A320 Stall Recovery
Only half a speed-brake
During play time at the end of a simulator session we once tried the slow speed stall scenario recovery with flaps 1 as the first step. And of course it worked very well indeed. That said, it was just idle curiosity and we all still do the airbus prescribed stall recovery every six months of course.
I'm using your answer to say that even if this strategy worked very well in that environment, as you already know, it's not applicable to real life.
If you stall in real life, it's a life or death matter. An airplane is primarily flown with stick, rudder and thrust. Not flaps. You can push full nose down in a very quick and instinctive manner. But I wouldn't bet my life on me being able to get out a stage of flaps in an emergency situation like this.
The real argument is "airplanes are primarily flown with the stick" but even the secondary argument would be enough : "it can be difficult to get flaps one out".
The lever is not very accessible, you need to catch it in a certain way to unlock its position..
However, there is another aspect I would like to add.
I don't know why it's not mentioned in the manual. But if the airplane stalls, there's obviously a broader problem.
The airplane is not in a fully functional normal law with stall protections.
What can be going on is most likely one of two things :
- Alternate law with or without protections
- Normal law with unreliable AOA
(It can also be direct law with man pitch trim but that's a better situation IMO, or man pitch trim only and that's another story)
In either case, you still have autotrim !
So if you stalled, chances are your aircraft is trimmed UP. Potentially full up !
It happened to AF447, it happened to XL Airways D-AXLA (Perpignan).
How many rotations of the trim wheel are required to get the trim back from full up to neutral position ?
How much time would it take ? (I'm guessing about 10 seconds) and what would the aircraft be doing during this time ? Can one simultaneously pitch down, control thrust, and control the trim wheel ? Should the PM intervene on the trim wheel ?
I'm even worried about the airbus itself : will the aircraft not fight back and try to trim upwards ?
Why doesn't the manual mention the trim wheel ?
The FCOM says "nose down pitch control", which could refer to stick AND trim wheel, but the FCTM says "nose down pitch order on the sidestick" which clearly eludes the trim wheel.
In case of lack of pitch down authority, the given answer is thrust. But what about trim ?
The D-AXLA crash shows that with sufficiently upwards THS, pitch control will be extremely difficult, even with pilots ready to apply a full down order on the sidestick.
