The old gang comes together again, huh?
Long time, and long time for many of us.
I salute Doze for actually trying the profile in a sim, and I think that another here has access to the sim.
RR and PJ and Doze and others have conferred on PM's, so my observations are for others.
The human factor aspect of this tragedy is a big factor. Why is that, Gums?
- "You can't stall the jet, but you can overspeed the jet". Need inputs here from Okie and Rudderrat and maybe PJ2. So maybe the PF was more worried about mach than stall. And my personal choice when airspeed goes FUBAR is to not worry too much about overspeed as much as under speed. Of course, a valid AoA indication is immensely helpful, but the 'bus seems to ignore the sensors if airspeed is below "x".
Before exploring all the manuals those here have made available, I was not aware of the small AoA margin that the 'bus has between cruise and stall. I have to admit that I was shocked at the low AoA values I saw, as my experience in bent wing jets exhibited much higher AoA values before getting into trouble, the VooDoo being the big exception ( ask me about that beast offline, heh heh).
Ditto for mach limits when at 35K and above.
- The stall warning was there, but for some reason was not given attention by the crew. Did I read all those paragraphs and recordings correctly? Could they have been more concerned with overspeed than a stall? Remember, "you can't stall this jet", but there's no "protections" concerning overspeed. Hmmmm.....
- Some old pilots here harp on attitude and power to stay where you were when things went FUBAR. I am one. But seems like the jet has this auto-throttle feature, and I am not sure when the pilot can tell the "system" that throttle position commanded by the human in the cockpit should be obeyed.
Make no mistake, I flew the Viper with the electronic engine control that did things when we were real fast or slow ( not for us, but for the engine!). It was NOT an auto-throttle, and our PLA ( power lever angle) command was just that. It commanded a level of power that we mortal pilots desired/commanded.
Is there a way to tell the "system" that you want the throttle(s) to provide a direct power command and not be connected to all the flight control modes?
- "TOUCH" ----- I mean that sometimes your "touch" or your "feeling" counts as much as all the fancy indicators and displays( apologies to Doze, but trust me, I had/have touch). I flew thousands of hours with Joe Baggadonuts in three different jets and had many that could not "feel" the jet entering a stall. "Can you feel that?", I would ask. "Nope". So I then trained them to be "mechanics" and read the instruments and not horse the jet about.
I get the impression that many of the low-time 'bus drivers have never been close to overspeed or a stall. As Retired and 'bird and Smilin' and others here will attest, the plane always talks to you. The "feeling" of the jet and the gauges/indicators come together so you can confirm what your state is.
But you have to train the crews to "feel". If they can't "feel" then you must help them to interpret the gauges and such.