Understanding Angle of Attack.
PJ
I too am an old retired Boeing and Airbus pilot. My take is that AoA is important when dealing with very slow flight, i.e. when a Navy pilot has to bring it in on a very short deck with rolling seas. Or an F-16 pilot is carrying assymetrical external stores which alters stall speeds and AoA and has to restrict “G” loads after bombing runs.
Air carriers uusally have more than sufficent runway lengths thus never have to be very slow. Thus “Stall speeds and approach speeds” are pertinent. Therefore merely keeping a sufficient extra speed eliminates any need to even consider AoA.
And we have never had to even consider or train for it. In the plane or simulator.
We are not taught how to use it and do not have an AoA indicator that I’ve ever seen.
In auto any mode it may be there but to me invisible.
Here in 447 a plane runs into wild gyrations. Everything kicks off. The only task is to maintain control of the aircraft. Nothing seemed to work, not any of the automated protection systems. And zero guidance for the crew.
It is not possible to have any human train for such an eventuality. Nor for any human to cogently understand and deal with this myriad of failures all at the same time.
Other than to avoid getting close to this perilous situation.
All of the wise council regarding, “Well look at how many times pilots did not encounter this situation”, is not good enough for me.
Going into or near violent thunderstorms and their unknown qualities carries a risk that a paying passenger does not want, nor need to put up with.