Capn Bloggs

Did the PNF know? He perhaps knew the nose was up a bit (not grossly high, mind you), but did he realise there was backstick in? Possibly not, as there is no "stick" in the traditional sense of the word.

It is quite clear in my mind: regardless of all the "Once again it comes down to knowing your machine and what it does. What you can do with the controls - being a professional pilot in fact"-type comments, the SA of the PNF would have been much-enhanced (quite probably to the point of being able to do something positive early on) if he had a control column in front of him, not to mention the skipper when he appeared. Whether the cost-savings of having independently-moving, hidden-from-view side-sticks is worth 228 lives: that is the question.

Old Carthusian

Capn Bloggs
Having a control column is another of those 'red herrings' I am afraid. It wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference on that night. You will recall from the BEA interim reports that the PNF could understand what was going on but didn't intervene sufficiently (a precis I agree but accurate enough). CRM was another thing lacking with poor definition of roles and this was much more significant. The side stick is not the issue here but how the crew responded to the situation. I refer you to the numerous accidents in the past where PNFs could see what the control column was doing but didn't intervene. Know your aircraft - that is all.

RetiredF4

gums, i have to object on that one concerning the F4.
I´ve flown more than 3000 hours in that bird in all flight conditions, and the feedback was like natural in all flight conditions from stall to Mach 2.2 (yes, the RF-4E was going that fast in clean configuration). The expierience of a bellows failure demonstrated well enough how vital this system was for flight. I speak out of first hand expierience here.

Wether the system is a pure mechanical one or a computerized one like in the concorde, is imho secondary to this discussion. It was deemed necessary for decades and serves well until today. Boing deemed something alike necessary for it´s newest models 777 and 787.

Note: I´m not intending to value A v B, i was only trying to answer Dani´s input concerning feedback in the last years.

philip2412

i have been wondering who thought taht out:

speed 60 mph or less - no s/w b/c at that speed the ac could`nt be in the air

speed 61 mph - s/w b/c now the ac is in the air.

mostly we can only speculate,but i thought from the beginnung taht when the s/w did no act that way the ac could very well have been saved.
the "logic" of the s/w definetly confused the pos.
you do the right thing and the computers are telling you,you`re wrong !

Dani

Well, this is the one billion dollar question.

If you ask me, I don't know, if you ask me, *should* he have known, I strongly affirm. These guys happened to experience the worst case of instrument failure, and what do you do when you have that? Looking out of the window? Smoking a cigarette? Chatting with your cabin attendant? Sorry for being so bitterly sarcastic but this is not a question of Airbus or fbw or any other question, this is gross neglect of primary pilots duty. You don't leave your eyes from the instruments until your aircraft is stable and checklist work is initiated. And this means all four eyes. But they never left the initial confusion state until impact.

BOAC

- if you believe pitch attitudes of between 10 and 17 degrees at FL 350 fit THAT statement, then you need serious retraining Heaven help us all. I think I'll go by boat and train. What has aviation become?

Likewise - I strongly disagree. All we know is loss of speed information. That is by no means the 'worst'. Try loss of attitude - or are you suggesting they had that?

jimjim1

Has been done (1992 apparently):-

The Saab 9000 drive-by-wire ‘Joystick’ project

Google for [saab joystick steering] turns up quite a few hits.

I did once see a Mini parked on the road that was apparently steered by a tiny (RC model sized) joystick on the floor. I assumed it was for the use of someone with no or non-functional arms. It must have cost a *fortune* at the time. I think I saw the car in the 1970s and it was a 1960s mini in utterly pristine condition.

aerobat77

i think the PNF knew that the PF gave upstick inputs since - when the publication of the last conversation is true- the PF stated that he pulled back full for a while. and does the ac not have a stick input indication on the pfd?

i personally do not think that the sidestick concept is an answer why it happened, look how many a320/330/340 fly every day and everything works .

it stays a mysteria why he pulled that much , put the aircraft in a stall and none of the three realized it and recovered.

Dani

aerobat, I completly agree with you that the PNF knew exactly what the other did, they both agreed upon the procedure. Only the procedure was wrong, because everyone told them, that you just have to pull on an Airbus and you are safe.

btw you only have stick position indicator on ground, not in the air.

aerobat77

hm... from the last words "but whats happening?" you can imagine they did not knew until impact they are stalled. when you have a high pitch up and simultany a massive descend rate ( more than 10000 fpm!) - what other than a stall should it be ?

i am wondering if its truly so simple, that three pilots until impact believed you cannot stall an airbus and even realizing for minutes that pulling gives no result tried it until the end.

i think they were pretty aware they go down like a rock - one pilot says " but why we are going down like this?"

maybe... but thats only a quess - an old school solid stick shaker and pusher in this particular situation would have saved more than 200 lives.

@ dani : thanks for the information, i have never flown an airbus, so did not knew exactly !

Dani

Having a wrong procedure and not knowing what's happening thereafter is no logical contradiction. They have been told - according to my assumptions - that if you don't know what's happening to pull, they pulled and found themselves in a completly impossible situation.

Nobody ever told them that a stall would be possible. To the contrary, they have been explained a thousand times: An Airbus cannot be stalled (remember Habsheim!). Giving the readings was impossible to understand under these circumstances. They felt themselves in a not stallable aircraft. The only thought you have in your mind is "why is this happening, what is happening, why are we going down?".

lomapaseo

I grant you that there are a lot of aviation related folks and the general public that have heard this and believed it. But if the pilot doesn't know the fundamentals of his aircraft than he should not be in a seat flying it.

BOAC

- and I suspect many did not - I hope they do now.

Zorin_75

IIRC you're an airbus pilot? If so and that's what you're actually taught, I'm with BOAC - from now on boat and train it is, thank you very much.

Dani

when I say that I suspect the AF447 being taught a strange procedure then I don't say that I have ever experienced such. The "pulling procedure" has nothing to do with any official procedure or training syllabus. I have been in some Airbus Training courses, and they teach you that an Airbus "can be flown like any other aircraft", and that's what I learned to happen ever since. I've spent most of my career on conventional aircraft and know what to do in case of high AOA regime and slow speed.

CONF iture

Excuse me ???

Coagie

None of the pilots flying AF447 had military flying backgrounds. In the past, airlines could rely on a supply of military trained pilots. Now, most of the commercial transport pilots have no military flying background. Although civilian trained pilots would argue that they have equally good training, I think that, if there is a difference, it's that the military training has a greater tendency to filter out people, who would "crack" under pressure, than civilian training. What good is a ball player, who knows everything about american football, if he drops the touchdown pass, when the game is on the line!
The greater flight safety we enjoy, due to technology, is offset by the fact that airlines don't want to filter out the pilots, who would drop the ball, because that would mean less pilots, so they'd need to increase pilot pay. Airline beancounters might claim that training is expensive, but adding a few curve balls and other assorted tricks to their training, to see how a pilot works under pressure, wouldn't be so expensive, but increasing pilot pay, because of the resulting shortage of pilots, would be in the eyes of soul-less accountants, and sociopathic airline executives. Apologies to the many terrific, civilian only trained pilots. I know there are some ex-military pilots who mess up too.

Dani

Coagie, this has been discussed to death: Fighter pilots = better flying skills, civilans = better CRM skills (simplified like your post). That's why "bean counters" count mostly on civilians nowadays.

Coagie

I hope the three AF447 pilots aren't an example of "better" CRM skills! Guess I struck a nerve.

aerobat77

"None of the pilots flying AF447 had military flying backgrounds. In the past, airlines could rely on a supply of military trained pilots"

well... fighter pilots, with all respect- are trained to fullfill the mission at every price... in civilian aviation you HAVE NOT to fulffill the mission at every price.

i my eyes thats not the point for AF447. we tend to see here on one hand pilots who were not trained on extreme situations on this aircraft and on the other hand an aircraft which was not build for extreme situations.