"First the airplane stalled (quit flying because the Angle of Attack was too great). Then, because of the steady back pressure on the sidestick, the autotrim wound the Trimmable Horizontal Stabilizer (more powerful than the elevators) to full nose up."
Disagree, strongly....
Follow the stick traces (both sides) then show us how the THS was "responding" to stick inputs. Instead, it initiated and sustained a smoothe, even travel to the stop...and remained in that position until impact....
Further, the Horizontal stabilizer stopped almost a full degree shy of "full travel". This suggests perhaps a mechanical issue....
If the THS were relying wholly on the stick to conform this automatic travel, it would have articulated in synch with the stick, per Alternate Law, Pitch..... (Not smoothly). To reconcile this movement would imply the FCM somehow "knew" the Pilot wanted full travel, or it was programmed to independently input full Nose Up.
"because we must know not only why F/O Robert stalled the aircraft, but much more importantly why he didn’t know he had stalled it, why he had a totally inaccurate picture of what was happening, and why there was a complete absence of situational awareness on that Flight Deck."
False. Robert did not Stall the aircraft, Pilot flying was Pierre Cedric Bonin.....who was F/O and RHS.
(Paraphrase): this author claims the a/c flies just as any other, that it has "positive longitudinal stability".
If it had, it likely would have been recoverable, instead of remaining nose high at the Stall....(the Nose would have dropped significantly, signaling the Stall, and cueing recovery....)
What about the Trimmable Horizontal Stabiliser? Calling it "Trim" is misleading. As it cranks in Nose Up, it is fundamentally changing the Angle of Incidence of the Stabiliser, not its trim. Any deviation from neutral Angle of Incidence changes the neutral point of the Stabiliser and its ability to provide a consistent downforce. In short, the character of the maneuverability of the airframe in Pitch is altered, imparting a stubborn bias to the Pitch control. At full THS Nose Up, the aircraft cannot alter its Pitch away from Full Nose Up, the elevators are essentially useless.
Last edited by Concours77; 4th Feb 2017 at 20:23.