Originally Posted by rudderrudderrat
If in Normal Law, the piloting technique of respecting Alpha Max is not trained, then there is a chance that some crews won't respect it in Alternate Law either.
You are correct but then we can agree that there are chances that some crews will take off without clearance and smash their half-airborne 747 into side of another, some will put their trust in sole failed instrument and spin their 757 into sea, some will dive MD-11 from 4000 ft so steeply to leave themselves no room for recovery... etc.
That every Airbus pilot absolutely must know how protections work, when they are to be relied upon, when they are not to be trusted and that "Airbus can not be stalled" is a simple myth, pushed forward by misinformed & ignorant, shouldn't be matter of discussion at all. We may discus why it isn't so in real life.
If chances of needing maximum climb performance, achieved by pulling the stick to backstop in normal law are 1 to x, and chances of having no protections are 1 to y, then chances of having to observe alpha max on your own, manually are 1 to x times y. Not as easy as letting the computer wring out the maximum performance but not impossibly difficult for a pilot, either. IMHO it's very small (and avoidable) chance for a pilot to fly himself into windshear or CFTT in degraded control law. BTW, there's good reason we call those electronic gizmos "computers" and not "thinkers" or "deciders".
Originally Posted by Machinbird
My experience with the rudder pedal shaker was that it was pretty vigorous and if such a shaker were to be bolted into a FBW control system, it would probably cause excessive motion.
I can pretty safely assume that pedal shaker didn't affect the handling of your Rhino at all. Shakers oscillate with high frequency and low amplitude. Because of both, controls and aeroplane inertia, they don't affect the flightpath. With ideal control harmony being 1-2-3, I believe that eventual sidestickshaker needn't be nowhere near powerful as pedalshaker.
Originally Posted by Machinbird
Only problem I see with your comment 2 & 3 is that it doesn't seem to have worked in real life when the chips were down.
It didn't work for the crews of AF447. According to BEA's intermediate report no2, there were 37 cases of pitot blockage on 330/340, apart from AF447. 13 of them could be studied further, as there was enough data available. In 5 of them crew descended following the stall warning.
Doesn't look like systemic problem to me.
If I include late captain Marvin Renslow's paradoxical reaction to stall warning, shaker and pusher into picture, then we might have systemic problem after all but it goes much deeper than aeroplane model, make and manufacturer.
Originally Posted by Machinbird
And the Captain was led down the path by the copilots who didn't want to tell him how badly they had lost control.
Another puzzling aspect of the accident is that nose-up attitude and unwinding altimeters should make clear to him what is happening yet did not.
Originally Posted by Machinbird
A pilot who maneuvers aircraft should be keeping a mental log of where their energy is.
Absolutely correct and not debatable.
Originally Posted by Machinbird
I've seen it before in aviation-sort of a better to die than to look bad attitude.
Of course, it is possible to do both at the same time.