"stallproof" poof!
Yep, the cosmic FBW system and all its "potections" will prevent stalling the jet. Right. Well...... maybe due to excessive pilot control inputs in "normal" law and fairly benign pitch and roll attitudes.
So over 35 years ago, our small group learned that you could, indeed, stall the F-16, despite all of its "protections". One way was to command max roll rate while at a high AoA and an assymetric load ( think a thousand pounder on one wing and nothing on the other, and a jet that weighs about 22,000 pounds in basic combat mode). So the sucker would depart controlled flight, and the rudder/anti-spin logic resulted in a quick recovery. I actually did a tail slide one day due to a stoopid maneuver while looking at the "bandit". Straight up and got too slow for effective control surfaces. I just let the thing fall over and waited. Sucker came right out once speed got above 100 knots or so.
Our "deep stall" ( not deeply stalled as AF447) mode had the same entry conditions and pilot inputs as AF447. Although we had a dramatically higher pitch attitude, the process was identical. Command a pitch attitude and have the jet lose energy faster than thrust can overcome. As with the 'bus that night, the thing would settle into a fairly gentle "falling leaf" mode. Unlike the 'bus, we had to use a manual mode fo the stabilator, as we had no pitch down authority, but plenty of pitch up authority. So "rock" the pitch attitude and a cycle or two later the nose came down long enough to get effective control.
The big difference in our system was it believed the AoA!! It did this if our pitot-static system went awry. It used the last AoA probe that showed "movement" if the other two were static or frozen.
PJ's war story about his checkout using otto for 90% of the profile scares the hell outta me. I can understand the emphasis upon all the things otto can do, will do, is supposed to do. But first ya gotta learn to fly the plane, huh?
The new jets with FBW are easy to fly, regardless of what features otto has. There's no reason to avoid flying the things "manually", IMHO. It keeps you in the loop, and the Asiana crash shows the result of assuming otto is taking care of business except for pointing the nose.
I do not like the 'bus throttle implementation that has no feedback in most modes. Throttle should move if otto commands the engines to change thrust. The new F-35 has a similar mode for the vertical landing process, admittedly an unusual aircraft maneuver, and the FBW system controls actual thrust according to stick and throttle inputs. Hit the big "mode" button and now throttle controls forward or backward, while stick controls up or down or left/right. Whew!!! Lots easier than the Harrier. The biggie is that the F-35 stick and throttle have "force feedback" determined by control surface load and engine thrust. So you know that you have reached the limits of what otto is trying to do for you.
All for know - poof!