PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - American Airlines Flight 742 "flight control system" problems
Old 22nd Mar 2013, 00:30
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Ashling
 
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Sully did a great job on the day and we can only hope that, if called upon, we could perform as well.

However he didn't do everything perfectly and flew @ 15-20kts slow for the config he was in for a good deal of the time and was unaware that he was doing so for bits of it. Thats why he ended up in alpha protection at about 200'

Maybe in a 737 (which will let you stall) he could have finessed the flare a bit or maybe he would have stalled, we will never know. The Airbus prevented us finding out as it stopped the aircraft's alpha increasing @ 3 degrees short of the stall by entering Alpha Prot. In my view thats better than risking a stall, I accept others see it differently

While we may not be able to agree on the merits of Airbus's control laws, and they are complex, hopefully we can agree that flying 15-20 kts below manoeuver speed is not ideal.
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