Thank you for your contribution, PJ2.
You explain the handling of the SS ion the different phases of the flight, and i have no reason to think otherwise. But do we know, what the procedure for hand flying the A330 on long haul flights is with AF and how much practice in the real aircraft that left outside the T/O and landing regime? When do they take over in the landing phase? When established on final no input is needed until flare mode activates, correct? As you describe and as i understand the NZ law, no stick input is required if no change of flight path is intended. Can we talk about flying manual in this case?
Imho no, it is changing flightpath manual instead of pushing buttons or turning knobs, but thatīs it. Bank angle compensation acounts for no need to make any pitch adjustment when turning and autothrottle takes care of the energy management . The FBW concept as implemented here reduces the necessity for pilot input to one single axis operation concept. There is no necessity to manage all three axis of the aircraft and the energy at the same time with elevators, ailerons, rudder and throttles at the same time, meaning with manual inputs trained in years of expierience. Itīs reduced to "point and let go, the system will take care of the rest ". Wether you do it with SS , a yoke or the knop on the dash board is no longer important. Itīs a nobrainer.
When AF447 dumped AP, ATHR, normal law and protections together with the speed indication in the blink of a second, the PF was forced to use strategies he was no longer trained for. No system was taking care of roll when he concentrated on pitch, no autothrust was taking care of the energy management, and no bank angle protection available to stabilize the pitch during roll.
Letīs look at a different thing, which keeps me thinking about
:
The aircraft responds to a sidestick order with a pitch rate at low speed and a flight path rate or g at high speed. When no input is made on the sidestick, the computers maintain a 1g flight path.
We know, that the aircraft maintains stick free 1g, and that SS commands a change of g blended with pitch rate starting below 210 knots. In a newspaper article from the early A320 flights i remeber, that the ratio is 50/50 at 150 Knots. The speed responsible used for this changeover was faulty, down to 60 knots which would equal nearly a pure pitch rate change. But the aircraft was traveling still at over 230 knots in the regime where only g command should be present. I could not find any reference from where we could draw a conclusion, wether this different SS command would have influenced the outcome of any SS order. There is reason, that this changeover takes place in the low speed regime, what influence does it create wehen this changeover is taking place when the airframe is still above the change over regime in degraded mode?
The assumption, that the PF initiated and sustained that climb intentionally disregarding all basic principles of flight, busting assigned FL, disregarding CRM and not anouncing his intentions neither to the PNF nor later to the captain explains all following events. Itīs an easy solution (just change the pilot everything else is fine), but itīs based on thin or even no evidence.