Originally Posted by
gums
BTW, Roulli had a great discussion on the USAF tanker crash due to "dutch roll". It seems to have a fair amount of PIO present once the yaw and roll got out of phase.
Aye, but let's not forget that the A330 is a much more modern design and its more advanced aerofoil and yaw damper designs make it much more forgiving.
In all fairness to Doze, his idea of the "startle factor" seems to have a basis. But sheesh. We were trained to not get hyper-startled and do things until we figured out what was going wrong.
Of course, but what I've been trying to get at is that the training as it stands might not be enough. Specifically I'm concerned about the "inexperience" or "magenta line" narrative overshadowing the fact that we've had several accidents now where even very experienced pilots have been spooked by a sudden abnormality and proceeded to respond in such a way that their aircraft was lost. Startle effect isn't a new phenomenon, but it is nevertheless somewhat poorly-understood on the line. To be frank, I'd be inclined to consider it a type of incapacitation that needs to not only be trained against on an individual level, but also trained in terms of recognition in one's colleagues and consequent assumption of control until the colleague calms down.