Hazelnuts39
I might try.
At 02:10:51 the stall warning sounded. AOA was 6°, pitch was 10°, elevators about 5° noseup, THS at -3° NU. At that point the stab trim starts taking over the load of the elevators and the THS trim starts to move uninterrupted to full NU position within the next minute. During this time period the SS was in the average NU, but never full NU (max NU was 13°, 5 times it was up to 8° ND. Note, that the elevators stayed at max 10° NU until 02:11:35: Then they moved further down and reached their 30° NU at 02:11:45 and about the same time the THS reached the full NU limit. (see the FDR in the BEA interim 3 report).
Would this THS trimming had been prevented upon the sounding of the stall warning, the elevators alone would have imho not been sufficient to keep the nose up in the stall over the following period. This THS is a mightiy thing and gave the crew the tool, to transfer their unfortunate SS commands into some kind of establishing the aircraft deep into the stall region.
The nose woud have dropped early in the stall, maybe the AOA would have been considerably lower and thus permanent stall warning available, the speed drop would have been less and all this could have finally helped in an recovery (which unfortunately was even not attempted).
I´m not saying, that this would have prevented the outcome at all, but it might in another situation on another day with a different crew.
Last edited by RetiredF4; 2nd November 2011 at 12:48.