Machinbird the quick answer is the VS loss would deluge the ACARS, but not if it left after loss of ACARS.
As with any discussion of 447, there are few absolutes. There is evidence, evidence I use in saying the VS parted the airframe at the pinnacle of g, complicated physics included, but also Three separate VS disarticulations. Here I include 447, along with 587 and Perpignan. As with 737 frozen Jacks, the failure is similar. I simply put the percent of confidence in a midair separation well above dislodging due to water impact. The need to explain impact separation only follows BEA's report that it is a finding, a fact. What preceded the type of aspect needed for entry according to BEA is not less chaotic, but more so. Unwind their logic, and see if you don't start to entertain a high altitude VS failure, and one promised by BEA's logic, although inadvertent. What commands a high altitude separation? UPSET. Gentle? partially managed? Crew at the controls fighting to ennable a ditching? I say no. A flat spin is what BEA claims.
Let their claim embrace a loss of controlled flight, a loss of directional control, and parts in their inventory of reclaimed wreckage that speak to high speed and high altitude partition, with extremely dynamic and jumbled accelerations in all directions.
Forget the handy simultaneous betrayal of all three pitots and statics. I say it is far more likely the uas, TCAS, g loading and control deflections from a maxed out Autopilot are likelier to have been caused, not effected. Cause not Effect. I'll throw in my confidence in the crew, having trained for uas, been in and out of ap hundreds of times (even in WEATHER); It was not they who allowed ap use in Weather, it was AF's training syllabus. Given their confidence in ap (proven), it strikes me the ap was bolloxed not the crew. Everything on ACARS seems to me to be not cause, but effect, stemming from an initial upset whose iterative effect was to cause the accident.
Here I rely on the aircraft's reputation. Initially, AF claimed Lightning, then "Turbulences Forte", then poor crew utility re Radar. Why did they do so? They believed the evidence was unlikely to be found. It isn't more evidence that is solidifying the "Cause", it's the lack of any need to explain what everyone fears happened, as time passes.
ACARS was a leak, not a Press Release. Initially I believe there was Corporate damage control, followed by new explanations, anticipating a controlled or controllable investigative authority.
editJD-EE confused with HF, sorry. Also #1974 presents a possibility where ap gets the a/c nose down and Throttled back, followed by a radical departure in sensed v/s and/or a/p "thinking the a/c needed more "up" and power than its limits allowed, followed by trip, and pilots trying to correct Mach Limit, by reducing throttle and full nose up (they were "protected", no worries, not, followed by an immediate Stall.
Coffin Corner: Can't climb, Stall. Can't dive, overspeed. Can't turn, Stall. Can't increase decrease power, Stall, overspeed. The only thing that can rationally happen is UPSET. At FL35, close to max alpha, heavy with aft cg, Dark as a Lawyer's heart, wet, noisy, bumpy, I think it was not long before bits started to depart.
Where was the aft most "array"? was it underneath the Dorsal?
GreatBear We must have cross posted or we are thinking in kind, which is worse?
Last edited by bearfoil; 26th Aug 2010 at 03:05.