GarageYears, 41
Tail chute:
Probably a very bad idea. Aside from the complexity of certifying such a thing
(presumably a different design/size would be needed for each aircraft type),
the risk of inadvertent deployment causing it's own disaster would seem much
more likely than the incredibly rare situation where it might be of positive benefit.
It's way beyond my knowledge level, but it might be possible to find a solution
that just provided enough tail lift, while not presenting a danger in normal flight,
perhaps a release after use switch or time delay. The inadvertent deployment
issue could be solved via a two key, two man input with an on time requirement
of several seconds. Probably never happen though, but seems to me that something
needs to be done.
As far as I can tell from what we know to date, the crew were not aware they
were in a stall (you'd have assumed someone would have used the words "we're
in a stall" and that the BEA would have reported such in the note) and as such
it seems unlikely they would have "punched the button" to deploy such a thing.
I don't think they did. The pf saw the alt unwinding towards zero, didn't
believe the air speed and kept pulling up to get out of what he thought was a
dive. The fact that UAS is a known problem coupled with the fact that the pf
didn't believe that the a/c could stall, all his training telling him this,
made him disbelieve what were probably quite accurate asi readings.
The question is: How does engineering solve this problem ?...