OK, Dozy - I give in..........let's see how many AF447 threads we can generate.

FLEX - VSI is normally 'instantaneous' inertial then tapered by barometric. - you mean apart from the rapidly unwinding altimeter? (and thought possibly to be 'off scale' and not visible?)

It's a very different type of aeroplane, but I used to demonstrate this type of stall to Air Cadets learning to fly the Venture motor-glider. The stall scenario to be taught was the classic reducing IAS, buffet, and nose-drop. But I liked to demo also a more subtle stall where you end up with a reasonably normal attitude and power, but with the stick hard back, very low airspeed, and the VSI off the clock.

The only indications that you were stalled were the control column position, IAS, and the vertical speed. It was even a very smooth ride!

Simply releasing the back-pressure effected immediate recovery.

I suspect that simply releasing the back-pressure in this case might have been sufficient to recover very rapidly.

Having flown an aircraft type, of which two were lost to deep-stalls (HS 121), and several other types where the HS is not blanked by the stalled wing, I think the former were your worst nightmare. The latter could almost be likened, aerodynamically (and for the pilot-held-stall-condition) to those old RAF motor-gliders.

I realise that is a gross simplification, but few pilots (I suspect) were ever demonstrated the pilot-maintained stall.

Hope you have a tin hat DA !

This thread is like an echo from the edge of the universe, back to deep stall and THS authority. There was a mountain of stuff on this in Tech Log Thread #4 including (916),

"If THS > 8 up (and no autotrim available), full elevator pitch down authority may be insufficient for speeds above 180 knots."

...at reasonable attitude of course. However is the distinction between stall, deep stall relevant as no apparent sustained attemp at ND is evident, less that it was wanted but the THS frustrated it. Back to Tech Log !

To the contrary, pedantic rants discussing the nuances of pitch characteristics in various AB FBW laws belong in the tech section. ;) (not accusing you of rants btw)

This string is about the final statements uttered by the doomed crew and I suspect that many readers can't understand why something as simple as a stall killed 200 someodd persons. And why the crew would be so totally confused. That in itself is quite a different subject than the latest AF447 string. Contrary to the name, it's quite obvious that professional pilots make up something less than the majority around here. I think it reasonable to keep this string alive and out of the purgatory called AF447 string 1,2,3,4,5,6, and so on.

Aileron Drag: In the Airbus 320 series (I don't fly the 330 but believe it to be the same), releasing the side stick would have simply resulted in the computers attempting to maintain one g-force. The AB trims for g-force, not for speed. Your technique works in aircraft that trim for speed. The Airbus is somewhat different, to say the least.

Anything more belongs in the tech section.

TTex600,

The principle is, perhaps, the same. It doesn't matter what the autoflight system is aiming at if the back-force is released - a trimmed speed or a certain 'g'.

Fact is, these guys were positively demanding maximum pitch up. Or, to put it another way, max positive 'g'.

Sorry, my knowledge of the Airbus range is nil - I was a Boeing dude. All I can see here is this crew failed to realise that a very high pitch attitude, full power, stick hard back, zero speed, and VSI off the clock was indicative of a pilot-maintained stall.

I know it's easy to pontificate from my retirement armchair, but I had noticed in my final years of professional flying (B777) that the 'new generation' of F/Os had poor basic flying skills - having been brought up in a fly-by-wire world, and in an ab initio system which had banned spinning training because it was 'dangerous' !

The Tech thread, by the way, has become a little ethereal for some of us!

I think most pilots understand what was happening here, and only in hindsight, of course. To those who have not been confused whilst flying an aircraft, hats off. Ordinarily, sit on hands is wise advice.

These guys were forced to sit on their hands and try to think themselves out of a crash. That's hard, and deserves more respect than some are showing.

They had tried "everything" (according to them), and nothing had worked.

What sort of mindset would paint them so far into the corner?

Loud airstream: High velocity. Common sense.

Astonishing Descent: Fear factor.

Fairly stable g loading: "Stable Flight", suggesting "In control"

Pitch "Stable", but "NOSE DOWN": "Obvious", the controls were chronically commanding NOSE UP, and no sense of climb, or rotation is felt.

They had agreed already they were out of options, they told the Captain that, on his entry into the flight deck.

So it seems simple, and not difficult to get. They didn't get STALL data such that they followed it in, and not knowing they were STALLED, they did not think to control out of it.

It isn't so obvious that they were "stupid", and it is outrageous that anyone would continue to dismiss their efforts at recovering the a/c.

This deal to me is mostly HF, and some non-serendipitous events that conspired to trap the crew into their destiny.

There is also no firm foundation for faulting "training". It is difficult to justify the lack of attention paid to UAS likelihood on long flights. To me, there is not one person here who has the chops to criticize the "lack of Manual Flight skills" exhibited once the a/p was lost to faulty speeds.

It is arrogant to be dismissive of the pilots' efforts.

Get real, Lyman. They kept the stick hard back. There was little or no attempt at recovery. They did not know they were stalled.

My two pennorth worth-. The Airbus Efis layout on their FBW aircraft can be cluttered in comparison to a traditional aircraft.All the info is there on one screen and it is up to the weak link(the pilot ) to unpick it. I do not believe a tape altimeter stands out as well as a needle and a drum altimeter as they unwind rapidly. Imagine a needle unwinding rapidly and how easy that is to interpret. The VSI also on the EFIs is very small .i noticed that my scan when I flew 320/330 was very poor as you basically were looking at one screen . Contrast that with having to scan individual instruments and process what they were telling you. You probably spend a few microseconds longer doing this but that extra time can trigger something that tells you something is wrong. With an older aircraft I have a healthy disrespect about what it is telling me and i qualify this by looking at pitch power and performance. When I convert to a new type I always look at the unreliable airspeed checklist to learn the pitch and power combinations that work. i do my best to fly by these and no matter the complexity or sophistication of the aircraft they can all turn back into a basic aircraft with in this case was a very simple failure.(blocked pitots).
I have had the same failure in a non fbw airbus but it was flyable as we hand fly it a lot,we don't trust it ,and we flew pitch and power. The 330 shouts stall at you in a loud masculine voice and whenever i heard it in The sim my arm always wanted to push the nose down so why didn't this trigger a similar response?

This may be a watershed for cockpit design
 

The pilots flew a perfectly good plane, straight into the salty sea.

It seems that the FBW automation has led to an ergonomic failure, normally certified pilots are simply not capable anymore of figuring out what the instruments are telling them and flying this plane in the presence of fairly minor mechanical faults like pitot blockage.

I suspect that we will see a major redesign of future automation control interfaces and cockpit instrumentation as Airbus digests the data of this accident. We will probably also see some major changes in pilot training, maybe even a greater emphasis on seeing pilots handfly the plane to keep their hand in.

I suspect that the smarter souls at Airbus and the certification authorities already suspected most of this, and their suspicions informed the huge search operation which provided the proof to push home aircraft design and pilot training changes.

We will all learn from this accident, at least I hope we will. Well I have, anyway.

BIG RoD, Smooth flight:

Levers back, nose down.

And........................

Recover.:)



Surely a message from the (AF447) Grave, for all who'd care to hear it.

Holding yoke or side stick all the way back for 3.5 minutes is not in any flight manual on how to fly an airplane even if you don't know why the airplane is out of control. These guys were poorly trained and were not qualified to be flying that airplane. The only qualified pilot was taking his rest break so when he got up there he had little time to figure out how they had gotten into their situation. How can airlines keep hiring pilots of this low capability to fly these wide body aircraft when they know the junior guys will be flying together with little experience?

We know it is illegal to make the captain stay in the cockpit at all times if the flight is over 8 hrs. Make them put two qualified captains on long range flights so at least one pilot knows how to fly if the automation fails. That is how we did it on my first airline job. My last one was like AF but the FO's were qualified high time pilots. Not like these noobys.

That's a little harsh. Look at the transcripts and you'll see that the senior (albeit not by much) F/O - acting as PNF - seems painfully uncomfortable with how the aircraft is being handled, but it is only when the Captain arrives in the flight deck that he feels he has the authority to act (notably *emphatically* preventing the PF from deploying the speedbrakes). Up until that point he tries to correct the PF verbally, but does not take control of the aircraft.

The way I read it, it looks like he knew something was wrong, but because the Captain had implicitly put the junior F/O in charge, he felt he was unable to act beyond a certain point.

The situation that bothers me is that the Captain did not explicitly determine responsibilities before heading for his rest break. On top of that he elected to put the junior F/O, who was returning from vacation, in charge during the relief phase of the crew roster. This is illogical to me, especially given that he knew that they were about to transit the ITCZ during a time of year when it is known to be challenging to fly through. I don't know how it is for pilots, but when I'm back at work from vacation, it takes me a day or two until I'm properly "back in the groove".

Again? whatever.:hmm:

DW, so you think the way the FO's handled the situation was correct and a fully qualified captain in the cockpit is not necessary? What fully qualified captain would hold the controls all the way back for 3 and a half minutes? Non that I know of. If the captain had been in the cockpit when they lost airspeed he would have handled it like all of us would have. Flown attitude and power setting until clear of the weather, not pulled up and stalled. I guess every country is different but that is what we do.

I think Bubbers' post was correct.

In addition:

Can't fly: Not a pilot.

Dozy, it isn't exactly a democracy in the cockpit. It is more of a meritocracy. You warn the other person that they are f'ing up if time permits and then act if you hope to be bouncing your grandkids on your knee.

Problem is that PNF did not act, he punted the problem to the Captain. That is as much of a problem as is PF's handling of the aircraft.

The reasons the PNF did not act need to be understood and corrected.

Getting back to the fact that pitot tube failure/blockage was the initial cause, I have temporarily lost both ASI's during atmospheric research until clear of clouds in a DC-8 due to the amount of water encountered inflight. The result? I'm still here. The airplane didn't fall out of the sky. The only 'law' we had was pitch/power (with moveable power levers, BTW)...and the autopilot will not trip off (if on) due to lack of airspeed. No auto-throttle and the FD is usually off. Amazing stuff, eh? Given AF447's experience, I wouldn't want to do the same research in a Scarebus.

As 411 used to say: "Them's the facts."

That's not what I said at all! I said that the senior F/O seemed to have more of a clue what was going on, but only intervened verbally until the Captain arrived. I also said that the way the Captain performed the handover was an example of poor CRM, because he did not explicitly brief the F/Os on who would be acting as relief pilot, nor did he provide the senior F/O with any boundaries at which he could take control (which, according to Interim 3, should have been standard AF procedure).

What is necessary in the flight deck is at least one competent pilot, preferably two. Rank can sometimes be immaterial - remember Palm 90, where the F/O was clearly the more qualified and switched-on pilot of the two, but did not feel he could override his Captain.

The Captain of Birgenair 301 and the Captain of ColganAir 3407 for starters.

Qualified Pilots?
 

Quote:
If I may beg to differ....:8 The captain of CG3407 had failed several checks.

The only qualifications whatsoever that I hold for commenting is that I have read all of the posts in all of the AF447 threads! :O

Aileron Drag @ #88

He held back stick...... What could go wrong, he flies an Airbus?

He's in ALTERNATE LAW, what could go wrong, he is Alpha protected?

Wicked speed, insane descent, He'll wait for the a/c to "raise" the nose.

What else could be wrong, it can't be STALLED.

He had it figured, wrong, but figured. His idea of recovery was to allow the a/c to recover, as it always does.

Ultimately, all three figured to PULL was the call. ALL THREE.

It happened another way? Funny thing, Airbus pilots aren't quite as harsh on these three, wonder why? They know something we don't?

Blubbers44m Spot on. I have been following this(s) threads for a long while. Clearly a combination of lack of basic flying skills by at least one, lack of ability to take command of the situation (other FO, he knew something was wrong but did not act) and the poor captain who opened the door and saw a freakin mess.
I still say we need basics in the cockpit, some glider and acro time (just an intro course will do) and at least two pilots on board who know more then FMS operation. Not harsh at all. However that being said it is easy to point fingers from the comfort of your living room.

Disgressing a bit : A joke in France for long is that Air France FI/FE thought they were so good they would teach birds how to fly .

Take a cup of coffee and watch this 1 min APP video, (full screen mode )
Amazing nature - The Eagle Owl

Particular attention to the winglets, the course correction when on the localizer, the full flaps extensiom, the slats, and if you can, (but you have to be very good ) the stall warning device.

Now back to PPruNe and explaining the world how it should have been done...

Hi,

The latest movie about AF447 (in french)
http://www.stream-tv.fr/reportage-tv...e-de-securite/

Is post #63 to be interpreted as a test conducted to duplicate AF447 ? Presume they used manual trim.

Anyway, what did this snippet from the conversation add, other than that they believed the altimeter ?

The crew were lacking in flight management knowledge...Isn't that obvious?

Obvious, yes but wasn't it already from the previous extracts? Can't see anything new here. The FULL extract from the start of the incident up until stall would help as it would clear up what was going through their minds and, maybe, what they thought the instruments were telling them.

quote- bubbers44 (i can't seem to quote directly, but that's another issue)
And sorry to digress a little.

There is little doubt that the situation was not handled correctly, but that is not quite the same as poorly trained.

In your statement above, you say the 'only qualified pilot', implying that the 2 F/Os were not qualified?
Would you elaborate, as I feel there is a misconception here? The 2 F/Os were of less experience than the captain, maybe. But surely all were qualified to be there.
In my time, I have flown as F/O, with another F/O as relief, for the captain and myself, on very long trips. All are qualified.

Experience does not automatically produce great ability, nor does great ability infer lots of experience. No matter what the insurance companies and bean counters think.

Lyman said
 

I think you hit the nail right on it's head.

You can't expect a crew to handle an emergency situation in which they have not been trained.
An Airbus can't stall (well, actually they can, but you know what I'm talking about). Airbus crew do not train stall recovery. It's possible these guys more or less grew up on Airbus aircraft, and the last stall training they had was many years ago?
I've never flown Airbus aircraft, but I've seen many demonstrations where the pilots fly the aircraft with the stick max aft to show what it's capable of.
So why are we surprised the pilots tried to recover with this procedure?

Last time I trained high level deep stall (in the sim) on the 737, it took some 10000+ ft to recover. It's not just "close the thrust levers and pitch forward--> recover". You need to push hard and use trim, then wait, wait, wait (and prey you have enough altitude), then hopefully you start to fly before you hit the ground.

These guys had a multitude of other problems as well. I just hope I never have to face a similar situation myself.

Lance

the figures still show that the lowest incident/accident rates in commercial flight are in the 50-55 years old pilot group, so experience must mean something, even if its just that the guys not wanting to be there have all left!

.....and interestingly, the 55-65 year olds are safer than the 40-50 year olds, but not by much.

Interesting!
Are you talking about 50-55 year old captains, or average age of the crew?
Can I have your source, please?

But they kept checking until they passed him, which means he was technically a qualified Captain in spite of his questionable competence. This was why I made the distinction between competence and rank.

@ManaAdaSystem - You know as well as I do that there are no hard protections in Alternate Law - Lyman's trying to muddy the waters again. If he had been properly trained he would have known that Alternate Law = no hard protections. They only followed the suggestion to pull up after it was way too late (about 4000 ft I think?).

I don't doubt that.
The point I was (obviously badly) aiming at, is that the 2 F/Os were not just very low time newbies, with no type rating. Unless my understanding of the AF accident is wrong.

Of course experience does count for a great deal, but only when coupled with actual ability, and not just luck.

The assumption seemingly being made in Bubbers44 post was that only the captain was qualified, the 2 F/Os being what?
This is adding an aspect to the discussion which is not supported by the facts so far, nor by the JAA regs. Surely?

If this accident is being discussed with a view to extracting as much information for the rest of us to learn from, then there is a responsibility for the facts to be presented or determined, without adding ambiguity. Hence my question.

I think the point being made is that the two F/Os may (possibly) have been the product of the 'new' training regime. That is, no exposure to stalling, spinning, and aeros, then after the CPL has been obtained straight onto a fly-by-wire computer-with-wings.

I met so many people like this. Fail the FMC and GPS and they're hopelessly lost. I guess it's inevitable in a high-tech environment.

I often got back from a trip thinking 'I wouldn't want to be with that F/O on a dark night with multiple failures'.

Of course these guys were qualified. It's just that it's a lot easier, these days, to 'qualify'!

Whomever caused the last minutes to be released of the CVR aside, fairness and fairplay demand a release of the CVR contents of the period prior, thorugh, and beyond a/p loss to STALL.

It is virtually certain there will be no hysterics, overt drama, or strictly personal proprietaries.

Was there other discussion at disconnect a/p a/t? Does PF KNOW and immediately respond to UAS? Misunderstood or unavailable, the data at manual flight start informs of his thought process.

"He pulled into a STALL". Is not a lie, but it doesn't contain much truth, looking at the whole of the currently unsupported HF data made available.

Instead of focusing attention on the unfortunate exposure of some extremely stressed pilots in a seeming hopeless situ, BEA should release the data that would inform a better understanding of why and how this crew acted as it did. To allow shrill and amateur slanders to continue without protecting the performance of this crew with the truth, is to me inexcusable.

FAA stopped requiring SPIN training long ago, they did not make it illegal.
And that for the Private certificate. So what is preventing commercial requirements for spin/acro for the ATPL?

NOTHING.

FAA sets MINIMUMS, it does not prevent further progress, and skill training. Gliding, spins, and enhance UA recovery should be requirements. They're not, more's the pity, but professional advanced training is available.

DOZY. Relative to the PF's training, and Protections. His handling in Pitch is protected. It isn't closeout, but it is not DIRECT, as ROLL. I am not trying to muddy the waters. The PF found the waters muddy enough, I am suggesting to us that he was less than clear (possibly) of the LAWS in 2 that made Roll a challenge, and PITCH, gentle, though definitely deadly.

It isn't what you think that is important, or what I think, it is what was going through the PIlot's mind that matters.

I think PITCH DIRECT in A/LAW 2 may have prevented this accident. And please eliminate autoTRIM also.

WHY? Because with ROLL so demanding, PITCH was relegated to second tier priority, due its computer filtered inputs. I say this figuratively, for of course it was crucial, but DIFFERENT.

It is this one Failure in programming that caused the crash, I believe.

In slipping from NORMAL to ALTERNATE, a consistent degrade should be the rule, not ROLL this way, PITCH that way, etc.

Had the Pilot pulled hard enough, the a/c would have STALLED with gusto, a la vanilla, cues and all. Do they recover from this early STALL?

Did they recover from the "Weird" STALL that happened when the airframe was paid off in energy? When at the top of a "leisurely" climb, non-DIRECT in PITCH?

"I realise that is a gross simplification, but few pilots (I suspect) were ever demonstrated the pilot-maintained stall."

I go back a long way, but we used to do just that in the RAF's Varsities. I don't think "normal" students did that exercise, but it was certainly part of the training for instructors. I was a "Waterfront" instructor's instructor (why was it called "The Waterfront"?) at Central Flying School. You could hold the Varsity in a full stall, stick (yoke) hard back and it would just float downwards nose in the air. It was a long time ago that I used to do this exercise (best part of 40 years) so my memory is perhaps incomplete. But I seem to recall that even in a steady full stall, there was still some degree of aileron control.

Our exercise all those years ago bears a remarkable resemblance to AF447. Our recovery technique - giving an instantaneous result - was simply "stick forward"

In reply to post #109


Why not? Flight crew don't get qualified by opening the right cereal boxes, although this crew's handling of the situation is questionable, other aircraft/crew have had situations which were unforeseen and have dealt with them.
So in effect they were trained, albeit not for this specific instance. However, if flying the Bus makes you dependent on the inbuilt protection to the extent that you can't recognize a deep stall regardless of instrumentation then the training wasn't sufficient.

jack. It is a well known tool in emer. descent, provided the a/c is up to it, and in a sufficient emergency, it doesn't really matter, does it?

Stick back, held, and descend with roll control, and recover as you say when a spot is found to plant. If the ground is not visible, and depending on the a/c, impact is to some extent "survivable" (see Schiphol).

Fast jets do this, though not the "impact" part, hopefully.

Also in the quiver is Flat Plate, a 90 degree AoA fast brake.

As we see in 447, much of the a/c was isolated from the more destructive impact in the tail and belly. Witness the pristine galley, tray shelving, and other bits.

Though not fully addressed, the survivability of the impact is not discussed. For good reason. God Forbid some survived, only to drown, or die of exposure. Imagine the PR disaster that would be. Only the most gruesome autopsies are released, as they herd the conclusion to "No Survivors of Impact". For those with some patience, and a sceptic's eye, this investigation is.....fishy.

Momoe: They did handle it, and your expectation is of success. Analyze the "handling"? Listen to them, completely, there was no abdication of handling. You make it sound as though the pilots were quitters at the outset. Of course the expectation is of success. Failing that, the baby goes out with the bathwater?

From the CVR, at the outset with Captain's arrival, the pilots state they are out of ideas, and that they do not know what is wrong. That leaves us to figure out what they missed, not difficult, as the data is found, reasonably complete, we think.

That leaves the Captain's training. I will admit I am not fond of this Captain's apparent leadership skill. For what we think from the other pilots comments, he is expected to sort the mess out, and ostensibly becomes instead merely an audience of one.

At this point, I believe the pilots messed up, with "help" from Airbus. I cannot excuse the apparent lack of good planning in programming the aircraft to degrade into touchy ROLL, yet remain same in PITCH feel, and with the loss of Alpha Protection. It is a trap.

Who wants to handle an airplane that changes the way it flies in one axis, but retains the response in another, and there is loss of STALL protect on top of that?

One should not have two commanders at the controls. The BUS, and the PF.

"You can't expect a crew to handle an emergency situation in which they have not been trained"


Erm..
I believe that the one thing that a human can do better than any computer is react well to an unforseen/unplanned/untrained for event.

That expectation is pretty much the whole reason for having us nowadays.
The vanilla stuff is computer food all the way.