ELAC Put on your RayBans and read my hostile question re: AirBus, the a/c that is fully automated, almost flies itself, recommends no one touch the a/p in turbulence, but as it deftly maneuvers through hostile weather, it quits when it can't take the level of weather/dataloss/ etc. and drops it back in the laps of the pilots it generally disdains, but thinks nothing of quitting when the 's' hits N1.
Will,
You are so seriously barking up the wrong tree that it's hard to know where to begin. For starters I'd have to guess that you've never flown any other jet transport aircraft with an autopilot then? If you did you'd know that each of them has limits to their range of operation after which they must disconnect.
For example, ever try doing a go-around on the autopilot in a 757 or 767 with an engine failed? If you did you'd know that there was always a point where the autoflight went from triple to single channel at which you could expect the autopilot to kick-off due to insufficient remaining rudder control at certain trims, weights and configurations. By contrast I never once witnessed a similar event in an A320/A330/A340.
Any autoflight system can only work within its designed and certified limitations and when those limitations are exceeded the autoflight system must return control to the pilot. From my experience with both Boeing and Airbus the usable range of the Airbus autopilot is every bit as broad, and probably broader than that of any other jet transport in current use.
In a situation as extreme as the one you suggest (which is simply a hypothesis, hardly a certainty) pretty much any autopilot would have packed it in. So, if that's what occurred in this case, it had very little to do with the manufacturer and a whole lot to do with the extreme nature of the conditions encountered.
This with an automatic penalty in controllability, to wit, cancel roll, no protex, stab trim only, and 8 degrees of Rudder travel, still enough if cycled to rip off the VS. ????
You really have no idea what you're talking about do you? You are mixing up flight control laws and autoflight, two entirely different matters. Further it seems that you believe that all flight control computation was lost ("stab trim only") when there isn't even the slightest evidence suggesting that. The only thing we know with respect to the aircraft's flight control laws is that they changed to Alternate Law (Protections Lost), which in itself is hardly a crisis. I should know having flown and landed Airbuses in Alternate and Direct law.
Regarding the rudder on the A330, rudder deflection is limited as a function of speed. After a rudder travel limiter fault "the maximum rudder deflection remains at the value reached before failure". That value is dependent on speed, which according to my manuals at M.80 and FL350 (272 KIAS) is approx. 6 degrees (not 8). By contrast, if a similar failure (Rudder Ratio) occured on a B757, do you know what you'd get? The answer is that on the B757 the only thing that happens is that 1 of 3 hydraulic actuators is depowered and the pilot is given a warning to "Use rudder with care above 160 kts." So, you tell me, which rudder control system would provide the greater margin of safety in the conditions you described? One that was continuously calculating a safe limit and imposed it at failure of the normal system or one that simply reduced rudder control power by a flat 1/3rd and said "Take Care!"
The point of all this, Will, is that you are chasing after your own personal bogeyman without knowing in detail how the A330 or other similar aircraft would have handled the scenario which you suppose may have caused the accident. You have no facts that support your supposition so instead you start prevailing on PJ2 or others to provide you with what you consider a smoking gun, but which anyone who is professionally familiar with the aircraft would tell you is either inconsequential or inconclusive.
ELAC