Originally Posted by Retired F4
What are the limits, within those the VSI needle displays vertical speed?
And what is the picture, when vertical speed is greater then the display available?
VSI needle is green and it beautifully simulates looking at the needle hinged to the right of the scale and being looked at through narrow slit - it appears to thicken with deflection from zero. Scale limits are 6000 fpm up and down, when they are exceeded needle is stuck at maximum deflection but it turns yellow as the digital readout adjacent to it. I don't recall any limitation to digital VSI value.
It's possible, though I can't say how probable it is, that VSIs blanked out sometimes during the descent. Someone with engineering expertize of A330 ADIRS and displays would be better suited to answer that than me.
Originally Posted by CONF iture
Let me see, if rudder control is electrical does it mean it can be mechanically-controlled too … ?
Rudder actuators are mechanically connected to pedals via mech mixer. Yaw damping, turn coordination, trimming and travel limit are achieved electrically. THS actuator is mechanically linked to trimwheels. FCOM chapter 1.27.10 and 1.27.30, part that describes mechanical backup refer.
Originally Posted by CONF iture
'Arrogant' takes double 'R' I think but I’m not sure about 'Pretentious' is it double 'T' ?
I couldn't have put it better myself, sir.
Originally Posted by xcitation
PF/PNF did fly pitch and power but it was for the low altitude UAS as they had practiced in the sim, Rio departure, 3 months prior to the incident.
Seemingly they forgot everything they ever learnt about high altitude aerodynamics and performance. Actually, they needed not to know anything about it, it would be enough just to follow the procedure in order to survive. If your notion is proved to be true (which I mildly doubt) crew applied part of UAS drill that was not to be used above acceleration altitude (most of the time 1500 ft above runway) at FL330. I say it was incap.
Originally Posted by Machinbird
Ian W knows of what he speaks.
I prefer to have the opinion that he does not. It is much more comforting to think his biased views stem from the ignorance of the matters aeronautical, rather than from agenda. Basically he claims that the cognitive overload of AF447 crew makes the whole Airbus man/machine interface wrong and disregards tens of thousands normal flights made by FBW Airbi crews every day. He disregards 32 UAS that ended as very minor incidents. Applying such a hasty generalization is something that we have used to expect of politicians every day, yet it doesn't make it a lesser logical fallacy.
Originally Posted by Machinbird
Any of you who think you can always multitask in a highly demanding environment have forgotten your early days of instrument training where it was easily possible to break down your scan
Multitasking, whether it involves human or electronic brain, is not about doing many things at once. It is about properly managing cognitive/computational resources in sequential manner. Of course I can do just one thing at the time but in proper instrument scan, that one thing can be done a couple of times a second.
Pilots who don't show improvement of their instrument skills during their initial training to the point where they meet minimum applicable standards, don't get IR and are therefore unable to fly airliners. In a perfect world, anyway. Curves of pilot skill required vs pilot skill available are as important to flying as power required vs available. When skill required exceeds available, trouble is guaranteed.
Originally Posted by Ian W
Books will be written about this incident
To borrow the phrase from Peter Garrison: most of them will be written by the folks with "movie rights" stenciled on their glasses.