wiggy wrote:
and in it's way is quite illuminating (IMHO), on one hand we have the techies who want to analyse every single wiggly Amp, line of code or whatever, looking for a "reason" for the accident and then perhaps opportion some of the blame to Boeing, the Company Engineers, even ATC.
I may fall in that category. Not a professional pilot but a professional software developer. Anyway...
There is someting rather interesting about the Boeing vs. Airbus discussion. Airbus having the alpha floor that protects the plane from stalling. Probably fine, but too much automation is bad (IMHO). But the big question is: Why is it possible to program a Boing 737NG to stall????
Having a stall protection may be fine (although not necessary), but having a computer that can be programed to stall the aircraft is not. Forget about how to configure Autoland for a while. Why does Boeing allow the automation being programmed for disaster in the first place?
It's like putting a button in the cockpit with a sign "Do not press this button!". Eventually soneone will press it.
And yes, I know (and agree) the pilots are responsible to flying the aircraft. My point is that the automation should not be able to cause disaster. In single channel approach the A/T should not RETARD. I've learned that Autoland is always dual channel so why do you guys need the A/T to throttle down after a single channel approach? You know how to stop an aircraft as soon as it hits the runway...