BWB
"I've no time for sentimental notions of a fictional 'band of brothers'. The pilots of this A320 were not 21 years old. They knew better. If they didn't know better, they should not have been charged with the responsibility they had. It's as simple as that. Fallen comrades is bollocks. So is blaming Airbus. Damn the French, but not for this."
Agreed but the one thing I find worrying about this and the B737 manual reversion check flight event cross referenced in the report is that in both cases all of the pilots involved appeared to have forgotten a basic fying principle - if you cannot control the a/c in pitch the first thing to do is trim. Yes, a trimmable stab has to be used carefully but it has to be used ! Even though auto trim is the norm and the Airbus sidestick uses spring feel rather than feel related to dynamic pressure the principle of trimming an aeroplane remains the responsibility of the handling pilot. In events where the a/c is plainly not in control in pitch it should also be the first thing checked (via stab position) by the non-flying pilot. It seems that the industry training methods and recurrent training methods are seriously deficient if there are pilots out there who don't understand this or, heaven forbid, have forgotten the basics and are more system operators than pilots. And don't give me the spiel about auto paralysis and SOPs and following the book - what's wrong with the Mark 1 computer when the chips are down.
