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Old 7th Aug 2011, 13:27
  #2716 (permalink)  
RWA
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Melbourne
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Quoting bubbers44:-

"One thing that is puzzling me is the speed of PF's hand on his movements aft and forward on the sidestick.
From 02:10:13 to 02:10:16 (only three seconds) he moved his sidestick 9 times. That's three times a second..."
I think this may well be a matter of 'super-sensitive' recording, rather than anything more sinister. If you ignore the 'snaking lines,' and just count the basic 'ups and downs,' rather than the 'zigzags,' there appear to have been only about four of each in the period referred to. And we have to remember that the PF had just taken control after the autos signed off - according to the Report, his main concern at that time was to correct a tendency to roll. He'd have been mainly concerned with moving the stick sideways, not forward or back; if he'd moved it even slightly forward or back during the sideways movements (and assuming, as one has to, that the systems were probably recording in fractions of a second) it was probably 'no big deal.'

Looking again at Page 111, though, I noticed another thing. Assuming that I've interpreted the graphs correctly, while the THS was still moving towards 'full-up,' the PF applied full nosedown for quite a long period; probably because, as the report says, he was (correctly) countering the zoom climb. But the THS just continued on it's 'merry' way to full up.

What's more, if you look lower down, the Angle of Attack graph starts increasing at exactly the same time that the THS starts moving, at what looks like an exactly-equal angle (though opposite on the graph). And reaches its highest angle just as the THS arrives at 'full up'?

So (assuming I've read the graphs right) why didn't the THS react to the PF's apparently 'solid' nosedown input and 'get sensible'?
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