gonebutnotforgotten:
The preliminary report says (note on page 54):
Note : la loi de commande alternate 2 est une loi en facteur de charge en tangage et loi directe en roulis. Seule la protection en facteur de charge reste disponible. Dans certains cas, les stabilités haute et basse vitesses peuvent également être disponibles.
As I understand it there is no way for the crew to revert to direct law at FL350 (though I gather there are some at low speed). So my previous comments still stand, I wouldn't be confident that my basic handling skills, such as they were, acquired on conventional aircraft, would have served me well on that night. To judge from this thread, not many AB pilots have thought through how they would control the aircraft in this condition, and it looks as if the FCOM doesn't help a lot either.
Hi,
Ok. My understanding of what you say is that you are totally confused about how those Airbus are flying and what people are saying. The direct law is what is left when all computer assisted protections are gone. The only one remaining when going to Alternate Law 2 (with an airspeed disagreement triggered) is the load factor airframe protection on pitch axis as all other computer assisted protections are derived from various speed vectors (high speed, low speed, alpha prot, etc.).
loi alternate 2:
- "facteur de charge en tangage" (pitch, full deflection limited to +30/-15 deg and imputs are corrected in order to not exceed the load factor limited to +2.5g/-1.0g).
- "directe en roulis" (roll = direct, stick imputs = aileron moving, 20 deg/sec)
- "directe en lacet" (rudder = direct, stick imputs = rudder moving, full deflection is still limited to a function of speed depending on the last accurate speed until slats are deployed).
What some people do understand by reversion is that the flight controls are being degraded when, in fact, it is the computer various protections which are degraded depending on what data the computer is still able to process.
And yes, direct law is the mode used to test fly any new aircraft going off the assembly lines at which every basic pilot is trained... and all your
"basic handling skills, such as they were, acquired on conventional aircraft" would have served you very well because you would have a conventional aircraft to fly.
S~
Olivier