Originally Posted by
Concours77
Rat5
"....Push stick forward houses get bigger; pull stick back houses get smaller; keep pulling back houses get bigger again....."
Stick needs a pull, the aircraft was seven degrees low at loss of a/p. Then the displays went dark. After sixteen seconds the FO declared alternate law. Then THS cranked in full NU. Until impact. No Pitch, no AoA, dark, (no houses in sight), Roll Direct, difficult (if not impossible) to drop the nose.
Yes, eight years on... And still people make simple minded judgments. Mine too, I suppose.
Winnerhofer: Does France "Apportion" responsibility in its verdicts?
Sir.. The basics of the A330 TR (or basic thinking after having learnt the AGK-instruments ATPL theory course) inform us that there are at least two independent GYRO sources for attitude as well as a standby source.
(I'm not sure whether IRS3 feeds the standby horizon or not)
The gyrolasers do not freeze ! So pitch information was of course available.
AoA was available, and is not related to Pitot probes, so even though the value was not displayed (which is very debatable in my opinion), the stall warning was reliable*. Again, basic TR knowledge..
And engine instruments do not freeze as well.
That's it, that's the minimum you needed.
One sentence I heard during a conversation between confirmed engineers was the following :
"According to regulations, this type of situation [not AF447, something completely different] should be completely manageable without requiring exceptional piloting skills. In this case [not AF447], doing nothing was a perfect solution. And doing nothing absolutely does not require *exceptional piloting skills*"
* : in English whereas the rest was in French
It caused a huge laughter in the room.
But it seems that in this case (AF447), doing nothing would have required some skills (or SA)
To finish with, even if you're going to do change your altitude, why climb ?
To get higher up into the coffin corner ? To get above the performance ceiling ?
*Up to the point where CAS decreased below 60kt, which is, I was told, illegal, but is again TR knowledge.