Originally Posted by DJ77
Auto-trim is necessary in order to implement a load factor demand pitch law.
But, IMO, direct law would have done just fine whenever AP is OFF.
Anyone here complaining about flying the 320 in direct law ?
Originally Posted by DozyWannabe
But you can't infer from that information that the PNF was unaware of what was going on because he wasn't getting any feel through his sidestick. Perhaps he felt that the other pilot was doing what was necessary, perhaps he didn't feel confident enough to intervene (see Birgenair again), perhaps he got absorbed in the "PNF" role to the extent that he was more focused on the ECAM messages than his PFD or - and I know this will be controversial - perhaps he'd fallen asleep and was woken by the alarms. All of which are possible, but we don't know - we'll find out with the arrival of the report.
From my personal experience, I just don't know what my partner is doing with his sidestick. At best, and it's not necessarily better, I'm guessing ...
When the captain came back, he probably took the middle jumpseat, from where, you hardly see any of the sidesticks ... How can he evaluate the flight control inputs ?
And forget about falling asleep at that time. Did the captain fall asleep as well after entering the cockpit ? Is it why the BEA could not publish any comment from him ...