Will Fraser said:
What I am left with after reading the entire thread is just a bit more about the Airbus and also it's mfg. and it's owners.
The idea is to build and fly an a/c that "protects" itself from stall, excessive amounts of roll, pitch and a/s, programmed uniformly into a computer that virtually 'covers all the bases', prevents ham fisted pilots from over eager input, until..... it can't. Then the potentially abusive pilot gets the whole enchilada in his lap, with some stab trim and a restricted rudder. A hemmorrhage of electric data is broadcast after the fact, but can't be relied on because it results from, doesn't cause, the faults that the airline hope are never discovered. That about it?
Mr Fraser,
Yours is the best post of the entire thread. Although you were probably trying to highlight the irony, you have deftly hit the nail of the problem on the head. I now promote you to Chief Pilot of Airbus Industries, since it is clear from your honesty, that you not only fathom more about the problem than anyone else in the world, but that you have no vested interest in denying the unenviable situation that all great "Pushbutton-Pilots of Tomorrow" now face.
Which is the dilemma:
Concur with the Airbus Religion of Total Obedience and preference to Automation approved by government and business, or be burned at the airline stake as a heretic. (Translation: Never Hand-Fly, or else!)
The tyranny of SOP's assumes that everybody has the same currency retention skills and will never need line hand flying skills anyway since the Airbus was marketed to the third world as "an airplane that virtually flys itself" (that doen't really need pilots or a PIC, wink, wink)
But the real world truth is: that as the automated world fleet gets older, this sort of accident is going to happen more and more. You can't have the PIC (pilot in command) be behind a desk in France issuing edicts in a Ivory Tower. The PIC must be empowered in the airplane to conduct line training as he sees fit. "The PIC must be the
FINAL authority as to the operation of that aircraft." - FAR, and axiom held sacred for every ship commander throughout history. This includes a duty to train new co-pilots in the art of hand flying on legs where you don't need to be a slave to the FMS.
Crunch - Out
"You can only have one Captain of the Ship" -author unknown