Phugoid oscillations are to do with short term longnitudinal stability in this case. Its another way of explaining why its easy to over control close to the stall and end up in the stall. Ever flown a low speed scissors in air combat ?
There is no Alpha Phugoid, I did not say there was and neither do the BEA or Airbus. Kindly refrain from misrepresenting what others say.
You very sarcasticaly say "indepensable" "magical" when referring to the aircrafts protections. Did you design it?, did you test it? No, thought not yet you suggest you know better than those who did.
The NTSB criticised Airbus for not fully explaining the Alpha Prot function in the FCOM and in training BUT THEY DID NOT CRITICISE THE PERFORMANCE IT GAVE ON THE DAY.
The jet was at 150,000 lbs (68k), 750 Fpm Rod and almost 25 kts !! below the speed for the configuration they were in. That is a bad bad place to try to flare from. To put that in context its the equivelant of trying to flare a jet close to max weight from 20 - 25 kts below Vref without power. You seem to say that you can flare effectively from this position and then accuse me of not understanding what a flare means. Unbelievable. Makes me wonder if you are even a pilot.
Your contention seems to be to free the pilot up to fly right to the stall, for what benefit ? A small reduction in rate of descent at best. At what risk ? A stall leading to catastrophy. The risk reward trade is all wrong and obviously so. You cannot risk a stall in a ditching and if you think commercial pilots are able to finnesse their handling, without prior practise, to do this then you are a bigger fool than I take you for.
You are hell bent on denegrating Airbus when it was Airbus that gave the Captain the care free handling he needed to protect him in those last few crucial moments before impact. You refuse to accept that it was the speed control that prevented the aircraft from being able to flare effectively not the FBW. That protected him.
You have got your focus all wrong.
Last edited by Ashling; 4th Oct 2011 at 19:50.