Me thinks that Cland and Gums are on the same page for most of the philosophy here.
I can also appreciate the enginnering inputs from Doze, but saw many well-intentioned "engineers" suggest inputs to our FBW system and other stuff that we operators threw out. They were mainly "protections" and such, including a FCS "pull up" if Hal thot we were gonna auger if we exceeded pitch and altitude and such trying to hit our target. (99.9% of we pilots threw the notion out. There comes a time when "pressing" just a little bit makes the difference, and ya take your chances.) So we opted for a big flashing "X" in the HUD when HAL thot we were pressing too hard. Ignore it at your peril, and I have HUD film of a friend that ignored and paid the the price.
The mentality ( attn Doze) that the system acted like it was designed has some problems if the aircrews don't fully understand the "system". And as I have oft-repeated, the 'bus reversions modes are complicated and should be more straightforward. The basic FCS system should be basic enough in the reversion modes to HELP the pilot and not confuse the pilot about what protection is still here and what isn't. And as Cland and I seem to agree, there's a huge role for basic airmanship.
@ Cland:
- AoA is, indeed, a factor at mach approaching "critical" mach and such. The airfoils nowadays are much smoother than the old ones I flew. Only flew three that had significant warnings you were gonna get into trouble. And I admit that I flew airfoils that could exceed the mach ( M=1.0) without losing control of the jet.
- Aspect ratio and the airfoil shape of four of the jets I flew definitely made thos jets more tolerant of doing strange things when flying at "the limit: as the AF447 were doing when things went south.
- Running outta "E" is still a player, and the Russian crash might show that when the crew did a go-around to an extreme pitch attitude. But that's another thread.
It took us some very extreme pitch attitude/power combinations to run outta "E", and then exceed the aero surfaces' capabilities to keep us under control. I just can't see such with the heavies without serious airmanship problems.
I appreciate the oppo to add to this discussion, and have learned a lot from the heavy pilots here.