Originally Posted by
edmundronald
Not a pilot, feel free to delete ...
Absent airspeed indications, I would expect pilots to set throttle and AoA for stable flight, declare an emergency, get an estimation of windspeed from ground, point a Mark I Eyeball out the window on that pointy end, and use the compass, radio altimeter and groundspeed indicators to navigate back to the airfield, and land - surely with a 5mph ground wind, and decent weather, a visual-only landing is a possibility?
I know that flying is hard and requires specialist training but if visual flying of a modern airplane in good conditions at 5000ft has become impossible for trained pilots with 5000 hours, then maybe this is an issue for input to the politicians and not to be left for the industry to bury in the name of "self-regulation"? Or is the "blocked vents ==> mass funeral" scenario now going to be played out every few years?
AF447 was a wake up call on the effects of bad airspeed indications ...
I think those smart guys with sliderules in Seattle and Toulouse are perfectly capable of making planes that can be flown by hand when necessary, provided the customers or supervisory authorities ask nicely.
Edmund
Edmund,
You make some good points, albeit scattered with understandable inaccuracies owing to your lack of insight.
Firstly, many heroes on here will shout "fools", without understanding that sometimes the diagnosis of UAS is difficult. In essence, you see something that doesn't make sense. The pitch/power/speed relationship is wrong and the FD is doing something odd. A modern pilot is suckered into believing the FD, and may have trouble working out which parameter is out - and may decide to disbelieve the pitch (for example).
Once diagnosed as UAS, we have trained procedures that are designed to work IFR. It's no good relying on anything visual, as you may not have it - and even if you do it can be fatally misleading. But most procedures are the same - establish onto a known flightpath (often a climb thrust with a certain pitch) while you get the book out and find some settings to level out when above MSA. From there, you can carefully plan and then execute a stable instrument approach. It's hard work, but if trained well and practised regularly, not the end of the world at all.
Your final point is also interesting. It's very easy for an airline to employ pilots who, through no fault of their own, are only well-versed in normal operations with high levels of automation (including FD etc). In the old days, pilots flew normally with low levels of automation (my first commercial aircraft had no map, autopilot, autothrust and so on). So losing ASI was obvious, and all the pitch/power settings were known and used daily. Nowadays we don't have that, so it has to be well trained and practised in the simulator. This is expensive and difficult, and requires wealthy airlines with good safety culture. This is hard to legislate for.