list two I find the most important:

1. It is easy for you, it was easy for me (while it lasted) and is supposed to be easy for anyone earning sustenance by plowing the atmosphere in Airbus. Catch is that to get to the point where we started considering it to be easy it took some inborn ability, a lot of dedication, hard work and time. It's quite usual to concentrate on the present and forget the efforts that went into getting where we are now.

2. Easy to fly in everyday operation doesn't automatically translate into easy to fly when things go rough, but factor here is pilot who gets distracted by the fear into forgetting the basics of control maintenance, not the aeroplane. So no amount of handflying form ToD to touchdown can prepare you to handfly when AP quits out of its own accord in not quite optimal circumstances. Thanks to much better engineered and maintained aeroplanes, today we have a bunch of pilots that retired without ever having an emergency but we also have few who were so excited by their first occurrence late in their careers they have turned it into disaster and many an observer was puzzled by what was superficially labelled as "beginner's mistake" e.g. being so obsessed by need to prepare the cabin for landing with unsafe gear as to allow the aeroplane to run out of fuel. So neither experience or handflying practice by themselves can prevent future AF447-like accidents.

OK465

I think that is still unsubstantiated.

OK465

Can I read it with my fingers in my ears?

Machinbird

I liked this preceding post and it points up the problem of how to maintain control of yourself and your emotions when suddenly stressed.

I learned the flying game in a much more hazardous environment than is currently accepted. By the time I had a few hundred hours, I'd had the experience of flying into a fog bank after a night takeoff, inadvertent IFR in mountainous terrain, landing under extreme crosswinds (in a taildragger), iced up pitot tube, being rolled by wake turbulence to 90 degrees bank against full opposite aileron, control restriction (due maintenance error) during landing flare, numerous near midair collisions, observing a spin and ejection by a wingman, and still more that do not come readily to mind. The thing that prepared me for this was an intensive training program, strong internal motivation, and extensive 'hangar flying' with numerous instructors and fellow students.

The key is to remain thinking and analyzing despite the adrenalin shot. To remain in full control of your actions despite the adrenalin. I know that eventually, I developed the ability to override what was happening to my body and remain in mental control.
Example: When the G-suit inflated after I had saluted the catapult officer and before the catapult fired, I was able to ignore the crushing force on my lower body and fly the aircraft through the catapult shot and cleanup after takeoff. ( I know this seems funny, but if you have not experienced it-you have no idea of what is involved.) Others faced with that same emergency have stabbed themselves with a knife trying to deflate the g-suit.

How to develop this ability to retain mental control under stress is the question. Certainly simulators can help develop this mental toughness, but at some point, you realize it is just a simulator, and if you crash, it is just a learning situation. Some means of triggering the adrenalin response is necessary for the full training benefit. That is what is really meant by the startle effect.

roulishollandais

Hi Maching Bird,

Lyman is right but I also remember your last Thread 8 post, just before the final report release (Jul 5. 2012), you evocated five possibilities to start that PIO, and you were wainting the spoilers and ailerons traces. In your post you also did a graph with the roll rate calculated from the roll traces, with the HN39 software. You mentioned this post at the beginning of the thread 9.

As the BEA report started, a new reflexion on heavy facts basis started, but let many of us frustrated with the many descriptions of the last part of the flight AF447 done by different BEA teams, with different methods, we just have to save the thing ! and start our own PPRuNe analyse from all the released official data now and "report" ! Everybody is ready on the deck !

To start with the roll oscillation (after the both normal law and PA loss), and seeing the spoilers and the ailerons traces which do not show (to me !) some anomaly, we still have 3 possibilities :

1. Alternate 2B itself
2. Impulsion due to starting the manual flight at PA loss
3. Impulsion due to law change

Am I correct for you Machinbird ? If it is or if not, how do you analyse that PIO after the release of the spoilers and ailerons traces, and of the final report who give importance at different pages of the report to that PIO ?

Thank you for the new training program for airline pilots ... We need all the free military pilots as instructors

OK465

Chemical injection?

Lyman

Focal MRI assessment.... Saves on speed. None of these responses are mysterious any longer. Select candidates by where they process data in the brain...

OK465

The aviation equivalent of "Minority Report".

Lyman

Put your victims under the helmet whilst they "fly" your program, OK. You would know categorically what kind of pilot they are in the ess...

Machinbird

studi,
I think you can train it. I used to be a bit twitchy when I was just learning to fly. I think I largely overcame that tendency .
Don't rule out that thought, although there may be more ways to do that effect than direct injection.
The roll channel gains in ALT2B appear to be a bit on the high side which promotes roll instability. Things could be done to make it easier to avoid roll oscillation. For example, if the roll gain started at a lower level and ramped up to what the engineers believe to be a minimum mandatory level over a period of time (eg 15 seconds), then a guy who was starting off green would have a bit of time to get the feel of its sensitivity and avoiding overcontrol/PIO.

Due to the needs of running a business, I have not taken the time to analyze the final report data. I expect to do that eventually. That really was a nice analysis tool that HN39 provided.

OK465

Lyman:

I've been involved in some SIMULATOR testing where the pilot subjects were fully physiologically 'wired' and then subjected to various critical abnormal and emergency situations, chosen for the most intense sound and motion cues, and difficulty of assessing what was actually occurring, as well as subsequent physical strength requirements during recovery.

Except for verifying an occasional pre-disclosed heart anomaly, the preponderance of pilot actions and physiological responses were the epitome of the 'right stuff'.

It's a simulator, dude.

A waft of perfume perhaps?

You know the joke about Acute Angina.

Lyman

Hi OK...

To be clear, I am discussing the brain map, not so much physiological, as neurological. Back driven, one can pilot an aircraft by 'thinking'. No kidding....

acute angina.... Better than an ugly one?

OK465

"No son, you can't be a pilot. We've 'mapped' your brain, and all roads lead to some bar on the east side of town."

BTW one of the sim bays I worked in had lead lining and, at one time, an airlock system of lead lined doors.

It would have been a safe place to be in the event of nuclear war, let alone an instructor input malfunction.

(Never had an MRI)

gums

@ Stud and 'bird:

I believe you can train folks to react to unexpected situations, although having a decent flying skills can be of great value. And you develop most of those via your training. I was given by a higher power decent "touch" or "feel" for flying, so basic maintaining altitude, heading and such wasn't a problem, and I could concentrate on making all the radio calls and clearing the airspace about me. But I know many great pilots that had to rely upon rote memory and standard procedures and having seen some unusual flight conditions during their training.

As 'bird has said, lottsa hangar flying and "what if's" in the flight shack can really help. In my case, I would sit in the barber chair or waiting room someplace and try to think of everything that could go wrong and develop my plan. Use the basic procedures but also think of cases where they would not completely correct the problem. My LEF emergency had no "procedures", so it came down to a decent FBW system and my own judgement whether to punch or stay with it as long as I had a semblance of control.

The military training exposes the newbies to many unusual attitudes and flight conditions that demonstrate that "there is a way". The war stories in the recreation bar also help, as in the case 'bird mentioned about the inadvertant gee-suit inflation or the pitot-static freezeup.

Serious training is essential to preparing the pilot for the known emergency conditions likely to be experienced and the unknown, but survivable ones. Helps to have some natural abilities such as being able to remain calm when everything is going to hell-in-a-handbasket, plus basic airmanship. But great training can supplement whatever natural abilities and such you already have.

That's the way i see it, but I didn't see it on AF447.

bubbers44

gums, you are absolutely correct.

noske

Would the following, fictious, BEA recommendation have made everyone happy?

"...that Airbus redesign autotrim so that it cannot add nose-up trim while the stall warning is active."

BOAC

Not really, since the stall warning was 'inactive' for a large part of the backstick event - due to a design deficiency.?

AlphaZuluRomeo

noske: I was advocating for such a change, but HN39 showed that as long as the elevators are not full nose-up, this wouldn't change anything. Therefore, is it useful (vs the added complexity)? I'm not so sure anymore.
I think other aspects are far more important/urgent to address than that.

BOAC: Isn't there already a recommendation re: S/W continuation?

BOAC

"BOAC: Isn't there already a recommendation re: S/W continuation?" -yes, but noske's addendum would need to be made conditional on the implementation of that..

HazelNuts39

The stall warning was inactive when the IAS dropped below 60 kts. The speed dropped below 60 kts when (and because) the AoA exceeded 40 degrees. If uptrim had stopped at SW, the AoA would probably not have reached such high values and the SW would not have stopped prematurely. Noske's proposal would make me happy.

PS.
Curiously the BEA never mentioned that IAS became inaccurate at extreme AoA.