" ... if he or she recognized being in a stall."
JD-EE ^^ It appears from CVR excerpts that such was not the case.
HN - I'm just groping for an alternate explanation for his pulling on the stick and climbing the way he did. Maybe he was trying the low level stall warning recovery. But with the storm vividly on their minds enough to mention it in that taciturn cockpit setting, suggests he wanted to be up higher if he could get there. Would that have filtered into his arm's motion when he took control and pulled 8 degrees on the stick? "Maybe" His response was so quick it was almost an instinctive reaction.
I don't see the "climb away from clouds" as an instinctive reaction, since his initial control problem looks to have been controlling roll.
The more likely explanation is that as soon as he ran into that sloppy roll feeling, and was oscillating back and forth in roll, his hand got a bit tight on the side stick and he was pulling while he was rolling.
see the chart in post number 342, airtren,
perm link =
http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/46062...ml#post6656578
My own personal experience with upset and being behind the aircraft on instruments (albeit not in heavies) is that when one is out of trim, it is easy to get a tight grip on the stick (Thought foremost is "GET BACK IN CONTROL, MAKE IT DO WHAT I WANT IT TO DO!") and end up fighting the aircraft a bit until closer to power / attitude / performance desired.
That catching up period (particular event I am recalling was a trim runaway) takes time and you really have to force yourself to get back to the basic instrument scan: attitude, performance, attitude performance. In the AF447 cockpit, the standard scan was not able to reference a key performance crosscheck, which is airspeed. The lack of that cross reference means that his scan (practiced and habitual) would not be serving him as usual: what he was looking for to inform a correction was simply missing. (Granted, his attitude should have told him, his PNF did tell him ... but I digress).
A number of members have pointed out over six threads the problem of dutch roll being a characteristic of swept wing jets. This may have contributed to his roll control problem, which raises tension (MAKE IT DO WHAT I WANT IT TO DO!) and result in inadvertent back pressure, back displacement, on SS.
Pilots who have flown A330, and who have posted on these forums, have pointed out that at high altitude, the aircraft requires a light touch to hand fly.
Occam's razor suggests a case of overcontrolling, even if the weather was indeed a concern for the crew during that phase of flight.