Originally Posted by
shy talk
If he'd had a yoke, the others could have more quickly grasped what he was doing.
Surely, no-one can argue with that.
Not in one sense, but I would argue that it isn't understanding what he was
doing (pulling back) that is important, but understanding the
consequences of that action on the a/c.
The aviation accident record is littered with the smoking craters and floating wreckage of stalled yoke-equipped planes. Planes which crashed with PF pulling back into and through the stall. Surely in those cases, "the others" must have grapsed what PF was doing ?
I would argue that yes they did, but it didn't help. They grasped "pulling back" (doing) but they did not grasp "stalling the a/c" (consequence). Or to put it another way, what would you say the Colgan PNF "grasped" about what PF was doing (pulling back) when she took action to pull the flaps
up ? Stall ? or "climb" maybe ? [Yes,
he might have been thinking "tail stall", if you believe that theory, but only he had seen the tail stall video and the flaps was without his command, so can't be that]
Now back to 447, where was it lost ?
In the climb (I'm with Lyman on this). Once stalled, in poor conditions and without visual reference, their chances (I think) are already slim.
So, did lack of visual control feedback prevent PNF grasping what PF was doing in the climb, thus resulting in the stall ?
Nice theory, but no. PNF
knew PF was climibing, he also
knew PF shouldn't be climbing and told him to descend. More than once. Had PF followed that instruction they'd probably still be alive.
The fatal problem is not that PNF didn't get what PF was doing at the critical time, it is that neither of them grasped the
consequences of that action, despite all the warnings and instrument indications of stall. Why they failed to grasp that is a very very interesting question, but it has nothing to do with stick, because PNF
knew PF was climbing - crystal clear from the transcript.
[ I'm excusing the captain at this point - he comes back in when the a/c is already so far beyond tested and simulated flight envelope that systems are going wrong all over the place, and he's fed a history that is well on the misleading side of useless. ]