> Quite some time ago I stated a belief that the inhibition
> of the stall warning below a certain speed was very unlikely
> to be Airbus-specific.
> This is something I still believe quite strongly.
Just because you believe it, doesn't make it good system
design. Rather the opposite in that if the a/c is stalled
at 60 knots, then it's definately still stalled below this.
Common sense suggests that the logic should be that if the
system detects a trend downwards in airspeed that goes
through the stall warning and then on past the 60 knot limit,
the warning should stay in place until the system data is
known good and the a/s reaches a safe level. Put another way,
if the system knows that the a/c is stalled, it should assume
the worst if it has less data to work with subsequently. It's
almost as though some back room systems engineer thought:
"The sensor data is bad, so logically, we must inhibit the stall
warning", conveniently missing the whole point of the
exercise.
The success of any automated system comes down to: How intuitive
is it in use; How accurately and consistently does it communicate
current system state to human operators; How gracefully does
it degrade beyond the design limits. No matter what the report
says, I think many at AB will be peddling furiously underwater
for quite a while :-)...
Regards,
Chris