Thank you, EMIT.
I had an hour and re-read the last interim report and mainly the annotated CVR with system conditions and sensor readouts and.....
I still cry. If was already a ghost ( not there quite there yet), and whispering in those guys' ears, I think I could have helped a lot.
A surprising thing I saw and not focused upon was the bank angles. They re-inforced my initial feeling that the jet was in a really good stall and close to a spin or other completed loss of control. I had previously believed it was more stable in the roll and yaw axis.
And BTW, I flew about 500 hours in the T-33 and we had a climb rate at 35,000 ft of about 1,000 fpm. BFD.
I come back to the basic control laws and the blatant disregard for AoA when airspeed data is deemed unreliable by Hal. So I took my primitive FBW system laws and divided by eight.
- max AoA about 4 degrees
- max gee about 1 or 2 gees
That seemed close enough to fit the 'bus, IMHO.
Our system used the gee input until it hit the AoA limit, then AoA ruled! Our body rates were also in the loop and would come to play if the speed, gee and AoA stuff went FUBAR.
So I look at the traces and annotation and can't understand why the AoA inputs couldn't "limit" or "protect" compared to what I had experienced. So my feeling is that the crew was still locked into the belief that the jet could not be pulled hard enough to stall. And some of the comments seem to indicate this - "we have been trying to climb", and similar.
I then cut the crew some slack and blame the system for the disregard of AoA if weight is off the gear, regardless of the airspeed inputs' validity. AoA rules!! It's something we were taught as clueless yutes when 15 or 16 years old and learning to fly in Cessnas and Luscombes and Aeronicas and....
Further, the warning/advisory systems didn't seem to help.
The "connected" side sticks" argument still has life, but pitch and power still rules, as does some good comm between the folks in the multi-pilot planes. I don't buy all of the side stick complaints, but they do have merit.
As with another contributor here, the final report and recommendations shall be a landmark.