Ab Initio Stall training has the student reduce power and hold the nose up. This is what was happening here, albeit by a different (autopilot) mechanism; power was reduced and the a/p maintained altitude by trimming nose up. Enter the Stick Shaker (by increased ref), and the pilot's training in his firm.
If he was trained to "Fly through shaker with power", while maintaining altitude, wasn't he doing as trained (back pressure to maintain alt.?)
When the a/c did stall, with roll, he entered a regime that may have been completely unfamiliar to him, and probably to F/O as well. Now he's stalled, very LOW, and carrying ~max. power, an aspect of flight with which he may have been totally unfamiliar. Thinking power would maintain altitude, (that was his line training, after all) his job is to keep the a/c in the air. Here, advanced training is in direct conflict with ab initio, and he is after all, a fairly new pilot, with 'fresh' initial training perhaps too easily retrieved in an emergency situation. It may have been the conflict of line training with introductory that caused him to lose focus. It may have been as simple as Captain Renslow doing what he was trained, hold back stick during shaker with power, then when the Pusher chimed in, his 'instinct' (consistent with training again) ordered him to pull, he wouldn't have had time to think quickly enough to counter his trained in 'response'. He would have had to switch from Line training to basic Stall Recovery; It appears he wasn't able to 'Switch' techniques. So if this is true, he didn't 'forget' training; he honored it until he Stalled, which wasn't trained in this a/c; in the Stall he continued trying to fly through the Shaker.
If Shaw was following his actions, she may have even been intuitively acting with Renslow, having had the same training; dumping drag to increase a/s. The flap action makes sense in this way, back pressure to counter sink; the engines are full, ample power, etc.
Trying to put myself in their boots, it must have been confusing as Hell if it happened this way. Training didn't work, Stall, Panic, etc. not to mention dark, low, slow, dirty, bottom of curve, ice, comms, pax, chimes, on second thought I'll not go there.
Edit to add that both pilots hadn't had airspeed in scan, and 'forgot' that ref speed had increased early on, and automatically.
Last edited by Will Fraser; 2nd Aug 2009 at 17:22.