Dozy:
You can have computers operating on single data sources in a fighter with a bang seat, because if everything goes to plaid the single human occupant can egress safely in mid-air. This doesn't work for airliners, so the only safe way to apply the technology is to check, cross-check and re-check.
it's not either / or. That same check/cross check is required even for fancy fighters. Also, most modern fighters, F-16 to present, have considerable redundancy built in, for both reliability reasons and the operational environment the planes will be in: likely something hits you that takes out a system, or degrades is. Not a lot of single point failure systems hitting production, and that's been true for a while.
HazelNuts39
"I've lost control"
Probably referring to roll rather than pitch?
As I look at MM43's chart, he's already been stalled for a bit (~32 seconds) before he realizes that he has lost the ability to control the aircraft, or at least he feels that way.
OCF (Out of Control Flight) is roughly defined as
"You make a control input and the aircraft doesn't do what it is supposed to do, or what you expect it to do."
At 32 seconds into being stalled, per mm43's graph/picture, the pilot says to his cabin mate "I've lost control" and finally acknowledges that he is in OCF. What doesn't get added up and understood is that he is in OCF, and he is OCF because the aircraft is stalled ... even though the warning that he is approaching stall (and also in stall) has sounded quite a bit in the last minute or so.
While I don't think he just means roll, roll is doubtless a problem for hims since the airfoil has been stalled for about half a minute.
Owain said it far more thoroughly, I was speaking from a pilot's point of view.
The line from Owain that gets me weeping ...
10. The only vestige of control left to him would have been a steady application of down elevator to reduce AoA, after which the other problems would disappear. Tragically this was the one option he did not try.
So: why didn't he know he was stalled?
That warning had been available as a cue.
Why didn't he believe it/
Why didn't PNF believe it?
If he was in fact trying to fly 15 deg nose up, on purpose, at that cruise altitude ... WHY?
I don't think he was just making up things to do for himself, he seems to have had the idea that "if I do this, my problem will be closer to solved."
Why did he believe that?
Provisional conclusion: training issue.
Dozy, and others:
When discussing degradation, maybe "gradual" might be a better way to think of it, than "graceful" ... since the odds of graceful performance decrase as degradation increases.
A pilot should never be so mentally disengaged from the aircraft that it takes almost a minute for him to realize he is seriously off altitude. This was the initial piloting problem leading to the downfall of AF447.
Am I being unrealistic?
No.