DozyWannabe
 

I accept your good point re: conversion across a range of aircraft, but I recall that my airline (when it spoke with AB before retiring its BAC1-11s) clearly was left with the impression that less training costs would be incurred separate to the conversion costs issue.

It shouldn't have, but more automation equals less crew training costs did enter the mix and it can't be blamed purely on the press. AB's (then) salesmen had to compete with the Boeing and MD duopoly.

The issue is whether the PF and PNF were properly trained to deal with the problem they encountered, UAS leading to A/P disconnect under the flight conditions encountered by AF447, because nobody would argue that it was the time for their manual flight training (in alternate law)? I have my doubts, on what I have so far seen......

If not, it is not conveniently "pilot error" but rather a deeper / wider systemic problem for the industry.

If the A/P cuts out, which admittedly is very rare, manual flight must still be second nature (or at least not an absolute novelty) to have a better than even chance of a happy outcome.

Firstly, was that BCal? If so then my first ever flight would have been on one of those 1-11s.

Maybe so, but the fact is that neither of us actually *know* what exactly was said.

Case in point - I've spent the last few weeks struggling with a project and got a fairly good demonstration together - it fixed all the issues brought up at the previous demonstration, and showed that we'd made some headway with new features that had been mentioned, but not specified at the beginning. The feedback from the group was good, but halfway through the meeting the supervisor came in, looked at it for five minutes, said it wasn't enough and that he was told the product does something out of the box that we know it in fact does not. The salesperson involved left the company a short time ago, so we'll never know if he was willing to bend the truth to get sale or whether this supervisor simply misunderstood.

Which is in fact what the BEA is implying if you read the report, as opposed to press articles that are all saying "pilot error".

DozyWannabe
 

Thank you.

(1) No, not BCal - you can work out my former airline from my profile.....
(2) I spoke with two BAC1-11 captains who went to Toulouse (shortly after their return to the UK), and I know exactly what was said to them. And their unease at the "sales patter", even if they had no doubt that AB's flight training experts would have also been uncomfortable. Let's not forget that the duopoly in those days was an all-American affair, and AB was facing a huge challenge to break in.
(3) Most contributors to this thread well know what the BEA has said, and many are also concerned by what it will become in a 50 second BBC/CNN/Sky/Fox soundbite report. Pilot error, or pilot error with a long caveat to the effect that this really means training shortcomings rather than an inexplicable error by a perfectly trained flight crew? In this forum, of all places, "pilot error" should be very carefully used....

It was not the easiest of environments, in the absence of thorough high altitude manual flight training (CMB in ITCZ, no moonlight, early hours of the morning (PNF had just come off rest), no CDB on the flight deck, UAS leading to A/P and A/T cut out and the loss of flight envelope protection). The many comments on the SS inputs (NU), THS and trim, absence of stall recognition and cockpit discipline (particularly the non-reporting to the CDB upon his entering the flight deck) should all be read in this context.

TJHarwood
 

Yes, good way of putting it - flip sides of a coin (implied automation savings, separate/additional to conversion costs across the later range of Airbus aircraft).

Hi,

This is what is exactly said now ...
More to read:
A CORNERSTONE OF AIRBUS

IMO, what marketing does cannot be used as concrete evidence there is a lack of line competence, period.

Manufacturers build a tool that is sold to a second concern, one that is directly responsible for folding the machine into its useful life.

It is naive and misleading to think that salespeople have degraded hand flying skills. A trustier airframe does allow for changes in procedures and focus.


I keep in mind that airmanship and flying skills are acquired as we train, not after conversion to heavy and fast.

There is some inexplicable evidence to be explicated here, but to think that Typing on a widebody shoud include a refresher in Gliders, aero, or other for goodness' sake basics is a reach.

jcjeant / welsh wingman
 

Simplified crew training and conversion, not just simplified crew conversion - and from the horse's mouth! Not operational design, almost certainly, but no doubt the unintended consequences of cut-throat commerce.

Hi,

Just for vent ....
Indeed .. all the CVR reported conversations are typical (syntax and words used) of a common animated conversation between some friends in a bar (ou au zinc) and easy to understand by any french speaking people but seem's not common for professional pilots in a event who require all their technical knowledge and analysis power ...
It's another language for that (at least .. other words .. even in french)
That's was about the conversation...
Now .. about the acts performed ... they were in a language not understand by many professionals pilots ....
They still struggle for understand why they acted like .. that night.

Stall, whats that? Round 2.
 

@takata,

I don't understand your comment "conspiracy theory" etc. Let's stick to the data and refrain from presumptions and personal accusations.

I am trying to understand why they ignored the stall warnings. I leave the blame game to others.



Here are the data points:

1. On first stall warning they say "What is that?". You state a better translation of the meaning is "What a surprise, probably just a blip".
2. The pilots talk like school boys arguing over a bicycle, hardly consistant with the grave situation of master warning and stalls.
3. Not once does any pilot say the word "Stall" or "Décrochage" in 4 minutes of blaring stall alarms and master warning.
4. Not once do any of them call for any procedures.
5. Not once do they consistently respond to the stall with a strong nose down or even change what they are doing.
6. No regular call outs.

Can you forgive me for joining the 6 points that are all consistant with the pilots not understanding "Stall". Do you have any data points that convince you that they did understand "Stall"?
The pilots are with the flag carrier, i.e. "gold standard" pilots. Here is the big question: if they thought stall was false then why would they not articulate that?
I am the first to admit that I am a fool, but hopefully a fool can learn.

These kind of mistakes happen all the time. Contracts get made in Europe with mil. meaning 1000's in french but in english that means millions - fail. The hubble telescope was designed in euro cm's but was built in USA inches - fail. Sorry but sometimes the obvious mistakes happen to those most qualified. I subscribe to the mess up theory, not the conspiracy.

Lyman
 

Salespeople can't do anything by themselves, from whichever manufacturer, but you had line management directors (particularly in finance) looking at deregulation and casualty after casualty (Eastern/Pan Am/TWA/Sabena/Swissair).

You can't blame them for selling planes as "planes that fly themselves" and (implicitly or explicitly) save on (expensive) piloting costs, because they knew they were sowing on fertile ground. The real problem was within line management, and also the aviation regulation authorities.

To a pilot who never flies his plane at high altitude by hand, was the scenario facing AF447 ideal non-simulator practice? The position was not quickly brought under control in the first minute after A/P disconnect, and it got a whole lot harder thereafter......

Over to PJ2 on this subject....

Someone posted in between my answer to your post, this was not aimed at anything you said. Read it (post above mine).
Beside, I only corrected your interpretation for other readers; crudely said, that meant WTF!
That's all. You can try to paint the dark side of the moon bright yellow with it, this is not my concern anymore, whatever conversion from metric to imperial caused whatever disaster...

WW

The best sales people don't sell, they teach their client to sell himself. I make my point that the responsibility lies with the Line to incorporate all new equipment into the culture that exists. As you say, the ultimate responsibility is with the Line; not even pilots need to step up any longer, should they memorize the SOPS well enough.

Can there have been a blunder at AF large enough to potentiate these outcomes? If as you say the monopoly was Binary, and strictly American, Airbus had to supply something competitive, Another Banana is just another Banana.

It is not for want of a reason "new" is attractive. Was it oversold? Or was it merely undersupported, and then neglected, left to achieve its marketing claims, or not, In the vacuum of false confidence?

Sometimes in "Anticipating", and selling (FBW), what turns out to be an evolutionary trend in the long haul, means rushing technology? And if not a rush to technology, then a rush to new crew capabilities? Some disciplines are not well served by "hurry". Fast, yes, not Hurry.....

xcitation

I cannot attest to the accuracy of the CVR timetable. A STALLSTA.... takes longer than .6 seconds, and recognizing it, processing one's awareness of it, forming a question, and speaking must mean the PF started his "What was that" perhaps before, the Warning.

In any case, is it not possible that the PF was vocal in re: something that happened before the STALL Warn chirp, and that they "coincided"? Perhaps the focus of his remark something that may have preceded the WARNING? That is a pretty well packed 1/2 second, NO?

Lyman

I think the history is the key - AB was developing in the context of 1985, a truly horrid year for the aviation history e.g. Boeing had lost several 747s, part of the US 101 Airborne Div had been decimated on a MD DC8 at Gander and Lockheed lost a L1011 at DFW. The design philosophy was safety through automation, including "protection" against pilot mistakes. The marketing took a different twist, as competitive industry pressures shortly afterwards came to the fore and training/conversion/fuel cost savings became critical. The question of what airmanship skills were still needed in the (rare) circumstances (such as AF447) where the flight envelope degraded slipped through the net. The industry has not proceeded on the basis that automation training is a bolt-on to underlying airmanship, which is my gripe (as you may have worked out!).

welsh wingman
 

WW

Automation most definitely should be seen as an adjunct to airmanship.

I am not persuaded this fellow was not a competent sort. What shouts to me through all the noise here, is simply an airman who is not familiar with his a/c. That is first call (Along with flying Catch up). Second is what you elegantly describe as the "environment". Thank you for that; I doubt but a few here have experienced the type of sky these gents encountered.

The pilot and CRM aspects are quite clear to me.

Deeper questions relating to how the automation mileau (visually, culturally, psychological) has interacted with the pilot to produce the accident MUST be explicitly addressed , item by item, in the final accident report.I still feel there is insufficient respect for the power of sensory disorientation, for example. There is no mention of the likelihood of it in BEA report, even though the PF made clearly disoriented command inputs that are classic for a somatogravic illusion.

What is it about the alarm system that leads top of the line pilots to ignore or not belive it?
Is the altitude indicator tape, VSI and Artificial Horizon hard to INSTANTLY comprehend when one most needs to ? Did the dangerous autotrim full aft despite high nose attitude contribute?How much did the reversed/paradoxical stall actives and inactives further confuse at the last possible moment for saving the flight?Is this a an engineering concept unsuited to LOC management, or is it a human intereface problem?Why is it so important in the design concept that control inputs NOT be visibly dual/ linked?

The accident is a fascinating case of everything that could go wrong did go wrong.....many layered aspects.

Lyman
 

When the computer computes "I do not compute", as it did on AF447 (due to UAS data), you should always have the underlying airmanship upon which to fall back on...

There are one or two clues early on that PNF was on the right track, despite the CRM issues, but this did not happen over Western Australia at midday with clear visibility and no CMB as with the A333 in QF72. PF troubles me, particularly as he was the "alert" pilot.

I will wait the final report, and more detailed CVR, before taking a final view on whether this crew could have recovered the situation once the death plunge began at FLT380. Intimacy with hand flying their aircraft was missing.

My experience of the ITCZ and CMBs was more en route to Southern Africa than to South America, but invariably overnight (particularly after the 747-200s were re-engined for non-stop).

CaptainGef, I agree with David Learmount on everything within his field of excellence and experience. It's perhaps coincidental I came to most of the same conclusions.

The chief item I'd take issue with is his lament that there will be a drive to push pilots out of the cockpit completely. That is an ongoing phenomenon. Military pilots may last a lot longer than transport pilots. They fly under completely different "rules of engagement"; and, military pilots face far greater problems with things like landing an aircraft under real or potential enemy fire.

Strangely enough the requirements for safe flight in the AF447 situation were well known. And the computer had full access to data, some of which was not but should be available to the pilot. I believe it was politics and limitations of the rather antiquated (in computer terms) computers and software on the AF447. No, this is not a "bit rot" thing, not a software bug. It's more a slow computer, political limitations issue, and knowledge about what to do sort of issue.

I get the feeling that it is known that pitch and power is how you fly when airspeed is lost but it is not trusted that this is enough. Therefore pilots are thrust into the loop. For the time being they are in the cockpit anyway because humans are still somewhat better than machines at picking their way between bad weather conditions if they actually use the radar properly.

The progress I see is along the lines of UAS being handled by the computer since it is becoming more and more obvious that computers don't face "instinctual drives". They face biases that are not built into the software and can be very complex. More and more the pilot will become a cockpit executive. "Plane, go there. Make it happen."

This will be followed by computers able to thread the needle based on radar and other instrumentation to the point that any condition the computer cannot literally learn to handle would be way beyond any human's capabilities - someday.

I note the Google has a self driving car that uses video cameras for situational awareness. The Chinese have stepped in with their version. Neither is ready for prime time. One of Google's cars suffered a collision lately. It was under manual control with the driver trying to get into a very tight parking place. Apparently something as mundanely complex parking may be "the final frontier" for computerized cars. I wonder what will be the final problem with fully automated flight. I suspect much of the increased automation I mentioned will come with the next generation of aircraft based on A380 and Dreamliner experience.

I've been watching the computer industry because I am in it. A time will come when pilots are as obsolete as people who know how to drive a car or make a buggy whip.

I cannot say I am emotionally pleased at this. And I see this as part of a completely destabilizing trend for society. But, it's going to happen regardless of my emotional reactions.

JD-EE
 

The problem with a cockpit executive, and many of the old timers on this thread no doubt believe that AF447 proves that we are already there (at least with some flight crews), is that there is no Plan B when Plan A goes wrong. We are a long way from safe automated pitch and power flight (groundspeed GPS?), without reliable airspeed.

Solution = avoid STALLING - Nah!
 

GarageYears

Mmmm. :=
Seems a naive viewpoint to me... it's this kind of thinking that has actually caused such an alarmingly poor crew response in this situation! (i.e. no need for the native skills to fly the plane in these conditions because 'you' won't allow it to ever get there)

I personally believe the instumentation is extremely poorly conceived... position error should be minimised 'by physical design' not using PE corrections (e.g. probes far fwd away from pressure field around wing or fuse, as in test fl;ight a/c). AoA instruments to be much more robust and reliable, balanced to work down to a few knots.
Thus IAS not dependent on a/c AoA and AoA not so dependent upon speed (after all, does it not occur to EASA engineers that AoA (primarily for stall avoidance and warning) is most likely needed to be reliable at some (fluctuating) but arguably very low airspeeds :confused:

================

And as before, pretty well every post of mine will point to the sidestick culture.. so many downsides and the more we look at this (admittedly strange& hopefully rare) accident the more one can't imagine it ever happening with a fully visible and centred control device... whatever that may be.

jcjeant - actually pilots should be encouraged to fly. The computer should monitor flight parameters and if the PF does something stupid the computer takes it back for five minutes before the PF can reacquire control. Too many of those incidents and he is flunked for his "training exercises."

These days there is enough computing power to make this feasible as a way to keep the pilots on the ball, well experienced, and well trained.

Of course it was recoverable...

And let's call it a final descent, or similar, not a 'death plunge' - no one was consciously diving off a hotel roof !

ChristianJ - let's not feed the troll. Simply ignore him using the control panel.

HarryMann

The key issue was to avoid the stall, after the A/P and A/T disconnection.

But there was still plenty of height to play with in which to recover from this aerodynamic stall, if properly diagnosed and addressed. You can't rely on one pilot up front always having come into civil aviation from a military fast jet background.

JD-EE

Yes, regulations should require some manual flying within the AB flight envelope - as opposed to line pilots having to explain to flight ops why manual flight has taken place. Emergencies such as this are not the time to try out any neglected basic airmanship skills.

HarryMann
 

(1) The key words were "this crew", in the context of the CRM issues that have arisen. It is much easier to avoid an aerodynamic stall, than to recover from a FLT100 per minute plunge.

(2) "Death plunge" - provocative language, but to remind some posters what an (uncorrected) aerodynamic stall involves. There is only ever one ending.

The stall alarm repeatedly sounded, when within parameters.

JD-EE

One limitation of automated cars at present is that they may see and avoid a ball coming from in front of a parked car - but not anticipate that the ball may be followed by a child, as yet unseen.

Traffic on the taxyways gets held up by dense fog, as happened at Heathrow a year or two ago. Decca Navigator was almost accurate enough to use as a landing approach aid at Manston. We used to ink the charts. (The runway was very wide and we used the centre part anyway. FIDO had been removed.)

Reverse taxying would need practice. Do remember to take your feet off the brakes when going backwards. You MUST use forward thrust to stop going backwards or...!

A theoretical.

The Pilot accomplished the climb with the a/c following his commands.

WW, Harry Mann

Had the Pilot recovered the STALL, found himself in a high velocity descent, would the a/c have responded with similar control movements, and 'g'? Could he have commanded sufficient Nose Up to exit the dive successfully? Does the a/c limit the g available at the stick to prevent a recovery before hitting the Ocean? What are the limits to a successful recovery (pullout), imposed by the a/c's control system?

Again, a hypothetical.

Thanks

@Lyman

If you are indeed another alias for bearfoil - which is in itself a breach of the rules on most forums, then you'll know full well that the question you've just asked was answered - several times - on previous threads. If you're having a good cackle forcing people to repeat themselves over and over, it's not big and it's not clever.

For the benefit of new posters/followers of this thread I'll repeat once and once only - The aircraft was in Alternate Law 2 (aka NO PROT) - in this control law there are *no* hard limits on the attitude that the aircraft can be put into. There are soft limits, but the pilot can override them simply by manipulating the flight controls (as demonstrated by the THS response). The pilot has *full authority*.

I have not read the answer before, that is fact, and you have not answered it still.

The Pilot did not have "Full Authority" in the climb, his stick wanted it, but the a/c responded with less than the absurd amount he was commanding. Until the loss of energy, when the a/c allowed/deflected the controls to the limit, and kept them (THS) parked at max through the STALL, and down the other side. The climb was allowed by the a/c in "bumps" of elevator only, the THS stayed rigid at -3 degrees. That is NOT full authority, and good on it.

My question involves the descent. Why did the THS stay hard against the curb, independent of elevator command, and why was the elevator deflection ineffective in curing the STALL? Did it have to do with 'g'? airspeed? What, then. The last part of my question I repeat. If the pilot had gotten her flying, Would the pullout be hindered by the same limits I see in evidence in the CLIMB?

This is getting old. As you know, we have communicated PM, as I have with the others who prefer getting upset to being forthcoming.

There are enough high horses here to have saved Napoleon. One or two might consider dismounting.

What is abjectly lacking here most of the time, is deference to the dead; Instead we get childish fan clubbing, and wounded egos.

Website PROTOCOL? Are you serious?

Indeed

Sidestick ND - stall warning on
Sidestick NU - stall warning 0ff

:confused:

As Airbus have them, why not the victim's families ... ?


Amen.
Now, would you expect any FINDING in such line of thought in the Final Report ?


Diversification and A33Zab,
Thanks for your documented replies.
Nevertheless, let me quote the D-AXLA report on P92 :
In the AF447 case, there is an open door for ADR 1 anemometric values rejection.


Other BEA omission :
As initially reported by A33Zab.
And as further questioned later on.

Anyone ?

IMHO, if that is the modus operandi then it needs looking at too..

Any 'spike' triggering the Stall Warning, should ensure that it sounds for a minimum time. (say 1 or 2 seconds) OR continue until AoA is below a preset delta below trigger point (say, 1/2 degree above 20,000 ft and 1 degree below)

Lyman / HarryMann
 

I am not the right person to comment, having not been in a real high altitude aerodynamic stall since 1967 (not a passenger airliner, I hasten to add!), but stall recovery should never be considered an absolute given with a VSI of minus FLT100 per minute. The pilots had to both get the ND (the THS?) and not lose all control of the aircraft in the process. Never a certainty, even if the stall had been diagnosed in time. The critical period was shortly after A/P disconnect, to maintain stable flight and avoid the stall in the first place.

Isn't it the opposite happening already ... ?

CONF iture
 

An issue limited to reconnaissance flights, particularly unmanned drones these days. That is an issue going back beyond Francis Gary Powers. There will be fighter jet pilots for a long time......

Combat UAV(UAS) and Simulation vs Reality
 

Google Combat UAV and you will find that the long time may be a shorter time than one would think. The costs involved with keeping a pilot on the aircraft in terms of maneuverability (g limits) and environmental support cooling/heating/pressurization/protection of the cockpit are very large. There are already trials of air refueling combat UAVs, carrier landings with combat UAVs. But remember, these are rarely 'pilot-less' robot aircraft they are remotely piloted FBW aircraft with the pilot sometimes in a different continent so these fighter pilots will be around just not in the same place as the aircraft. A comfortable position to be in that allows the pilot to take more risks and walk away from every hull loss.

Simulation vs Reality

This raises a human factors issue on AF447 and training that I have not seen raised.

Simulations are used for training of all sorts of exigences there is no-one I know that has got into a simulator check ride where it is a boring flight and everything goes smoothly. It is expected that emergencies and failures will be exercised purely because they are not exercised 'in real life' - the raison d'etre of the simulator industry. This mentally sets up the trainee to expect problems in sim rides - and not to expect any emergency in the thousands of hours of mundane real world flight. There is a huge mental difference between being in a nice safe simulator exercise trying to please the training team behind you and being in a real world aircraft that has suddenly started an unscripted series of alarms and instrument failures knowing that your life is on the line -- or perhaps not fully understanding that your life is on the line.

I like many military pilots was fortunate (?) to be trained in an era when simulators were unreal and extremely expensive and actual flying was considered cheap. So all real emergency handling practice was carried out in real aircraft with imaginative instructors causing the emergencies. Instrument recovery from unusual positions was carried out from under a 'hood' with a 'you have control' midway through a high g aerobatic sequence - multiple times an hour. The trainee was in a REAL aircraft and having to do REAL recoveries.

The mental shock of a 'simulator exercise' suddenly happening in real life can lead to all sorts of human factors issues - some people who are good in simulated practices go to pieces in real life. Its a little late to learn that when the AP drops out with the wrong PF.

There could be a need for some kind of psychological assessment for FBW pilots. Or, more likely, even if the bean counters wouldn't like them, the old methods of using small aerobatic training aircraft to assess pilots were the right ones.

HarryMann:

It's not naive at all. Plenty of aircraft have very unpleasant stall/departure/spin characteristics, which no-one in their right mind would want to explore outside a very carefully managed flight test environment. That isn't to say they can't be operated safely, just that their pilots need enough warning to be able to stay away from the stall in the first place.

Actually the engineers designing these aircraft aren't stupid, and go out of their way to position static sources where the inherent pressure error is at a minimum over the normal flight envelope of the aircraft - those probes and static plates aren't where they are for convenience. Sure you can do better with a massive probe on the nose or trailing a static cone from the fin (or presumably several for redundancy :eek:), but why got to all that trouble and expense when you can get acceptable accuracy by applying corrections for AoA etc?

Almost ...
Pakistan: 4 morts dans un bombardement de drone américain

Thread #6 continues here