PJ2, #232
These are not taught very thoroughly in initial ground schools at least
in my experience, and if one wasn't in the air force one's knowledge was
increased largely through one's own efforts.
A lack of completeness is to be expected in training, as it can only
ever be an overview in any complex professional discipline. However, it
is also a given that further study is expected and that this and
experience fill in the gaps over the years. Continuous education and the
learning of new techniques is what makes some types of work interesting
in it's own right. I doubt if training is being skimped in any way that
could affect safety, but perhaps the omission of certain aspects tends
to instill a false sense of security in terms of system capabilities,
especially at the edges. If the automation handles everything perfectly
99.999% of the time, is it really necessary to get into more than the
sops and regs demand, I guess is the received wisdom.
The frustrations of not knowing and not being able to find things out
easily have been endemic - while easy to fly and a joy to hand-fly,
"automation" has become as much a marketing tool as it has a way of
solving the problems of flight. The resistance to knowing more than the
"NTK". need-to-know, ground-school curriculum requires, comes first from
how expensive it is to train well, and next from a lack of knowledge in
those who must do the teaching, always of course, with wonderful
exceptions from those memorable instructors who's passion takes them,
and their students beyond NTK.
Passion is the right word, but passion is not always appreciated,
perhaps even denigrated in this modern age and beancounters don't
understand it at all. I've seen this in industry for years: The
difference between those who love their work and those for whom it's
just a gig. Anything that smells of instinct, intuition or creativity
might be seen as "unconventional", yet those are just the sort of
qualities that intelligent individuals need outlet for and that are also
needed to get out of unexpected situations.
This isn't "THE" problem, because clearly the aircraft and the design's
record is no worse in terms of fatal accident rates than conventional
types - in short, the airplane and the design work extremely well but
one should never be in a position to not understand and not anticipate
what his airplane is doing.
Safety has been improving over the years in any case, because of
advanced engineering techniques, more sophisticated design and
verification tools and improved infrastructure. The fact that fbw
techniques are used may not be a significant factor and imho, fbw can
only be for the good longterm. The problem is perhaps indirect, in the
culture that arises from it and it's promises.
Below is a nuts-and-bolts schematic of the pitch-basic loop. I hope it
is of some service in understanding the pitch control of the A330
Thanks for that. It just goes to show how complex the system is. I was
more interested in a state transition diagram / logic flow chart that
shows the input conditions, discreet and variable, required for
transition between the various laws. Gums posted a drawing for one of
his machines some time ago, but haven't been able to find it via forum
search. I don't see how anyone can analyse af447 without it, though I
bet the BEA have all this info and more...