Originally Posted by petrolhead
Why has no one asked what they were doing in that cloud in the first place?
I spend a lot of time in clouds and no one has ever asked me what I am doing there in the first place.
Originally Posted by petrolhead
Why did they not take vectors like other aircraft?
No one has ever taken vectors in the middle of Atlantic and this is not going to change for a considerable time.
Originally Posted by petrolhead
Was the radar display turned up so they could see it?
It was. Getting acquainted with the matter discussed saves bandwidth.
Originally Posted by deSitter
I mean, was there any evaluation at all of the weather ahead?
Yes. Covered in interim 3 and final report.
Originally Posted by deggers316
what wrong with flying "by the seat of ya pants"
When you are supposed to fly by instruments, each and every part of it.
Originally Posted by Organfreak
Once terminal velocity is achieved (can't fall any faster), vertical acceleration ceases, and thus no Gs are felt.
At terminal velocity vertical acceleration ceases at 1G exactly, thus 1G is felt. Anyway, believing the somatogravic and balance senses is actively discouraged in instrument flying - for a good reason.
Originally Posted by soylentgreen
To me, the question is this:
Given an identical situation, what % of professional pilots (or perhaps '3 man groups of pilots') would flub it and crash the plane?
Those who have been paying attention know that between Nov 12 2003 and Aug 07 2009, there were 37 recorded cases of unreliable airspeed on A330/340 worldwide. 36 of them ended without damage to aircraft or injury to anyone. One ended up in airframe write-off and death of all on board.
Study you proposed has already been done. Results are in the final report. Your notion that:
Originally Posted by Soylentgreen
A big part of this was the human-machine interface, which did an extremely poor job of letting the pilots know what was actually going on.
...is not confirmed.
Originally Posted by soylentgreen
Thanks to those who liked my post
You are welcome, even as I liked it as a very good example of bad science.
Originally Posted by ChrisJ800
they are also flying close to coffin corner.
Read the final report and let's get rid of this nonsense of coffin corner on modern turbofan transports once and for all.
Originally Posted by deSitter
And I just can't imagine a pilot who has no interest in airplanes
Lucky you. I even need not imagine and can not object when I get rostered with such individuals. They have all the necessary paperwork in order and I can't even get additional pay for 1 1/2 pilots operation.
Originally Posted by Rengineer
Could any of you professionals here explain what knowledge of flight physics is taught to pilots in their training
This: CDBDA AADCD BAADC CADCB BABCD AACDB BACDA. I kid you not.
Originally Posted by Rengineer
how much most of them will remember after ten or so years on the job?
Depends on individual, as mentioned in DP Davies "Handling the big jets", chapter 11: To airline pilots. Those in love with flying will know it. Those in love with status, don't really know it even as they pass the exams by rote learning from question databanks.
Originally Posted by Rengineer
I would have thought that any pilot, in instrument conditions, would monitor basic things like their artificial horizon and variometer, displayed on the primary flight displays.
Certifying authorities share your belief.
Originally Posted by Rengineer
Do we have to conclude that these don't give enough of a clue to diagnose a high-altitude stall?
No. Final report doesn't give comprehensive list of all A330/340 events but does point that reaction to stall warning in cases that could be analyzed was either maintaining the attitude or pushing. Never pulling. Either reaction kept the aeroplanes flying. Stall warnings were recorded, stall never.
Originally Posted by JOE-FBS
I was taught (over simplifying slightly for discussion) that if you don't know what is happening with the airspeed, set cruise power and put the AI in the middle with the wings level and things will settle to a point where you are in control again. Does that work at M0.8 at FL350?
It does. Issue is no one on the flightdeck recognized the unreliable airspeed. CM1 just added to CM2's confusion as he first said "we have no good indication of speed" just to warn "Watch your speed" few seconds later.
Originally Posted by lomapaseo
It's impossible to train for every specific malfunction as it is impossible to annunciate every specific malfunction. Somehow there must be a balance.
How about getting more guys like Walter Hughen, Samuel Tyson, Robert Schornstheimer, Dennis Fitch or Eric Gennotte into flightdecks?
Who?
My point exactly.
Originally Posted by fireflybob
Flying is very simple but there are a lot of people around trying to make it as complicated as possible.
To get to the point where it is easy takes dedication, capability and a lot of work. Those management types that think any of the ingredients can be omitted and 18 mths quick courses can turn anyone into pilot are fooling... probably on the others' expense.
Originally Posted by carjockey
Is their no backup system available in the event of pitot tube failure?
It's called pilots.
Originally Posted by ATC Watcher
The answer to that one was given during the BEA debrief/press briefing : There was a sudden Christmas tree with lots of warning , sounds including ice pellets hitting the windows and most probably the PF concentrated his action looking at one thing only and erasing all others, especially the sounds. This is a normal physiological reaction apparently.
Well then, if this is normal, all the other crews made abnormal reactions, yet it saved their bacon.
Originally Posted by chuks
I have noticed with interest the sort of stall recovery training given in two-crew aircraft. Where once we were taught, in little airplanes, to get the nose well down and accept a loss in altitude, the advanced way to do this was presented as a call-out of 'Stall!' at the first indication, going to full power, but putting the nose on the horizon reference and powering out with no or very little loss of altitude.
Pretty demonstration of inability to differentiate between "approach to stall recovery" and "stall recovery". Not a factor if you manage to spend all of your flying life above 1.3 Vs or 1.23 Vs1g.