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Old 9th Mar 2009, 00:53
  #1909 (permalink)  
737AvEng
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: USA
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So what we could have is speed rolling back and AP trimming nose up until Stick shaker when AP disconnects and If no one has their hands on the controls the aircraft pitches up sharply.
What will be interesting to see is how fast the speed bled down from Alpha to stick shaker. I need to research alpha a bit more as this is the only info I have on it:

The autopilot (A/P), flight director (F/D), and autothrottle (A/T) alpha floor limit is the minimum speed available for airspeed control that will override manual speed selection or FMC commands. The limit is approximately 1.3 times the stall speed.

It would be interesting to know that autothrottle alpha protection is only based on one radio altimeter. When stating A/P above, it almost leads you to believe that the aircraft would abandon the G/S and pitch down to gain speed.

But the speed trim is more interesting:

The speed trim system gives automatic stabilizer trim for positive speed stability during low-speed high-thrust conditions. The speed trim is only operational when the autopilot is not engaged.
The stall detection circuit monitors the flap position and the angle of airflow. Near stall, the speed trim function trims the stabilizer to a nose down condition to allow for trim above the stickshaker AOA and idle thrust. The trim continues until the stabilizer gets to its limits or the aft column cutout position is exceeded.
If the roll angle from the ADIRU is more than 40 degrees, it opens an electronic switch and stops the speed trim signals.

So if we didn't have alpha here on the FCC, i.e. it kept trimming nose up to maintain G/S, when the stick shaker activated, the A/P should have disconnected and based on the above, speed trim should have started pitching the nose down. Correct?
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