Overspeed? Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the sidestick was pushed forward the speed increased to above 60KIAS and then the Stall Warning came back on. What sort of feedback message does that send?
Autotrim when handflying is bad news; nice and geeky when all is well but precisely what you don't want when things go pear-shaped. Either you're fully flying it ie trimming as well or the AP is in.
Well I think I understand why the Stall Warning came back on when the airspeed increased past 60KIAS and if so it's makes perfect logical sense.
However I think Airbus should have programmed their software better so that the aircraft's system knew they were in the air in a very unusual
circumstance (low speed) but at altitude. Basically I think the system is programmed by logic that if it sees a speed below 60KIAS it is silenced.
I still can't fathom why the crew could not understand (at least initially when the captain wasn't in the cockpit) in which state of flight their aircraft was in.
I don't care if the stall warning was going on and off several times which is a major clue in itself when your airspeed is at or near zero, your attitude is wrong, your bloody VSI is showing a rate of descent near 10,000 feet/minute (or whatever is the max rate is on the Airbus) and with the altimeters showing you that you are losing altitude at a very high rate and speeding towards the surface of the Earth or ocean in this case... All of those clues are a tell, tell that
you are in a stall!
Autotrim when hand flying is a bad thing, not necessarily imo!
I see it as an option, a built-in option and I think I know why Airbus included it. I think they decided this in the initial phase of development... Why not have Autotrim when the pilot is flying it manually since we have it (as in most other aircrafts) when the AP is controlling the aircraft. It would be just a nice feature and relieve another action (manual/electrical trimming) from the piloting. I'm sure some of the very old timer said the same thing about autopilots, flight directors, FMS systems etc when they first appeared.
Now not knowing the Airbus, it would perhaps be better if not only a visual warning appeared but also an audio warning like "Autotrim Fail" or "Use/Revert Manual Trim".
Same thing could/should be done with both visual and audio warnings when the aircraft reverts from "Normal Law" to "Alternate or Direct Law".
This would perhaps help the situation in a critical phase of flight.