Originally Posted by Retired F4
You sure did notice, that we are discussing the "falling" here in this thread.
So underneath all this talk about FBW modes, alerting systems, flightdeck ergonomics, way we did it on tactical fighters, French politics and spectacularly flawed hypotheses leading to absurd conclusions there is actually discussion about "the falling"? Forgive me for not having the patience to dig it out under all the rubble and being left with the impression "the falling" is the elephant in the room of this thread.
Originally Posted by Garage Years
I have sat back and read the last umpteen posts and it seems there are two camps, both polarized in position - Airbus fans and Airbus not-fans.
Absolutely. One can divide posters on this thread in any stereotypical way that suits himself. Me, being biased this way, would rather use another division: ones generally able to get their facts straight and ones only occasionally able to do so. E.g: by the time second interim report was made, the recorders, with most of the wreck, had not been found. From ACARS messages and recovered flotsam it was pretty clear way the final act of the tragedy started (clogged pitots) and the way it ended (high alpha and high RoD impact wih ocean) yet how one gets from unreliable airspeed to stalling into water was mystery. Nevertheless, interim 2 notices that high-altitude cases of blocked pitots did not occur in the storm cells but rather near them, as the crews were avoiding. Finding the CVR and DFDR did confirm that crew did circumnavigate the active storm cells and did not penetrate any of them. Still we have those sticking to old conjectures, nowadays disproved and best forgotten, that AF447 entered the storm.
Originally Posted by Lonewolf 50
You left out a critical piece of the answer to that question: they practice flying so they know how the aircraft works, in all modes. That means you need to experience what happens near the edges, in a controlled environment. Doing is a critical part of training!
Actual flying is a skill susceptible to rust, unless all you do is monitor what the robot does for you.
Indeed I did but I did it on purpose. While I completely agree that hand-flying the aeroplane is a skill that can corrode quickly and deeply, I do not think it was a factor in AF447 demise. If pitch trace showed oscillation between 0° and 10°, I'd be inclined to say: "Well he was trying to get to 5° but he was too rusty to do that with any precision". Pitch and sidestick traces tell completely different story. It is almost as if the only thing CM2 could remember when stall warning went off was:
Originally Posted by Jorge Chávez
ˇArriba, siempre arriba!
...while forgetting that all the sooo complicated aerodynamic equations, Penaud diagrams and atmospheric sciences tell very simple story: "The air up here is too thin for your wings and engines to support your weight. You can go down voluntarily and orderly or otherwise, but you will go down." People praising the benefits of unusual attitude recovery training often completely misunderstand the key point of it: it is not the motor skill of pulling and pushing timely, in correct sequence and precisely to get your aeroplane upright again; it is teaching one to quickly and correctly recognize the attitude and energy then promptly choose and implement the best way to get back to normal. What is taught is mental skill, not motor and it is a fine example of what the Bill Voss meant when he said: "It is not about better stick and rudder skills". Anyway, most of the general public have just fine motor skills to fly an aeroplane. Reason only small minority can successfully fly is not in hands; it is in heads. Flying is not an intellectual exercise; good pilot has to quickly and properly asses any situation he has gotten into and react promptly yet he absolutely must rely on his knowledge and intelligence, while not allowing the emotions, such as fear and excitement, to overwhelm him. Failing that, and reverting to medieval or even prehistoric strata of the brain, he will find out the human being is evolutionary completely unadapted to flight, with fatal consequences.
Anyway, without the benefit of the modern technology, medicine and psychology, eighty years ago there was a fine fellow who understood what it takes to be a pilot and that has not changed ever since or is likely to change soon:
Originally Posted by capt Ross
Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.
Interim 2 has some very interesting notes about the behaviour of the other A330/340 pilots during UAS:
Originally Posted by BEA, interim report 2
The variations in altitude stayed within a range of more or less one thousand
feet. Five cases of a voluntary descent were observed, of which one was of
3,500 feet. These descents followed a stall warning;
(...)
Nine cases of triggering of the stall warning were observed.
(...)
The stall warning triggers when the angle of attack passes a variable threshold
value. All of these warnings are explicable by the fact that the airplane is in
alternate law at cruise mach and in turbulent zones. Only one case of triggering
was caused by clear inputs on the controls.
So out of thirtysomething cases analyzed, there was only one previous case where stall warning was activated because someone pulled, yet even then pull was turned into push and everybody lived to tell the story. Saying it were the bad pilots that made the difference between AF447 and all the other cases would be severely ignorant, as would be saying that it was the fault of the company and regulators to prepare the pilots for the eventuality. Real life, including flying, is a game of chances. It is not fair and we can load the dice, increase probabilities towards the desired outcome but we can never, ever eliminate the chance. Well trained, skillful and conservative pilot has much better odds of making it to retirement than marginally competent risk taker, yet it is possible that regular minima-buster enjoys his pension while the once excellent pilot is pushing daisies, much to shock, horror and surprise of those folks thinking in absolute terms and unable to see the world is too complicated not to include some randomness. Dark and stormy night, with the body clocks of two pilots at 4 AM, with third not far from midnight did significantly increase the risk of accident but the question is: from which level? That's the matter of not just training but also a pilot selection, initial as well as ongoing during the course of the career.
Originally Posted by jimjim1
I have the idea that the PM had a very good idea what was going on but for whatever reason he was content to watch as the pilot flying manoeuvered both of them to their deaths. + 100's of others of course.
Perish the thought, it is completely unrealistic to expect any human being to be allowed to be meekly taken to slaughter, especially as means to prevent it were at hand.
Originally Posted by PJ2
With 2900+ hrs TT and 807hrs in the A340/A330, (216hr on type), the PF almost certainly will not have experienced a significant failure with full application of adrenaline. Many will go an entire career without it, so highly-successful are the historical and present technological solutions to the safety of flight.
Exactly. That's how many a flying ignorant has a successful career and some 10 000+ greybeards die after making a beginner's mistake.
Originally Posted by PJ2
We cannot give a course in "More Experience".
Nor we should. What we need is more knowledge and better psychological selection. IIRC tolerance to the presence of danger without actively seeking it is the most sought after trait in any pilot.
Originally Posted by Old Cartusian
Any pilot needs to be aware of all the factors that might limit his/her performance and how to mitigate them as much as possible.
Indeed, but the problem is how does the affected one recognizes that he is affected? I'm exaggerating, but it is not entirely different to Raptor pilots suffering from hypoxia having to remember where the ring that activates the seat oxygen bottle is.
Originally Posted by Machinbird
The newer pilots have few opportunities to hand fly their aircraft and operate mostly supervising the navigation computers of their aircraft and communicating with ATC, the second and third legs of the Aviate, Navigate, Communicate priority mandate. Why should they be comfortable stepping into the Aviate role when situation or system failures demand it?
Not entirely. I recently got the fellow that made it to Q400 with 170 hours total time and 50 hours later got his line release - perfectly legal. He flies very neatly, knows procedures, limitations and systems very well, is willing to learn but also quick to correct me when I get it wrong. It is about actual hands-on practice but not as much as proper selection, proper training and, above all, enthusiasm for flying. DP Davies has it right.
There are far more newbies doing the job right than wrong, but the situations when they helped turn occurrence to non-event make it only to internal safety bulletins and are not discussed on PPRuNE. Unlike AF447.
Originally Posted by Grizzled
We are all partisans.
Being partisan is not bad by itself. Being partisan fighting for own prejudices, ideology and agenda, is.
Originally Posted by PJ2
If this phenomenon isn’t understood for whatit is, both politics and the law will continue the trend to find out who to blame and then crucify individuals at the pointy end.
Correct. Bill Watterson neatly summed up that attitude:
