Originally Posted by
Uplinker
Thanks Mr Mouse.
So......I presume then that a go-around in a 777 is not particularly challenging in terms of yoke forces and controlling the pitch and the trimming? so it seems weird that PF and PM both missed noticing that the thrust levers were not pushed fully or nearly fully forward? And that the engines had not markedly increased N1/EPR.
As I say, I've never flown the 777.
Uplinker - since the 777 is FBW, the yoke forces are artificial (generated by the FBW s/w). By design, as long as you are near the normal flight envelope, the yoke forces are very benign. As I've posted previously, Boeing teaches (or at least used to) the PF to keep one hand lightly on the thrust levers during the critical flight phase of approach/landing so the PF knows the A/T is active and doing what it should.
However if the aircraft is significantly
outside the normal flight envelope, the forces increase - again by design - as a sign that you are somewhere you probably shouldn't be. During the Asiana 777 SFO investigation, John Cashman (one time 777 Chief Pilot) testified that the yoke force required to keep the nose up at such critically low airspeeds would have been around 80 pounds
- well beyond what most pilots could do with one hand - making it painfully obvious that the Boeing recommended procedure of 'following' the thrust levers with one hand wasn't happening.
Personally I think the biggest lesson learned out of the Asiana SFO crash was that more training should be mandated for pilots switching between Airbus and Boeing (or visa-versa) to account for the fundamentally different flight deck philosophies...