Originally Posted by
rudderrudderrat
Q. How many Airbus crew have actually taken the simulator to the stall buffet in ALT LAW? (before AF 447).
How many of you have taken your conventional aircraft simulator beyond the stick shaker to the buffet?
Is the difference because it wasn't a requirement due to the low probability?
Valid points made by yourself and Machinbird - *however*...
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we have the Stony Creek 727 crash in which all three crew members mistook the shaker for Mach buffet and pulled their aircraft straight into the ground as a result, convinced the whole time that they were in overspeed - ditto the Birgenair 757 Captain. Then we have BEA548 in which a constant stick-shaker and two stick *pushes* were incorrectly diagnosed as false by the crew (who may have effectively been down to the two S/Os at the time). It's a comforting thing to think that if all aircraft behaved as they did in the past that standards would not be slipping and situations like this would be correctly diagnosed, but the stats simply do not bear this out.
mm43's extract from what looks to be an Airbus manual of some kind (I'd love to know which one) contains the legend
"Don't fight with the stick; If you feel you overcontrol, release the stick.". It's pretty much accepted that the FBW Airbus setup requires a slightly different technique to get the best out of it compared with more conventional aircraft, but the methods to do so seem pretty well nailed-down, though I'm sure that it takes a leap of faith to release the stick under certain conditions.
For what it's worth I think that airlines should be re-evaluating their training - not just to include manual handling at altitude, but also basic aeronautical refreshers on recognising stall, dealing with stall recovery. If it means having to buy a bunch of Cessnas to do so then they should, after all they're the ones saving money with all this new technology, aren't they?
