Thridle Op Des:
At JS0987 & FH1100, I suggest you take out which ever helicopter you are qualified on out on a flight, make sure you own it and there are no passengers and you are over an suitably uninhabited area and in the cruise slam the tail rotor pedals first to one extreme than the other then back and see what happens to the tailboom. That's for the AA/Queens accident, that's according to the NTSB and I am certain that they are not in the pockets of any airline manufacturer.
Yeah...except that my helicopter is not designed to have that done. ...And except that the SIC of AA587 didn't "slam" the rudder pedals from one extreme to the other - no more so than he "slammed" the yoke from full-left deflection to full-right. He merely made aggressive, coordinated control inputs in all axes.
And besides, airplanes are different. See, airplanes have what they call "maneuvering speed," below which pilots are allowed to make full-deflection control inputs without damage to the airframe.
Before AA587, I'd bet that 99.9% of us believed that this "protection" extended and applied to the rudders as well. Sadly for the crew and pax of AA587, we have learned that it in fact does not. The SIC pushed a pedal a bit too hard, the vertical fin snapped off and down she came.
If you guys have some deep insight into the AF crash in the Atlantic, I am sure you can send your comments to the BEA, I'm sure they will give you the time of day. Maybe you have the psychic ability to read the CVR/DFDR from 3000 metres of water.
No deep insight here, and none required. In the AA587 accident, a nearly-pristine vertical fin was pulled from the water of Jamaica Bay. In the case of AF447, a nearly pristine vertical fin was discovered on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Reports were published that the airspeed sensing units may have malfunctioned, and that the ship may have encountered a severe thunderstorm. Therefore it is no giant leap to think that with the control-limiting software compromised, a pilot might be able to push too hard on a rudder pedal, the fin snapped off and down she came. Heck, it's happened before.
Is any of this analogous to helicopters? Nope!
My complaint, which others here seem to "get," is what HeliComparator so eloquently said: Compliance with new rules does not make a product "safer." The manufacturers would like us to think so, but it is simply not true. Right now, my "lowly" 206B is a much safer helicopter than the S-92A could ever *think* of being. Perhaps some day in the future the S-92 will achieve the 206's level of safety.
We can only hope and pray that it happens before too many more people die in it.