Retired F4, 35
As mentioned before, i´m no aerodynamics guy and might be completely
wrong, but i like to make the point that the crew most probably had no
conventional way to get AF447 out of a 60°AOA stall and that their
behavior described by the BEA in the last 3 minutes of the fall might
reflect the helpless situation they found themselves in due to normal
aerodynamic layout and behavior of the aircraft, which has never been
tested in that flight region.
This is way I see it as well and mentioned in a previous post. If the
a/c has never been tested in such a situation, how can the crew be
expected to recover ?.
Testing the water here, but is that an argument for a tail chute to be
fitted to civil transports, or is that too far off the wall and would
it add to problems in that it might cause structural damage to the
airframe ?.
Another thing that's been nagging me about the last bea report is that
when the ap and ath disengaged, there was a "roll to the right". This
strikes me as odd as one would expect that at the point of disengagement,
they should hand back without change of ap or ath settings. Thus,
no immediate change. Why the uncommanded roll to the right, systems
fault, or what ?...