twinotter...
The report highlights the fact, that it was more a training/demonstration flight than a testflight
An "organisational failure" - the test they performed was for Test Pilots/purposes only. Hardly the aircraft's fault they embarked with this basic misunderstanding.
Thus the crew did not expect anything going wrong and waited for the protection to come
Pretty fundamental mistake to make during Test/Check flying. Why on earth do you perform the test if you do not expect it to go wrong?
(with wrongly calculated speeds)
Sorry? When did the crew ever calculate the speeds? (A calculation required to be made by the schedule).
Moreover it changed from normal law to direct law, switching auto pitch control off.
As per design... and exactly as would be expected if case of problems.
The crew did not have a normal aeroplane, but an incorrect functioning aeroplane!
The purpose of the flight was to determine
if they had a
'normal aeroplane' and the basic rule of Test/Check flying is to assume you have an
'incorrect functioning aeroplane'.
What would have happened, if the AoA sensors worked as they should? I guess nothing special, despite low altitude and all the other factors.
As you say, nothing special. But if you are willing to stake your, and other people's, lives on the fact the system works, there seems little point in checking it in the first place.
The fundamental point you seem to miss is they performed a test that was designed
to check if the AOA system was working correctly. Airbus specified (for Test Pilots) a min altitude to perform this test, in case the system was not working correctly. Surely if you are to test the system, you assume it will not be working? Or at least, not rely on it working to save your life...
Regrettably, all this accident proved was that the Airbus Test Schedule was correctly written, in purpose, Crew Qualifications, and Min Alt? To go back to the 737 equivalent issues, whilst there were some issues, the crew qualifications and Min Alts were followed, and the outcome was thus an "incident", not "accident".
NoD