Originally Posted by
tdracer
I suspect there is some cause/effect due to the pronouncements from Airbus (and others) that 'it's impossible to stall this aircraft'.
In an emergency, the human mind may not remember whatever qualifications may have been put on that statement - e.g. 'in the full up control mode'. He just remembers 'impossible to stall'.
With that in mind, if his brain was telling him it's 'impossible to stall', holding the stick full back while the aircraft drops like a rock (even with the "stall stall" warnings) is somewhat easier to understand.
Tell the pilot that there are anti-stall protections to 'help', but don't tell them they can't stall it because, in the right circumstances, they can stall it.
The claim that "Airbus FBW are impossible to stall" is not something we say in the assimilated collective, td!
There is a demonstration of a ground escape technique with hard AoA hard protections (pull full back-stick, fear nothing). If that is left to be the strongest impression on the student, many things had gone severely sideways in the training. On the first day of the groundschool, the student gets a card with Golden Rules where number 1 is "This aircraft can be flown like any other aircraft". The reaction to a stall must be instinctive, immediate and decisive - this must be the lymphatic system of a pilot's body, FROM THE PRE-SOLO DAYS!
The fatal actions the AF447 pilot are quite the same as we saw in the Buffalo accident, impossible to make any sense of. Clearly, the Continental Connection Dash8 Q400 crew was not infested with any of what's suggested, and we saw the reaction of the World's best overall aviation system (I mean that honestly in awe) - mandate 1500 hrs.
That's a strange compromise. A sad optimum of available solutions, many of our shared community shake heads in disbelief. But
it is looking in the right direction - pilot basic skills - even if amalgamating flight hours, experience, and skills into one bucket not too smartly.
In real life, there must be a scope to a pilot type conversion curriculum, any brand or model. Specific features are shown and trained, characteristic behaviour for the class explained. During the exam apart from the type-specific knowledge and skills, the student will as well need to demonstrate the elementary items (stalls, turns, respecting weather minima, deicing the airfoils, DDG compliance) However, those do not come from the training objectives of the aeroplane type rating course itself.
That being said, lives got lost and there shall be no stone left unturned until it is certain that our understanding of what and why it happed is complete. A prosecution may find some more, that is not a bad thing by default. Some ideas of mine, being a fan of technology and Airbus FBW concept (as non-perfect as the aircraft may be, similar to any other) to entertain:
It is my personal hunch is AF447 could have flown into the weather unknowingly. Or some other will (and did since)
- there is a
worldwide obsession of pilots to keep the radar OFF. Completely unsubstantiated. Forgetting to switch it on when entering a night segment or IMC happens waaaay too often.
- the Airbus design of the intensity knob for WXR overlay is conducive to turning the ND brightness
and radar display to dim after a flight, but only the screen itself back on. Possibly leaving the crew facing a working ND with WXR on, but no radar image on it.
The controlling pilot kept pulling, contributing cues:
- speed so low at extremes of the nose-up pull, the STALL warning ceased due to IAS outside the defined range for the stall warning.
- flight directors re-appearing in a high-nose positon
-> You pull (wrongly) and the horn stops, you release (correctly) and it comes screaming again. You are back of the clock, scared witless, nothing you see resembles anything and all is impossible to interpret at the same time. Yet, now and then, the saviour FD bars flash high up in the ATT indicator. That is seriously bad human factors mojo.
- was there not a glider pilot among the crew, I heard so somewhere.
Ther other pilots present did not intervene enough.
- who had been certainly perplexed too, but perhaps not cognitively lost yet
- disconnected side-sticks, out of sight left side from the right and v.v.
(Similar case for Air Asia 5801. The last two links of the accident chain: x) disoriented F/O pulled into a pronounced unusual attitude z) the ex-F16 captain misunderstood the inputs and later failed to operate the sidestick effectively to recover).
Cockpit video recorders.
- 19 years overdue, seriously.
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Some of the points I raise above have been targeted and are being dealt with. The WXR and side-stick take over not sufficiently in my opinion.
sonicbum:
waistline! Otherwise, we cannot claim to be better 