AF447 wreckage found
GY, great illustration.
Ladies and gents, if I may repost something CRITICAL to aviation safety ... from aquadalte ...
To serve man ... that is the purpose of the machine.
Period.
Ladies and gents, if I may repost something CRITICAL to aviation safety ... from aquadalte ...
My dear Safety, I could not disagree more. The question is exactly the opposite. It is the technology that has to serve humans, therefore, it is the technology that has to be in tune with human factors. If you were a pilot, you would understand my point of view.
Period.
Except that your analysis is not borne out in reality...
I have flown several aircraft with central control sticks from Cubs and similar light airplanes to fighter jets. I have also flown the AH-1W Cobra helicopter with a right-side control stick that moved (yes, actually MOVED) in the normal fore-aft and left-right axes. NONE of those were even remotely "painful." All of them fell naturally to hand.
I have flown several aircraft with central control sticks from Cubs and similar light airplanes to fighter jets. I have also flown the AH-1W Cobra helicopter with a right-side control stick that moved (yes, actually MOVED) in the normal fore-aft and left-right axes. NONE of those were even remotely "painful." All of them fell naturally to hand.
I guess there are just folks that refuse to see to control for what it is - there is also a wrist rest - the arm doesn't move, only the wrist and fingers.
Differing perceptions
GarageYears:
I guess all those joyful hours I spent flying Decathalons, Citabrias and Super Cubs gave me an entirely different perspective than yours. I find the "center stick" arrangement quite natural and easy to make precise control inputs with. It took me just a matter of minutes to adapt. It's not just me either.
Sidestick controllers came into vogue in the past couple of decades and I've yet to fly a plane so equipped. I'm sure they're fine too when properly designed with sensible force/motion/feedback (feel) built in. Long-EZ and Airbus pilots seem to like it. Pilots have adapted to a number of differing man/machine interface system designs over the course of aviation history. Some worked better and were more accepted than others. Some arrangements are better suited to certain missions. But you won't find many pilots with "stick" time who think it's a bad or even uncomfortable system to use. I'll agree that "center sticks" probably won't be anyone's first choice for installation on large transports!
The lack of motion interconnect on the Airbus sidesticks is something worthy of consideration though...
I guess all those joyful hours I spent flying Decathalons, Citabrias and Super Cubs gave me an entirely different perspective than yours. I find the "center stick" arrangement quite natural and easy to make precise control inputs with. It took me just a matter of minutes to adapt. It's not just me either.
Sidestick controllers came into vogue in the past couple of decades and I've yet to fly a plane so equipped. I'm sure they're fine too when properly designed with sensible force/motion/feedback (feel) built in. Long-EZ and Airbus pilots seem to like it. Pilots have adapted to a number of differing man/machine interface system designs over the course of aviation history. Some worked better and were more accepted than others. Some arrangements are better suited to certain missions. But you won't find many pilots with "stick" time who think it's a bad or even uncomfortable system to use. I'll agree that "center sticks" probably won't be anyone's first choice for installation on large transports!
The lack of motion interconnect on the Airbus sidesticks is something worthy of consideration though...
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JenCluse
Love your post and agree completely. Nice to see that more and more FBW experienced pilots (read this Safety?) admonish the absence of a vitally fundamental in Airbus cockpits.
As to the sidestick discussion:
There is no problem with a sidestick.
After 25 years of J3 stick, MD yokes, even the Bonanza Z-yoke, it took me 15 minutes to get used to the Airbus sidestick, be it with the left or with the right hand. It flies very well, is nicely precise, confirmed by all Airbus pilots.
I'd take a sidestick over a fossil yoke anytime, had it a tactile feedback though ....
What we focus on, is not what kind of a stick it is, or where it's located, but what it does.
Or what it does not and what the consequences are in terms of safety, stubborn denial from the lobby or not.
Love your post and agree completely. Nice to see that more and more FBW experienced pilots (read this Safety?) admonish the absence of a vitally fundamental in Airbus cockpits.
As to the sidestick discussion:
There is no problem with a sidestick.
After 25 years of J3 stick, MD yokes, even the Bonanza Z-yoke, it took me 15 minutes to get used to the Airbus sidestick, be it with the left or with the right hand. It flies very well, is nicely precise, confirmed by all Airbus pilots.
I'd take a sidestick over a fossil yoke anytime, had it a tactile feedback though ....
What we focus on, is not what kind of a stick it is, or where it's located, but what it does.
Or what it does not and what the consequences are in terms of safety, stubborn denial from the lobby or not.
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No, a stick is pivoted at the floor - correct? And the hand grips the stick in the palm with your fingers wrapped around - right? This has a totally different movement and total throw, compared to a joystick type controller. The total throw is what... 3 inches max forward/back for the joystick. Very different and uses a completely different set of muscles.
I guess there are just folks that refuse to see to control for what it is - there is also a wrist rest - the arm doesn't move, only the wrist and fingers.
I guess there are just folks that refuse to see to control for what it is - there is also a wrist rest - the arm doesn't move, only the wrist and fingers.
And, NO, I do not grip a stick in the palm! Depending on the airplane, different parts of the FINGERS are used to grip the stick (and occasionally braced with the edge of the palm), but SELDOM with the fingers wrapped around!
Regardless of the total throw, the grip on either a conventional center stick or a sidestick is VERY dependent on the individual installation. You apparently have little or no experience flying real airplanes with stick controls...
While there may be a wrist rest in SOME airplanes, and SOME sidesticks use no arm movement, that is definitely NOT a universal truth! A brace for the forearm or elbow may well replace a wrist rest. I doubt you could fly a Cobra without arm movement, though it may be possible in an F-16 or A3xx (I've flown neither of the last 2).
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It is the technology that has to serve humans, therefore, it is the technology that has to be in tune with human factors.
That the throttle levers do not move to echo the fuel flow demand is (IMHO) another piece of almost criminal engineering ignorance and arrogance. So easy to incorporate that it implies a deliberate attempt to remove the pilot from the loop. The non-pilots dream of having control of an aircraft?
The technology is in tune with humans but the ultimate or primary goal may not be to serve pilots interests. We are in a transition phase to pilotless aircraft. The significant influence which will determine how quick or how slow this is implemented will be public perception
Many of you will remember the introduction of computers and hand held calculators. Apparently they were rubbish because they kept making mistakes in their calculations. The mistake however was more often than not the user. Rubbish in, rubbish out.
Early FBW pilots used to complain the aircraft did this or that without their input only to find out on examining the flight data that they did in fact move the stick and they did in fact cause the input.
In both the above cases very occasionally the system was at fault. Despite all the complaints at the time, I doubt there are many that support going back to human filing systems or the abacus.
I am sure many of you have used the driversless trains at some modern airports.
This harping on about the good ol days will not achieve much. There is no safety case. Even older generation aircraft had their own character including the spitfire which suffered from handling difficulties if the c of g was too far aft. Pilots however tuned in to the aircraft.
Number of aircraft in service, number of flights, number of fatalities all indicate proven technology. Humans remain the weakest link. Until the safety case is proven I still believe the argument should be about training and not technology.
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Safety
1. No one wants to go back to the good old days. Repeating that eternally doesn't make it true.
2. If you pretend that there is no safety case basically takes you out of the discussion equation.
3. Arguing that even on the other planes some guys crashed is only an infantile argument, not a valid one (look Mama, he did it too ...).
Look at the one in question, with its technology, try to fix that and then go on to the other.
You need to understand one thing:
To really and objectively judge if there is a safety issue, you need to have operated both systems (with and without feedback/driveback). Many pilots who actually have, joined us who ask to have all the new technology kept in the systems, but add tactile feedback to Airbusses. For the sake of enabling the pilot to better do what he is kept for in a modern airliner.
No engineer, no FS pilot, not even PPL pilots would have the real time experience of both designs.
This should not be taken as arrogance, but as sheer fact.
In science and technology there is no such thing as "that's the way it is, adapt or leave" (didn't I hear such cr@p before? Right, it was something like "love it or leave it").
Science has to try different approaches, otherwise its results mean zilch.
I miss the differentiated approach to this particular issue. Instead of stubbornly denying anything could be missing, why not try and install such devices on a trial aircraft. Boeing had a sidestick with driveback developped, only to have the United pilots request back the yoke (now here is a classic case of what you described Safety, I admit and condemn).
Get it and install it.
This aircraft could then be evaluated by all sides in such replicated upsets.
I would certainly volunteer and go for such test for free.
1. No one wants to go back to the good old days. Repeating that eternally doesn't make it true.
2. If you pretend that there is no safety case basically takes you out of the discussion equation.
3. Arguing that even on the other planes some guys crashed is only an infantile argument, not a valid one (look Mama, he did it too ...).
Look at the one in question, with its technology, try to fix that and then go on to the other.
You need to understand one thing:
To really and objectively judge if there is a safety issue, you need to have operated both systems (with and without feedback/driveback). Many pilots who actually have, joined us who ask to have all the new technology kept in the systems, but add tactile feedback to Airbusses. For the sake of enabling the pilot to better do what he is kept for in a modern airliner.
No engineer, no FS pilot, not even PPL pilots would have the real time experience of both designs.
This should not be taken as arrogance, but as sheer fact.
In science and technology there is no such thing as "that's the way it is, adapt or leave" (didn't I hear such cr@p before? Right, it was something like "love it or leave it").
Science has to try different approaches, otherwise its results mean zilch.
I miss the differentiated approach to this particular issue. Instead of stubbornly denying anything could be missing, why not try and install such devices on a trial aircraft. Boeing had a sidestick with driveback developped, only to have the United pilots request back the yoke (now here is a classic case of what you described Safety, I admit and condemn).
Get it and install it.
This aircraft could then be evaluated by all sides in such replicated upsets.
I would certainly volunteer and go for such test for free.
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Been following the thread for a while and some good valid points are being put across from both sides but some folks are arguing for the sake of it, @Dozzy i think you are missing the point or deliberately trying to push peoples buttons, it had been earlier explained very clearly that the NWA 727 crew didnt push nose down though they had a yoke, simply because they both believed that their actions were correct trying to recover from a percieved overspeed as opposed to the AF PF who had no clue what he was doing and his PM had no way of seeing his control column inputs.
Now i crawl slowly back to my woodwork...
Now i crawl slowly back to my woodwork...
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"Pretending" there isn't a safety case.
In the 60's and 70's we had more accidents. We also had analogue aircraft with cable runs, AOA indicators and stick feedback crashing. We also had pilots who were human and unfortunately the biggest single cause of accidents.
In the 21st century we have removed the cable runs, removed the feedback (on some a/c), significantly increased automation but we still have pilots and we still have accidents.
Although the accidents have significantly reduced the number one cause is still pilot error yet the safety statistics and results of accident investigation show no significant difference between Boeing philosophy and Airbus philosophy.
Designers will be continuously monitoring operation and performance for improvements including of course accident causes. The aircraft are different, the way flying is conducted today is different yet there really is a valid argument about training and time "hands on". Is it sufficient?
There isn't however, yet at least, a valid argument about the technology. The industry remains driven by cost and safety. Until you can present a case that meets one of those criteria nothing will change.
On that basis it would appear that change isn't coming so industry has accepted that pilot error remains the issue and not technology. That is not meant to be derogatory just a statement of how it is today for those outside your bubble.
In the 60's and 70's we had more accidents. We also had analogue aircraft with cable runs, AOA indicators and stick feedback crashing. We also had pilots who were human and unfortunately the biggest single cause of accidents.
In the 21st century we have removed the cable runs, removed the feedback (on some a/c), significantly increased automation but we still have pilots and we still have accidents.
Although the accidents have significantly reduced the number one cause is still pilot error yet the safety statistics and results of accident investigation show no significant difference between Boeing philosophy and Airbus philosophy.
Designers will be continuously monitoring operation and performance for improvements including of course accident causes. The aircraft are different, the way flying is conducted today is different yet there really is a valid argument about training and time "hands on". Is it sufficient?
There isn't however, yet at least, a valid argument about the technology. The industry remains driven by cost and safety. Until you can present a case that meets one of those criteria nothing will change.
On that basis it would appear that change isn't coming so industry has accepted that pilot error remains the issue and not technology. That is not meant to be derogatory just a statement of how it is today for those outside your bubble.
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talking about a bubble ....
Well, I think I have to rest my case, as the tecno bubble seems to have a greater surface tension, mainly financially driven, than the genuine safety concern bubble of pilots.
You know, the ones with their bums inside the thing.
Brave new world
so industry has accepted that pilot error remains the issue and not technology
Well, I think I have to rest my case, as the tecno bubble seems to have a greater surface tension, mainly financially driven, than the genuine safety concern bubble of pilots.
You know, the ones with their bums inside the thing.
Brave new world
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Feedback - well, it might improve things or it might not. Intuitively, yes - more feedback through more channels = better. In pratice, aviation history is littered with the smoking holes left by those who have ignored and overridden stick shakers and pushers, all the way to the ground.
The 'bus designers didn't just decide to do something different from shaker / pusher, they went for "better" with active protections ["limits" for Gums - but that's just semantics and audience because I sure wouldn't want to be the designer that tells a fighter pilot I'm going to "protect" him by limiting his control authority!].
Unfortunately, in this case (and perpignan) the protections were lost due to technical faults, leaving the warning system that is maybe less good than the old stick shaker. So question should be, is the overall system - active protections degrading to aural warning at 1 in 10k flight hours - better or worse than "stick shaker only" ?
I'd say they made it better. Could it be improved ? - certainly.
Should they go back ? - not IMO.
That is again a thinking in statistics and probabilities, i wont accept. Any near accident is too much, any accident is a waste. Why not improve things some more despite the relative high safety? Money? Pride? Neglecence?
By the way, its not A vs. B, its make things safer when you know how.
[...]
That is not a training issue alone, it is a problem to tune in the pilot into the system and to keep him in the loop from normal operation to the biggest f****up possible.
And this is also an engineering task, wether you like it or not.
By the way, its not A vs. B, its make things safer when you know how.
[...]
That is not a training issue alone, it is a problem to tune in the pilot into the system and to keep him in the loop from normal operation to the biggest f****up possible.
And this is also an engineering task, wether you like it or not.
Human factors, and particularly human-machine interface is a complex area, and the little involvment I've had with it has given a clear impression of how counterintuitive it is.
Users of a system (pilots in this case) will happily tell you how they use it and how it needs to work - but record their usage with eye-trackers etc. and you'll get completely different answers. I would expect that to apply even to highly trained pilots and insturment scan - I bet that they weren't looking at what/where they thought they were when it all hit the fan in that cockpit.
The most interesting link posted on these threads (more than once)
was the Nasa study of A vs B control systems for CFIT escape. Covering sidestick, laws protections the lot. Result:
- the pilots overwhelmingly thought B was the better system
- the actual outcome was that the A system saved your ass more often
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Hi,
If we base the analysis of a statistical point of view .. (those known) it is clear that removing the pilots of the aircraft is definitely the solution.
This would avoid 80% of accidents to occur.
What a huge step for flight safety
But it would be to forget the number of accidents prevented by the presence of pilots
Who can give me a statistic about the accidents avoided by the intervention of the pilots ?
If we base the analysis of a statistical point of view .. (those known) it is clear that removing the pilots of the aircraft is definitely the solution.
This would avoid 80% of accidents to occur.
What a huge step for flight safety
But it would be to forget the number of accidents prevented by the presence of pilots
Who can give me a statistic about the accidents avoided by the intervention of the pilots ?
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jcjeant,
This one you probably can't find, as most who achieved it are probably keeping quiet, as in many instances the "save" will have been a response to a prior cock-up on their part
I think the bottom line in all this is that the original designers of the control architecture & responses in Airbii FBW were not really taking pilots wishes too seriously in their list of priorities.
Any of you who know the chequered history of Monsieur B Zeigler (& cringed at his Paris /Farnborough air show boasts about the maid being able to fly his new wunder-plane) will underatand better how the "aircraft knows best" control concept was evolved. How we laughed (not) after Habsheim/Bangalore/Mt St Odile at the inane previous "uncrashable" horlocks he had spouted.
If a situation, no matter how it was provoked (AF447/ Perpignan ? doesn't matter) could have been better assimilated & resolved by enhanced pilot perception of what was happening & what the other guy has done/is doing/ will do in the causal chain , it is difficult to argue against more feedback being a good thing (unless you are a Beanie /pilot basher , or both)
If an aircraft is being genuinely operated two crew, and you expect the "pilot monitoring " to actually monitor, I think you would be well advised to give him the tools to actually monitor what his cohort is up to, and possibly for both of them to rapidly understand what their Bus is doing, in a manner more obvious than currently only available by closely monitoring ( & rapidly assimilating whilst all goes pear shaped around you) ECAM messages & instruments.
Anyone who has flown through severe weather will realise the limitations of relying solely on this.
And don't get me started on how it will all be when these things get older & the wiggly-amps go on the blink even more often
If you lose control of your car on a slippery bend do you find it easier /more intuitive to manipulate the pedals/steering wheel to avoid the ditch, or would you find it easier to jump into the sat-nav & arm "skid correction" whilst hurtling ditchwards ? If your car was two-crew & you as DM (driver monitoring) had to decide whether to activate this or another system , would you not find it just a little helpful to see what the other guy was doing with the wheel ?
Humans are far better at intervention than analysis, we need to have the information /mechanism to do this. Nanny is right 99% of the time, but we cannot rely on her ,otherwise how do we grow up.
Our current generation of pilots are in regression in terms of basic piloting ability, we need to reverse this trend, it is time Airbus listened to what we ask for to achieve this.
This one you probably can't find, as most who achieved it are probably keeping quiet, as in many instances the "save" will have been a response to a prior cock-up on their part
I think the bottom line in all this is that the original designers of the control architecture & responses in Airbii FBW were not really taking pilots wishes too seriously in their list of priorities.
Any of you who know the chequered history of Monsieur B Zeigler (& cringed at his Paris /Farnborough air show boasts about the maid being able to fly his new wunder-plane) will underatand better how the "aircraft knows best" control concept was evolved. How we laughed (not) after Habsheim/Bangalore/Mt St Odile at the inane previous "uncrashable" horlocks he had spouted.
If a situation, no matter how it was provoked (AF447/ Perpignan ? doesn't matter) could have been better assimilated & resolved by enhanced pilot perception of what was happening & what the other guy has done/is doing/ will do in the causal chain , it is difficult to argue against more feedback being a good thing (unless you are a Beanie /pilot basher , or both)
If an aircraft is being genuinely operated two crew, and you expect the "pilot monitoring " to actually monitor, I think you would be well advised to give him the tools to actually monitor what his cohort is up to, and possibly for both of them to rapidly understand what their Bus is doing, in a manner more obvious than currently only available by closely monitoring ( & rapidly assimilating whilst all goes pear shaped around you) ECAM messages & instruments.
Anyone who has flown through severe weather will realise the limitations of relying solely on this.
And don't get me started on how it will all be when these things get older & the wiggly-amps go on the blink even more often
If you lose control of your car on a slippery bend do you find it easier /more intuitive to manipulate the pedals/steering wheel to avoid the ditch, or would you find it easier to jump into the sat-nav & arm "skid correction" whilst hurtling ditchwards ? If your car was two-crew & you as DM (driver monitoring) had to decide whether to activate this or another system , would you not find it just a little helpful to see what the other guy was doing with the wheel ?
Humans are far better at intervention than analysis, we need to have the information /mechanism to do this. Nanny is right 99% of the time, but we cannot rely on her ,otherwise how do we grow up.
Our current generation of pilots are in regression in terms of basic piloting ability, we need to reverse this trend, it is time Airbus listened to what we ask for to achieve this.
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Nanny is right 99% of the time, but we cannot rely on her ,otherwise how do we grow up.
The most interesting link posted on these threads (more than once)
was the Nasa study of A vs B control systems for CFIT escape. Covering sidestick, laws protections the lot.
Result:
the pilots overwhelmingly thought B was the better system
the actual outcome was that the A system saved your ass more often
So which set of designers got it right ? Not easy.
was the Nasa study of A vs B control systems for CFIT escape. Covering sidestick, laws protections the lot.
Result:
the pilots overwhelmingly thought B was the better system
the actual outcome was that the A system saved your ass more often
So which set of designers got it right ? Not easy.
I think the bottom line in all this is that the original designers of the control architecture & responses in Airbii FBW were not really taking pilots wishes too seriously in their list of priorities.
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What's all this obsession with the sidestick (mainly from other manufacturers lovers...)? Why would one want a yoke if there are no cables, springs, whatever, to pull? It's illogical to use a yoke on a fly-by-wire aircraft. Should we all be typing with a typewriter (mechanical) instead of our keyboards? 
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Think the main obsession is with its position (out of sight of the other guy) & the fact that there is no feedback to the other guy what you are doing & vice-versa, particularly as it is all about pressure rather than movement (AFAIK ?having not have the pleasure of "Bussing" it . . . except TO work, not after I arrive ! )
Mountainsnake
What's all this obsession with the sidestick (mainly from other manufacturers lovers...)? Why would one want a yoke if there are no cables, springs, whatever, to pull? It's illogical to use a yoke on a fly-by-wire aircraft. Should we all be typing with a typewriter (mechanical) instead of our keyboards?
What's all this obsession with the sidestick (mainly from other manufacturers lovers...)? Why would one want a yoke if there are no cables, springs, whatever, to pull? It's illogical to use a yoke on a fly-by-wire aircraft. Should we all be typing with a typewriter (mechanical) instead of our keyboards?
But it lacks two important features, a yoke or a stick or conventional throttle linkage in former A/C provided:
- tactile feedback from flightcontrols / throttle position
- tactile feedback from the second set of control input, being it SS or yoke.
Those feedbacks are negligable when things work out straight forward, they are missing when things start to get wrong in more ways:
- it is easy to get out of the loop and be caught by surprise (flightcontrol imputs / throttle position prior something going wrong not known)
- it is hard to catch up and make the correct input (if the inputs / position prior something going wrong is not known, the input might be wrong as well)
- it takes more time for the feedback loop, as the action first needs to be transferred to the flight controls / engines and the resulting change later on gets displayed to the panel and has to be picked up by the eyes.
- this feedback over the panel needs an input channel (the eyes) which might be at itīs limit already, saturated by things gone wrong.
- as this process is not a single one, but has to take place several times in a short period of time with changing parameters, references and environmental and human factors, it influences and hinders other necessary processes of the senses, other channels of human sensing as well.
Let me use your exemple of the keyboard here. If you plug everything on one hub to your PC system and saturate that channel, you might not only slow your system down, you may loose some letters, and there might other input/ output demands been affected to.
The keyboards still have the initial feedback of a typewriter, you press the key, the initial force is higher, and when you reach the point where the key sends the letter on its way to the system, the force resistance brakes down. That way i dont have to look at my screen to see the letter written down, i can feel it. On my iphone there is no tactile feedback from the keys, i have to check the screen or i switch on the aural feedback.
Typewriter is out for 30 years, but we still use the keyboard the same way as an typewriter. Why did the hardware manufacturers do that? Because itīs easier to write that way.
I think nobody really needs the yoke back,or cables and pulleys, but why not build in the features, which would keep the nice design and functions of the SS / autothrottles and provide the desired tactile feedback? It would make things still more safer and not unsafe at all. Most is built in anyway. Feedback loops to the flightcontrol computers are already present, so imho its the SS and throttle mechanics that need to change and some programming to get the feedback info present in the Flightcontrol computer to output the respective signal and create the artificial feedback signal to the changed mechanics. It costs money, so what? Flying is too cheap anyway, in two weeks i go on leave to Sardegna, the two way trip for three persons is under 150.- . I would not care to pay 50.- more.
Safety Concerns
So we already have an operational system that has been scientifically proven to save butts more often. Therefore the answer may well lie in a different approach to training including more hands on time.
So we already have an operational system that has been scientifically proven to save butts more often. Therefore the answer may well lie in a different approach to training including more hands on time.
With training you are so right, but you do not overlook the consequences. The things we talk about here can only be trained in a limited way, as the saturation of the channels (eyes, ears) are natural and can be influenced only in a limited way by training, and i mean by a lot of training.
Training would have to be done in relation to real dogsh**t situations, and part of it in the real aircraft.
The approach of new technology however was and is and has to be in the future to get things like flying and training for flying easier, simpler and also cheaper.
For this task the system-human interface has to change in some points, the training has to change as well undoubtedly, and management has to allow their pilots more hands on stick in the real aircraft.
Edit: Most gear handles are still shaped in the form of an wheel, and flap handles like an airfoil. Because of tactile feedback. One of those can be found and handled in the dark without looking at them. Did somebody had the idea already to change those into an pushbutton on the top panel? I hope not.
Last edited by RetiredF4; 17th Aug 2011 at 11:30.
big red button
A question from a SLF who most lurks and learns a lot here.
At any point after the initial upset and once the initial period of pitot-iced UAS ended, did the systems on board AF447 have sufficient information about the aircraft's attitude/altitude/speed(s) to ascertain and deliver the appropriate recovery inputs? (i.e. would the kind of Hail Mary recovery systems on Cirrus and some other aircraft have worked if the big red button was pushed?)
If so, then could it be that the fundamental issue is not how much "Nanny" control is best but training pilots to know when they are out of their depth or have lost awareness. It certainly seems that all three pilots in AF447 understood that they didn't understand what was going on and what to do.
At any point after the initial upset and once the initial period of pitot-iced UAS ended, did the systems on board AF447 have sufficient information about the aircraft's attitude/altitude/speed(s) to ascertain and deliver the appropriate recovery inputs? (i.e. would the kind of Hail Mary recovery systems on Cirrus and some other aircraft have worked if the big red button was pushed?)
If so, then could it be that the fundamental issue is not how much "Nanny" control is best but training pilots to know when they are out of their depth or have lost awareness. It certainly seems that all three pilots in AF447 understood that they didn't understand what was going on and what to do.
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One can train the pilots 24 hours a day. Training will not change the fact that from the stick position/status perspective, the PNF cannot see directly what the PF is doing (with the stick) - the PF might as well be separated by a wall, or covered by a blanket, it would not matter.
As I've already mentioned, practically in any system, several levels of indirection and several levels of translation/conversion of information instead of direct, single step transfer of information is not the way to do it, if the goal is instant and efficient information transfer for synchronization between two pilots.
The failure of the indirection and translation/conversion of information, as it is shown by the AF 447 - night time, and instrument information malfunction - is a clear instance for anyone who is objective enough to see the system in which the chain of indirection and translation/conversion of information was/got broken due to its weakness. And as usual, the breaking happened at the worst time, when the information was needed the most.
I am confident though that the Airbus architects and system designers are astute and quick in seeing this shortcoming, along with the others, and developing the necessary system improvements.
Last edited by airtren; 17th Aug 2011 at 16:44.