@Dozy:
Finally we have the scenario I consider the most likely, which is that the autotrim was responding directly to the pilot's consistent nose-up sidestick commands, but this in itself opens a can of worms because it is perceived in some quarters (incorrectly IMO) as an attempt to "blame the pilot" and get Airbus/AF off the hook.
As I have said before, there is not necessarily only one cause of this accident. It appears to me that both the pilots and the aircraft have shown some deficiencies. Ascribing
some of the blame to the pilots will not get Airbus/AF off the hook.
@Dozy: [quote] To clarify my position as referred to by BOAC, I mentioned that another poster (I believe it was Smilin'_Ed) seemed to be proposing a drop to Direct Law in the case of air data failure, and bypassing Alt 2 entirely. Indeed, it would appear that is indeed what Smilin'_Ed is proposing ginven his recent posts.[QUOTE]
From a pilot's perspective, if someone hands me the controls and says "You have it." I want him to
keep his hands off until I hand it back to him. I don't want him to touch the trim unless I ask him to do so. Maybe not all pilots agree with that but I was trained to evaluate the "Flying Qualities" of aircraft. I made my living doing just that and my opinion is that the autotrim needs to come out when the confusers get thoroughly confused and give up trying to fly the aircraft.
@Dozy:
As I've said many times before, the ability to manually control trim is available in any law, including Alt 2, provided via the trim wheels sitting right next to the inboard hands of both pilots.
Yes, the ability to manually control the trim is there but they didn't use it. We don't yet know why but it is clear that they let the system trim them up into a stall. In the world of pilots, that is a big no no.
@Dozy:
..... another purpose of the design was to assist pilots - not hinder or eventually replace them, no matter what some of the more lurid scaremongering on this forum from time to time suggests.
But, in this case, the system did hinder the pilots. The pilots were remiss in not catching the fact that trim had run full nose up, but the system put it there when it shouldn't have, reducing their ability to fly it out of the stall.
In every fixed wing aircraft that I have flown, directional stability and pitch stability are positive and only lateral stability is neutral. The Wright brothers initially thought that they wanted neutral pitch stability but after a couple of flights, they began to realize that pitch stability had to also be positive. If not, when they pulled the nose up, it would stay there until the aircraft stalled. That's when they changed their design to positive pitch stability which brought the nose back to the trim speed when they let go of the controls. Having the autotrim follow the sidestick commands essentially gives the aircraft neutral pitch stability. Neutral pitch stability is fine as long as the autopilot is functioning properly, but when it quits, you really need it to be positive when you are hand flying.