Originally Posted by
soarbum
You seem to have convieniently ignored the Autothrottle issue whereby while the pilots were busy trying to figure out the MCAS issue amid the myriad or alarms, the autothrottle was silently accelerating well past the speed set by the pilots.
From ET-302 Interim Investigation Report - p13
"At 05:39:42, the crew engaged Level Change mode and set MCP speed to 238kt"
Description taken from piece by Seattle Times, March 7th 2021
According to the interim investigation report released a year ago, the faulty Angle of Attack sensor on Flight ET302, even before it triggered MCAS to push the plane’s nose down, interfered with other sensor readings of altitude and airspeed....
... As a result, the engines remained at maximum thrust for the rest of the fatal flight. The plane eventually exceeded the 737’s maximum design speed of 340 knots. This so increased the forces on the jet’s tail that the pilots couldn’t budge it manually.
The failure of the AOA probe results in a mess on the displays, and multiple warnings and alerts going off just to make the day for the drivers. The ATR will disconnect in most cases, (but not all... IIRC...) and yes, the plane will be gaining energy one way or the other. At the same time, the crew are confronted with alerts of being too slow in most cases, (but not all... etc ). If the driver has enough bandwidth left, and is comfortable enough with the basics of all aircraft, that being slow or stalling is not the EOTWAWKI, it is just a bit of the flight envelope we tend to avoid, then intervention on the thrust would alleviate the control problem from the repetitive apparent runaway trim. Easy to say and do after the graphic learning curve of the hole in the ground, not so easy to do while still trying to drink your coffee, and chat with the cabin crew and do all these things and more, not because they are easy, but because they are there.... like Everest... etc.
Our odd industry has taken every opportunity to remove the innate competency of the pilot from the flight deck, and we wonder why when confronted with anomalies, the crew get out of sorts.
We don't spend time training pilots to actually fly the aircraft anymore, we spend valuable resources in ticking boxes of matters that are being tracked by flight data routinely in the real world, but then we have to go and waste our time showing the same again, and again. Our training is cookie cutter to satisfy bureaucracy, not to actually enhance the skill sets of the crew. We do however waste valuable time in the FFS doing HF/CRM/LOFT evolutions that can be done more effectively in PTT or FBTs or FTD's.
I have lamented that the FFS has constraints in fidelity and validity of the aero model at the stall and post-stall, sometimes spectacularly, sometimes trivially... but giving crews confidence that say a B777 or A321 is pretty much still just a glorified Piper Cub is missing. As a result, the crews when they invariably get out of sorts with the world end up having a very steep learning curve and that can result in unfortunate inputs, action, or inaction. Within rational bounds most sims (not the MD-11) do behave in a manner similar to the real plane, and a rational review of the QTG derivatives will give a fairly clear indication of constraints. There is considerable data available outside of the flight test envelope that can be fed in to improve the models, like when roll reversal may occur, (we got that figure at a very high cost...) and what happens when you hold full back stick on a FBW aircraft for half a day (got that one too...sadly)
Would be nice to have regulators that actually reassessed what and why we do what we do in training, and in recurrent/repetitive procedures. Pretty sure that wet drills and fire extinguishers still work the same today as they did in the 70's, same with how an ILS works, a VOR etc.... On occasions, we train in a number of business jets doing base and upper air work, including stalls, and UA's, and they need not be a scary evolution, care, yes; fear, no.
As an industry and as pax, we can hardly blame the crew for the lack of rational guidance from the regulators and those that are happy to tick IOSA/BARS and other ISO standard compliance matters to "prove" that all is good. Frankly, I believe the king has no clothes, and it is time for a sea change.