Salute all!
A huge attaboy for the post by Sv concerning philosophy.
This shall be my last post on the matter until we all dissect the AF/BEA/Airbus folks' interpretation of the accident. I also thank all here for their nice comments ( a degree of acceptance amongst a group of "heavy" pilots, although I never flew a "heavy") and hope I have added to a technical understanding of FBW designs, design philosophy and corrections to both design and pilot procedures when unexpected situations are encountered that the design folks or pilots had not allowed for, however remote.
This is what got my attention from Sv:
Ultimate authority cannot be separated from ultimate responsibilty.
The only difference is not in numbers but in philosophy. As a passenger, I can entrust my life to someone who puts his own life on the line with mine. I can accept responsibilty and pay the ultimate price if I fail to deliver that promise as a pilot. But I will not accept to play scapegoat for a system that claims to be safer than I am when it is easy, and that evades responsibility when things go wrong.
That quote embodies the most profound thoughts I have seen on this topic. In short, rules to live by.
I am a "dinosaur" according to many. But I am an enlightened dinosaur. I moved up through the technological improvements in our jets gladly. I accepted the new capabilities and the new limitations on my superior aviating skills, heh heh. Most of all, I got to see problems and solutions along the way. Neither the pilots nor the designers were perfect. But both groups admitted it, and we sought and implemented solutions to prevent future accidents and to "improve" aircraft capabilities.
The last thing we did was tell the designers we didn't know that their jet could enter into an unrecoverable deep stall. The designers didn't tell us, "well, Gums, what in the hell were you thinking pointing the nose up at 80 degrees and not pulling down before the airspeed go too slow for the elevators to work?".
Later, when we found that our quad-redundant flight control computers and sensors went off-line due to a single-point-failure in the power supply system, we were livid!!! At the interim accident briefing our Wing CO came outta his seat and we had to hold him back before he punched out the GD briefer. Did the GD folks balk? No, they developed a better power supply system and we flew with a kludge, hot-wired-to-aircraft battery system for a year or so.
I don't see this with the Airbus folks. Sorry. I also do not comprehend an aircraft designed to fly at the "edge of the envelope" or all bets are off and we hand off the plane to the crew. Hal says, " I do not understand what is happening, Dave, you have the stick", GASP!