A few thots from a "professional" pilot
Salute!
Compelled to post concerning this sorry story of a fatal crash. Won't comment on the "sorry" comments, however.
1) I am constantly amazed at all the autopilot and flight control "laws" for the AB. Scares me.
I realize that many "modes" and "functions" are intended to reduce crew workload and enhance overall safety. But somehow I have this feeling that the plane is just too "cosmic", and needs to be simplified.
2) I flew the first operational jets with a fully fly-by-wire system. My name ( callsign) is well-known in the community. And I did it years and years before the first FBW Airbus. Just establishing a small amount of credibility so nobody thinks I am a troll or computer flyer.
Our operational requirements were vastly different than for the commercial airliners. I understand all that.
What I have trouble with are all the fine points here that discuss such-and-such autopilot mode and such-and-such flight control mode and the various connections between them. It is personally disturbing to me. Someplace there must be a mode or law that allows the actual human being to command full power or full climb/dive command ( all with due respect to basic flight control computer laws) and eliminate all the "competition" between the various systems.
Continuuing...... The GD FLCS ( flight control system) folks refused to allow our autopilot to do much of anything. Sure. We had some basic functions like altitude or heading hold, but the FLCS had its own rules and at certain AoA's, the plane would descend even if altitude hold was engaged. It didn't even allow the AoA to reach normal limits that could be achieved if we had the autopilot turned off. One fatal due to that issue, BTW, and was simple pilot error by not monitoring altitude. 'nuff said.
3) I fully understand a scenario where sun in the windshield could obscure the landing environment. I simply don't understand a decision to either manually fly or allow the gizmos to fly you below the MDA. Maybe I am too old-fashioned. And I manually landed in many situations that required a level off for a NDB (ADF) or VOR or TACAN or localizer-only approach. Granted, I could easily pull up and almost instantly climb if I had set the altimiter wrong if I saw something that didn't "look right", as I didn't have to fight all the control laws and autopilot modes and even throttle modes. No "autopilot-coupled" modes in the Viper, although there was an excellent one for ILS in the VooDoo.
So I would wait to see what the CVR says and find out if the crew was talking about what a ****ty view they had on the approach.
4) I am amazed by the small pieces of the debris field. Sheesh.
5) For C-SAR, there should be decent geometry to "guess" whether the main gear hit first or at the same time as the tail plane. The actual aircraft pitch attitude should be used and not AoA limited by the gizmos, as we must add AoA to angle of descent. Sadly, it appears that the most serious aero/physical crapola happened downstream of the recorders. Nevertheless, we can still get valuable data.
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Finally, I want to award C-SAR a few dozen "attaboys" for his relentless pursuit of the truth. Outstanding work, and most of us really admire your efforts.
Gums sends....