DozyWannabe/BOAC
(1) To be fair, I have added "inadvertently" to point the "blame" in the sales direction. I am acutely aware that Airbus's head of training had a battle just to keep training at pre-existing levels (discussed previously by PJ2, on the main AF447 threads), when heavy automation is basically "existing airmanship plus".
(2) I was intrigued by PJ2's comment on this aspect, as he is an AB veteran. Takata has set out the AF command structure in place at the time of this incident and facing the CDB, which was not ideal for any "unhappy" PNF in the LHS without the "unsatisfactory" handover on AF447. Would the PNF have been more assertive if he could have seen what the PF was specifically doing through a clearly visible RHS control column (or at least if the LHS SS was moving in tandem with the RHS SS movements commanded by the PF?)? The throttle moving also? Would the PNF at least have been better placed to properly brief the returning CDB? Might this have overcome CRM shortcomings and saved the day?
(3) "Design assumptions" are always dangerous. The Titanic was "unsinkable" because how could White Star possibly flood the first five watertight compartments.....? What floats, can sink. What flies, can stall. A stall warning really should stay on until an aircraft is no longer stalled. The stall warning ceasing just after the CDB returned to the cockpit was, at best, "particularly unhelpful".
(4) We Brits naturally prefer "evolutionary", which is why I value PJ2's viewpoints on the more "revolutionary" aspects of the AB design philosophy. From Stony Point through Aeroperu and Birgenair to Colganair, there are stall warning issues and pilots forgetting their training and grimly pulling back on their control columns. Post-Stony Point, was the industry ready for another system? AF447, and the ignored stall warnings, tend to suggest not I would submit. Hopefully, with control column pilots now acutely aware of the "stick shaker" issues after numerous hull losses, there won't be a SS repetition.
As I said, I don't want to get dragged into any AB particular issues.
This is an across the board training issue. The less routine manual flying that pilots do on any aircraft (within the flight envelope), the harder it is for them to suddenly "ride to the rescue" in a degraded flight envelope emergency. That must be self-evident........