IFixPlanes;
Did you ever give the maintenance more hints than speed and affected area?
Yes we did. We recorded most of the details seen on the sheet you provided, (thanks) but that sheet didn't exist when we were experiencing these vibrations - this was between 1994 - 1996. We'd been writing such snags for a few years and it was discussed informally with other crews but when I flew the fins and checked the responses the snags usually came back with comments about checking gear doors, flaps and other such items. As well, it was only on about three fins that I recall. Frankly I never had the impression from the snag responses I read that they had checked with Airbus or if they did maybe who they checked with didn't know. The problem was outlined in the publication I mentioned that I discovered some time later but which was current at the time, specifically referencing a large American carrier's 320's and their solutions, so someone at Airbus knew, but I never saw anything anything about flight control vibrations, (asking for comments, taking a look, etc). We looked at the ECAM each time but I recall the elevator indicator was steady during the event in question. This was 6-8Hz however - fairly fast - I'm not sure how sensitive the flight control indicators are but at M0.77 I don't think the tiny movements of the elevators that would be all that was needed, are going to show up on the ECAM. The vibrations were solid and felt throughout the aircraft - front to back and this too, was reported. We did try a few control inputs to dampen the pattern but no joy. Before the subject flight, no one had thought to go back and actually have a look at the stabilizer, partly because we didnt' expect flutter to be a problem and I suspect our maintenance guys felt the same way. I think we were all quite surprised (to put it mildly) at what we saw and wrote up.
Today it's obviously well known and well understood - I don't think it was back then.