Quoting Lonewolf50:-
Back to THS on an A330.
I don't know if the crew in AF447 would have thought to look at where their THS was ... but ... if the PNF had wanted to, how many steps in sequence would it take to discover where that control surface was positioned?
Looked it up (can't find the photos again) and the conventional (non-electronic) A330 setup looks pretty good. Big trimwheels either side of the central console, and (I checked
) they're servo-assisted, and actually move!
However, the wheels don't give you the pitch angle; they just have the 'usual' setup, white marks every 15 degrees or so. Apparently there are gauges beside the wheels that give you the angle - how well illuminated they are, and how easily you could read them at night, I just don't know.
Point that occurs to me, though, is that the autotrim was still operating? So, even if the pilots had thought to check the trim settings and maybe wind the wheels forward a bit, presumably the 'systems' would just have wound the things back to 'full up' again?