BOAC, “
I am not 'anti' the writers. They will write, and write as well as humanly possible within their brief and any 'understanding' they might have of the flying 'task'.”
But if the writer’s understanding came from the piloting community, then aren’t we the cause of your concerns. Did we think that it wouldn’t happen, couldn’t happen, that we can understand system failures, we avoid Cbs by a large margin, and we can hand fly fly/pitch power with an airspeed failure.
More likely these concerns represent the lack of understanding about AF447; – yes, wait for the report, or at least the data.
Alternatively such concerns only arise with hindsight, such situations were not, or even could not be conceived beforehand. Recall the speculation about events before AF447; the other ‘successful’ events, possible regulatory assumptions about the relative ease of flight without airspeed, a short duration malfunction which average crews could manage easily.
http://archlab.gmu.edu/people/rparas...uto5302008.pdf - another theoretical view for the mixing pot.