gums, re, "I like the 'bus clontrol laws in "normal" . They are about what I would expect for the mission and the mechanical design limts of the jet. So my problem is with reversion laws and lack of indications that the jet has reached trim l;imits or AoA limits or.......
- My comment about continuing a climb with stick in "neutral" stands. Until the Alpha stuff comes into play, PLZ show me where the jet will nose over or act like the "old" ones most of us flew years ago. In other words, if energy and AoA allow, the jet will continue to climb after you relax the stick. It will also trim the THS as long as it can. "
The continued climb is the normal result of increased pitch and added thrust, (MACH/SPEED A/T mode when autothrust engaged) to maintain speed - little if any autotrim due speed being maintained. The Alpha stuff doesn't come into play under these circumstances.
In Alt I & Alt II laws, alpha floor is inactive as we know. If the speed reduces as per the scenario you describe, the pitch is gently reduced with reference to speed, (not AoA), as the aircraft approaches within 5 to 10kts of Vs. The pilot can override this pitch down demand. At the same time, the autoflight system reverts to Direct Law.
It would be an odd, though not an unknown set of circumstances for a pilot to increase pitch, or not increase thrust / reduce pitch in response to decreasing airspeed, (see Goldenrivett's link), but just leave the airplane to its own devices, (ie., permitting speed loss, as in the linked incident and for the AMS B737 fatal accident). A pitch-up order from the SS or AP/AT for the A320/A330/A340 series would result in increased thrust in Normal law because the AT's would be in either MACH or SPEED mode. If the AT is disengaged for some reason, (that would be rare/odd - Alt I & II Laws, etc or someone just hand-flying), then the above nose-down demand applies.
Regarding the incentive to learn about one's airplane, I couldn't agree more strongly. However, there seems a "sea-change" in attitude regarding the knowing-of-one's-airplane where NTK has overtaken N&B's learning. Don't know how prevalent such surface knowledge is regarding knowing the machine that is always trying to kill one, but I'm not impressed with some of the incidents seen in that their "character" has changed from weather/navigation/system-failure/mid-air to LOC & CFIT, both of which have robust prevention systems, providing one knows one's airplane and one's craft.
Last edited by PJ2; 24th Jan 2015 at 19:27.