I agree with the report. You just have to define "stability".
In "normal" the AoA/stall protections are in place. But as the report says, in that particular alternate law that night ( or anytime) there was no AoA/stall protection, but the system still tried to achieve one gee corrected for pitch attitude, regardless of speed or AoA. In other words,the plane has no significant positive static stability that we normally think of.
It doesn't have a conventional "trimmed" state until in direct law and that's because once there it does not keep trying to reach the default gee and its basic aerodynamic design takes over, which apparently is damned good and exhibits good static stability and exceptional directional stability ( if you ask me). It tries to reach the trimmed AoA according to its c.g., center of pressure and the state of all the control surfaces. Get slow and it will nose over and get fast it noses up.
Hope I am making my position clear, and it was harder us to duplicate the AF447 scenario since our pitch law included a stong AoA limiter - 15 degrees at 9 gees then almost linear function until 27 degrees and 1 gee. If we got real slow in level flight it would eventually nose over to maintain the trimmed gee, not an AoA. With gear down, we added the AoA to the mix and could actually trim for an AoA.
Last edited by gums; 26th Oct 2014 at 15:17.
Reason: typo, clarification of Viper control law