Originally Posted by
Uplinker
Basic fundamental flying skills and scans are not learned and coded into ‘motor programs’ in the brain - hence the AF447 F/O holding full backstick and deep stalling. Any airliner you do that to will stall.
AF447 is an accident that I have spent a lot of time reading and thinking about. I (kind of) disagree with your above statement. If I recall correctly (without unwinding the whole sequence of events), the A/C's computers switched form "normal law" to "direct law" following pitot sensor problems.
The very fact that the F/O kept full back on the stick can only be explained by two things:
1) he might have been unaware of that "law" switch, or
2) he did not understand what "direct law" meant.
Before that accident, it was said that it was impossible to stall an Airbus, due to it's protection mechanisms in "normal law". And that might even be true. But what does that lead to? Pilots get used to doing things like full back stick in order to signal to the A/C: maximum possible nose up. Which is exactly what the A/C will do, under normal circumstances....But woe on you when the protections cut out.
This is an extremely broad topic: Not so much on automation itself, but on the human / machine interface. I come from the IT side of things, and where ever I look, I see terrible user interfaces. Websites, smart phones, cars, and aircraft. Increasingly, you have to have an (abstracted) model of the software's workings, in order to anticipate its behaviour. That is an unforgivable design blunder.
Add to that bad ergonomic design (starting with "good-looking" websites that use light-gray text on a white background, to fonts that are so small that even the "retina display" won't save you if your eyesight is not 120/120...or minuscule amber text messages about AoA disagree in the 737 MAX's displays. And even that is only optional...)
The whole industry has to re-evaluate the way it designs machines. We currently have a generation of engineers that seem to have missed out on a paramount issue: usability and predictability.
Engineering disasters like the 737 MAX MCAS are bad enough - but do you think the engineers designing the controls & software for new nuclear power plants are any better?
I hope accidents like these two will be a wake-up call not just to the aviation industry, but to the whole automation field. Then, the victim's deaths will at least have had a worthy result.
Cheers,
Sri