AF447 wreckage found
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Someone mentioned a 1.6 g spike at the start of the climb. Doesn't sound like much but would feel quite violent. It also probably mean they had just clipped a quite strong updraft. Personally I believe that no pilot would maintain a pitch attitude of 16 deg at height intentionally it would look too weird.
Also if you go hands free from straight & level, neutral stick, the a/c tends to climb at high level due it trying to maintain 1 g.
Methinks too much blame is being metered out to the pilots. But then again it is ever so.
Also if you go hands free from straight & level, neutral stick, the a/c tends to climb at high level due it trying to maintain 1 g.
Methinks too much blame is being metered out to the pilots. But then again it is ever so.
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OK465 : When I say that the "average" line pilot cannot recover from a deep stall I actually mean that very few of us have any training and experience in recovery from a departure in a swept wing jet.
While the majority of my trainees will have to follow some (very loud) commands from the old man behind, there are a few ones around who has the aggressive, composed attitude to keep fighting and who knows what it takes.
No doubt an airline, who would only employ Imperial Flight Test School graduates, can expect that this particular field of operations is covered (and the salaries will again be "up, where they belong"
), but we live in the real world, and my question remains:
When is enough (training) enough?
As I see it, a good many operators have a long way to go before reaching "enough"; just the fact that in the Mach-region pitch attitudes outside +5 to -2 degrees is risky business comes as big news to quite a few fellas.
So if a majority of pilots in a given airline has inadequate knowledge of the environment in which they fly, is that to be blamed on the individual pilot or is it a "system failure"?
If the pilot corps cannot deal with a 1/10.000.000 probability failure, is that to be blamed on the pilot, the airline or the manufacturer?
If you add severe weather, night, black sea, does that make it "natural causes", pilot error, system failure or design failure?
Which one will be the cheapest verdict for the huge economical interests involved here? And how do you make interim reports pointing in that direction in a subtle way?
While the majority of my trainees will have to follow some (very loud) commands from the old man behind, there are a few ones around who has the aggressive, composed attitude to keep fighting and who knows what it takes.
No doubt an airline, who would only employ Imperial Flight Test School graduates, can expect that this particular field of operations is covered (and the salaries will again be "up, where they belong"
), but we live in the real world, and my question remains:When is enough (training) enough?
As I see it, a good many operators have a long way to go before reaching "enough"; just the fact that in the Mach-region pitch attitudes outside +5 to -2 degrees is risky business comes as big news to quite a few fellas.
So if a majority of pilots in a given airline has inadequate knowledge of the environment in which they fly, is that to be blamed on the individual pilot or is it a "system failure"?
If the pilot corps cannot deal with a 1/10.000.000 probability failure, is that to be blamed on the pilot, the airline or the manufacturer?
If you add severe weather, night, black sea, does that make it "natural causes", pilot error, system failure or design failure?
Which one will be the cheapest verdict for the huge economical interests involved here? And how do you make interim reports pointing in that direction in a subtle way?
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Personally I believe that no pilot would maintain a pitch attitude of 16 deg at height intentionally it would look too weird
"Look"?
In darkness at altitude over an ocean, possibly in cloud, I suspect there was no visual reference to "look" weird. I suspect that was part of the reason for failing to realise the attitude of the aircraft during the stall.
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Originally Posted by Icepack
Also if you go hands free from straight & level, neutral stick, the a/c tends to climb at high level due it trying to maintain 1 g.
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As I understand it the aircraft (if not the pilots) knew the AOA was too high. So perhaps changing the audible warning to announce the AOA would be benificial.
At the very least change it so that the warning isn't the same pre and post stall.
It seems they never realised they were fully stalled so can you really blame them for they way they responded?
The other possibility is that one or more did realise they were stalled but assumed the PF realised it and had tried to get the nose down. There is a lot less discussion of the situation than I expected.
At the very least change it so that the warning isn't the same pre and post stall.
It seems they never realised they were fully stalled so can you really blame them for they way they responded?
The other possibility is that one or more did realise they were stalled but assumed the PF realised it and had tried to get the nose down. There is a lot less discussion of the situation than I expected.
BOAC, I believe it's because 1G is acceleration due to gravity at sea level. The same acceleration at 40000ft might be 0.9999G (I'm sorry, I'm not clever enough to work out what it is) therefore to maintain 1G the aircraft will slowly pitch up.
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Hmm! So the clever software is not clever enough to know its altitude, and will eventually command a loop to maintain 1g?
Don't forget it will also need GS in order to compute centripetal acceleration.
Don't forget it will also need GS in order to compute centripetal acceleration.
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ICE PACK
Sorry where do you get this from
So it will not go into a gentle climb trying to maintain 1G.
Kalium Chloride
Not quite, that is why we "pilots" have to fly on instruments, namely the PFD, on most new A/C (artificial horizon), with reference to an ATTITUDE. I would certainly never expect to see 14 degrees plus at 35,000'. You also start to see big red arrow heads which show you where the horizon is as you go further from level and they get BIGGER the further you move away from level.
Sorry where do you get this from
Also if you go hands free from straight & level, neutral stick, the a/c tends to climb at high level due it trying to maintain 1 g.
ALT 1
PITCH CONTROL
Ground mode
Identical to normal law ground mode.
Flight mode
The flight law is a load factor demand law similar to the normal law with limited pitch rate feedbacks and gains depending on speed and configuration.
PITCH CONTROL
Ground mode
Identical to normal law ground mode.
Flight mode
The flight law is a load factor demand law similar to the normal law with limited pitch rate feedbacks and gains depending on speed and configuration.
FLIGHT MODE
The normal law flight mode is a load factor demand law with auto trim and full flight envelope protection.
It provides control of elevator and THS from the side stick controllers to achieve a load factor proportional to stick deflection, independent of speed.
With the side stick at neutral, wings level, the system maintains 1 G in pitch corrected for pitch attitude, and there is no need for the pilot to trim with speed or configuration changes.
The normal law flight mode is a load factor demand law with auto trim and full flight envelope protection.
It provides control of elevator and THS from the side stick controllers to achieve a load factor proportional to stick deflection, independent of speed.
With the side stick at neutral, wings level, the system maintains 1 G in pitch corrected for pitch attitude, and there is no need for the pilot to trim with speed or configuration changes.
ALT 2
PITCH CONTROL
Identical to ALT 1 law.
PITCH CONTROL
Identical to ALT 1 law.
Kalium Chloride
In darkness at altitude over an ocean, possibly in cloud, I suspect there was no visual reference to "look" weird. I suspect that was part of the reason for failing to realise the attitude of the aircraft during the stall.
therefore to maintain 1G the aircraft will slowly pitch up.
I do think that if there were some real instruments requiring hardware such as a tube that was relaying ram air pressure from the outside DIRECTLY to the inside to an instrument which would translate that to a circular scale and call this an IAS dial, and somewhere close to it have a real gyro to give attitude information with a battery back up and another one with another tube DIRECTLY reading the pressure outside the aircraft to another circular dial and call this an altimeter
When I say that the "average" line pilot cannot recover from a deep stall
Do you think the pilots wanted the THS to go full ANU or do you think the computer assumed one (not both) of the pilots wanted it?
In darkness at altitude over an ocean, possibly in cloud, I suspect there was no visual reference to "look" weird.
Personally I believe that no pilot would maintain a pitch attitude of 16 deg at height intentionally it would look too weird.
In fairness to the PF (whichever one it was)
The BEA states that the 'zoom climb' started at least 11 seconds after that - and there is no mention of the PF moving the stick either way until he applies 'nose-down' to counteract the climb. Does this mean the PF did not cause the climb but it takes several seconds for the AB330 to respond to control movements?
So perhaps changing the audible warning to announce the AOA would be benificial.
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What really upsets me is that everybody seemsto concentrate on what happened once the aircraft stalled : Who Cares !!!!!!!????
The central question is : Why on earth did they get themselves into this and how ?
BEA has pretty much nailed it : the least experience pilot pitched a whopping 10 deg up without applying power !!! and the most experienced, instead of keeping his eyes on attitude and whatever was left, chose to turn his gaze elsewhere to call the captain to the flight deck.
The failure was never recognized, therefore the adequate checklist never called for.
How could anyone of these 2 ever realize they had stalled when awareness was at its rock bottom from the start ?
Of course they did everything they could to get out of this.................not having a clue about the problem they had to solve.
All this comes to basic airmanship, plain and simple.
Wether this airmanship is training related is open to debate.
Once stalled, I too, would have never been able to recover.
The central question is : Why on earth did they get themselves into this and how ?
BEA has pretty much nailed it : the least experience pilot pitched a whopping 10 deg up without applying power !!! and the most experienced, instead of keeping his eyes on attitude and whatever was left, chose to turn his gaze elsewhere to call the captain to the flight deck.
The failure was never recognized, therefore the adequate checklist never called for.
How could anyone of these 2 ever realize they had stalled when awareness was at its rock bottom from the start ?
Of course they did everything they could to get out of this.................not having a clue about the problem they had to solve.
All this comes to basic airmanship, plain and simple.
Wether this airmanship is training related is open to debate.
Once stalled, I too, would have never been able to recover.
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Me myself:
Your post tends to illustrate the good sense stated in Two's In post:
In short, a basic misunderstanding of what a stall is.
Your post tends to illustrate the good sense stated in Two's In post:
I believe the (flawed) training analysis is along the lines that if you learn to recognize the onset of the stall early enough, then an increase in thrust (and hence airspeed) will fly you out of the stall threshold WITHOUT any reduction in altitude or requirement for a nose down attitude.
The flaw in this training philosophy is that it assumes you will always recognize and react at early stall onset, so the full stall never develops. If you never couple this training with full stall recovery techniques, eventually pilots end up not knowing what to do if a full stall develops.
This originates in flawed training analysis where the fear of losing any height at all during stall recovery on an approach has the effect of removing the basic skills required to recover from a fully developed stall.
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The flaw in this training philosophy is that it assumes you will always recognize and react at early stall onset, so the full stall never develops. If you never couple this training with full stall recovery techniques, eventually pilots end up not knowing what to do if a full stall develops.
This originates in flawed training analysis where the fear of losing any height at all during stall recovery on an approach has the effect of removing the basic skills required to recover from a fully developed stall.
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My Boeing aircraft experience ended in the early ninety's. Since then I have flown A310/320's/330 and A340.
Must tell you that I still miss the yoke and the (artificial feeling) feed-back that I used to receive from it, as well as from the Auto-Throttles.
Let me ask you this:
If the PF co-pilot was "feeling" a sluggish yoke, would he ask his crew mates:
"I have the impression that we have a crazy speed, what do you think about that?"
Must tell you that I still miss the yoke and the (artificial feeling) feed-back that I used to receive from it, as well as from the Auto-Throttles.
Let me ask you this:
If the PF co-pilot was "feeling" a sluggish yoke, would he ask his crew mates:
J’ai l’impression qu’on
a une vitesse de fou
non qu’est-ce que vous
en pensez ?
a une vitesse de fou
non qu’est-ce que vous
en pensez ?
Last edited by aguadalte; 31st Jul 2011 at 13:10.
Clandestino,
To be honest I don't know how the A330 differs but if you disconnect the autopilot in level flight at altitude the A320 will pitch up slowly. I know, I've done it.
From my FCOM
"With the sidestick at neutral, wings level, the system maintains 1 g in pitch"
I've never heard of 'pitch hold'
To be honest I don't know how the A330 differs but if you disconnect the autopilot in level flight at altitude the A320 will pitch up slowly. I know, I've done it.
From my FCOM
"With the sidestick at neutral, wings level, the system maintains 1 g in pitch"
I've never heard of 'pitch hold'
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[Static pressure system was totally unaffected.]
Mhhh... I may be wrong, but if the static pressure system was totally unaffected, why does the vertical speed graph (page 109 of the report, second graph from top) looks so weird, with huge jumps?? They may also have excluded the vertical speed info because of that.
I think the responsibility of the pilots in this case is pretty limited. They failed to identify a stall, but the fact that the stall warning appears only when you put your stick would make me believe (if I was pilot) that the stall warning is also wrong, as everything else.
I don't know who got the idea of excluding AOA measurements based on speed. If I had designed the system, I would have kept this data all the time (except possibly during the take off and landing runs. For knowing that you just use the landing gear sensors as input and that's it) .While in flight, I don't see any configuration where the AOA measurement would be too bad because of low speed. Was the A330 designed to fly at 60 knots anyway?
I cannot understand the logic behind this design. If somebody can, that would help me.
For me, this bad logic is a driving factor of the crash. Had the stall alarm sounded *permanently* during the fall, I would have expected the pilot decisions to be different.
Mhhh... I may be wrong, but if the static pressure system was totally unaffected, why does the vertical speed graph (page 109 of the report, second graph from top) looks so weird, with huge jumps?? They may also have excluded the vertical speed info because of that.
I think the responsibility of the pilots in this case is pretty limited. They failed to identify a stall, but the fact that the stall warning appears only when you put your stick would make me believe (if I was pilot) that the stall warning is also wrong, as everything else.
I don't know who got the idea of excluding AOA measurements based on speed. If I had designed the system, I would have kept this data all the time (except possibly during the take off and landing runs. For knowing that you just use the landing gear sensors as input and that's it) .While in flight, I don't see any configuration where the AOA measurement would be too bad because of low speed. Was the A330 designed to fly at 60 knots anyway?
I cannot understand the logic behind this design. If somebody can, that would help me.
For me, this bad logic is a driving factor of the crash. Had the stall alarm sounded *permanently* during the fall, I would have expected the pilot decisions to be different.
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1/ the report is a factual description of what was happening
2/ it never says it is a crew fault.
3/ as in many other domain, from facts, in view of your own experience, you make your mind.
1/ the crew never recognized they were stalling. (would I had ??) It is a fact, the report is clear in that matter.
2/ a fault is when you do purposely something you should not do. I do not see any crew fault in that report.
3/ some occurences air data references losses because of freezed probes were reported on the same aircraft type several times in Air France and other companies.
.
3/a Airbus was aware of the problem, and a probe replacement campaign was scheduled.
3/b in the time frame the probe replacement campaign was ongoing, they have never been trained to cope with that kind of major failure. in fact it looks like the training in "pure" aircraft handling is very poor in the training syllabus.
I hope this accident will help the aviation international authorities to rethink the pilot training syllabus, but also to improve the " field experience feedback" processing in aircraft safety.
I am afraid... it will lead to discharge the responsibility of all accumulated mistakes from all parties onto the three crew members.
2/ it never says it is a crew fault.
3/ as in many other domain, from facts, in view of your own experience, you make your mind.
1/ the crew never recognized they were stalling. (would I had ??) It is a fact, the report is clear in that matter.
2/ a fault is when you do purposely something you should not do. I do not see any crew fault in that report.
3/ some occurences air data references losses because of freezed probes were reported on the same aircraft type several times in Air France and other companies.
.
3/a Airbus was aware of the problem, and a probe replacement campaign was scheduled.
3/b in the time frame the probe replacement campaign was ongoing, they have never been trained to cope with that kind of major failure. in fact it looks like the training in "pure" aircraft handling is very poor in the training syllabus.
I hope this accident will help the aviation international authorities to rethink the pilot training syllabus, but also to improve the " field experience feedback" processing in aircraft safety.
I am afraid... it will lead to discharge the responsibility of all accumulated mistakes from all parties onto the three crew members.
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I don't know who got the idea of excluding AOA measurements based on speed. If I had designed the system, I would have kept this data all the time
That is because a lot of operators believe that with high speed you cannot stall thus no need for AOA indicator. These poor souls believe that the answer is ALWAYS to point the nose down which is the answer MOST of the time however not all the time. In reality an airplane can stall at any attitude and airspeed (within structural limitations of course.) The IAS and ATT are subordinate and supporting to an AOA indicator in relation to what the wing is actually producing. Even if the pilots were clueless the on board computers would know this (tongue in cheek)
So does the 330 have an AOA indicator and if not do you think that if it did and if the pilots were trained to interpret it would it have helped? After all it is giving a true condition into what the wing is doing.
Last edited by before landing check list; 31st Jul 2011 at 13:39.
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Yes but this goes even beyond that... even if you don't want to display the AOA info to the pilot (which I can admit), I don't understand why you would start to exclude what one sensor is saying using the data from an unrelated sensor.
As long as the plane is in the air, the relative airspeed cannot be less than 60 knots, I think everybody will agree about this. So why was this logic implemented?
As long as the plane is in the air, the relative airspeed cannot be less than 60 knots, I think everybody will agree about this. So why was this logic implemented?
Takata, pardon ma inexpérience: is that a flap actuator or a stabilizer one? Merci
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Cockpit of the future
Based on the principle that automation came to minimize pilot error, I foresee the following flight crew formation:
One pilot and one computer specialist. The computer will have a new "law", the emergency law. The computer will be able to quickly identify the nature of the emergency and take proper action. Auto pilot will disengage only when the pilot decides to do so. Of course, he will check first with the SS (System Specialist) if the computer will be able to solve the problem.
If computers are able to fly a crosswind ILS, with gusts, I don't see why not the computer can't "read" the checklist on, for eg., procedures for unreliable airspeed.
To train a computer is cheaper.
The pilot will be a "flight consultant" to aid the computer with the "gut feeling".
One pilot and one computer specialist. The computer will have a new "law", the emergency law. The computer will be able to quickly identify the nature of the emergency and take proper action. Auto pilot will disengage only when the pilot decides to do so. Of course, he will check first with the SS (System Specialist) if the computer will be able to solve the problem.
If computers are able to fly a crosswind ILS, with gusts, I don't see why not the computer can't "read" the checklist on, for eg., procedures for unreliable airspeed.
To train a computer is cheaper.
The pilot will be a "flight consultant" to aid the computer with the "gut feeling".