I fail to understand the bickering about insignificant details. The flight we are discussing was not a test flight and is not part of the investigation. The comité d'experts (two A330 captains, one B777 captain, one aeronautical engineer, and one maintenance expert, all five pilots) asked for a demonstration and hands-on experience of some flight characteristics that are common to the A330/A340 family of aircraft. They were happy with what they got, and described their observations with the usual caveats.
As to whether the buffet they experienced was more severe or less severe than that occurring during AF 447, one only has to compare the accelerations recorded near the center of gravity on the DFDR in the BEA report with those recorded in the demonstration flight.
If Airbus carried out additional test flights in an area that hadn't been explored earlier, that would have been with a minimum flight crew wearing orange suits and parachutes, without judicial observers at the controls or even on board.
Last edited by HazelNuts39; 25th Nov 2013 at 17:15.