Let them have their own voice then ... In this AF447 time, not too many Ziegler on the board I must say.
Never seen it as THE solution - Just a waste of a very valuable source of information.

What's your point here ?
Don't mix everything.


The bare minimum I would expect to read in the findings (and I'm not even talking about recommendations) :

• The sidestick ergonomy as implemented by Airbus deprieved both PNF to actually realize what control inputs were applied by the PF.

But BEA is absolutely unable to formulate anything in that direction.

Also for @martinhauptman007's 'Captain' - I see no evidence that the FDR thought there was an overspeed.

I don't think that the airbus design philosophy of a sidestick without feedback has caused the accident. Also, how do you generate the feedback when the speed data is lost? You can synthetize something based on the AOA vane sensor, but the fact that there was icing in this case precisely meant that all data was suspect. IMHO generating a feedback based on faulty sensors is even worse than no feedback at all.

But that doesn't remove the fact that the stall alarm design is completely unnatural and misleading, which is a big design flaw.

The KEY FACTOR
 

Considering :

2:11:37 : PNF takes controll after the PF having said 'I have lost the plane"

2:11:39 : PF re takes control from the PNF witout annoucement

2:11:42Captain enters

2:11:45 : End of CONTINUOUS stall

So the capt could believe the PF has save the plane but from 2:11:39 the PF is no longer a professional pilot.:ugh:

In an army, had he survived, he proubably would have go to the martial court for insoumission.

Before 2:11:39, the PF was a bad pilot. From 2:11:39, he could well be judged as a criminal...

@JJFFC

I understand your emotional response to this very tragic incident. However I think we all owe it to the pilots to give them the benefit of the doubt. They did behave professional considering their level of training, experience etc.
Remember PF was confronted with a situation that he was not trained for i.e. UAS at high altitude. Throw in IMC and ITCZ and you have a nightmare. Clearly there was some mitigating circumstances and we only have a subset of the data. To their credit at no point did the 3 pilots give up trying. They fought for control down to the last second. For that they should be commended and we owe them the same professionalism.

I think this is too charitable. The one thing that we know they knew is that they were descending very rapidly. Aerodynamically, there are two ways for this to be the case: (a) they were in a deep (and fast) head-first dive; or (b) they were in a full tail-first stall. [Note, I am excluding the situation of the plane being fully laid over on its side.] Is it possible that things were so upset in the cockpit that over the course of three minutes in this attitude they were unable to discern the 60+ degrees of pitch difference between (a) and (b) -- and to remain convinced that it could only be (a)? I guess "yes," because the computer game stall warning was "god," aerodynamics be damned.

@Xcitation
 

I apologize for this emotional response and I wasn't in that plane.

My point is about the PF' action :

2:11:39 : PF re takes control from the PNF witout annoucement

This is not a mistake, a lack of training it is a fault regardless the point of view, the country, the period in the history.

From Julius Caesar it is a fault..

SeenItAll

Don't forget the Lateral. Put together, it was a hell of a ride. Oh, and strictly speaking, it wasn't a "tail first STALL"?

Hi, I see it this way:

The aircraft type fly-by-ware, in the cockpit there should be 2 emergence switches placed in standby instruments area (horizon-indicator,speed indicator-altitude indicator, also their systems must be totally separate from the other system, also add and mounting 4 ° pitot tube and 4°static port)

In the unusual emergency phase of putting on 1 switch must be activated on the system of flight controls direct with protection dumping elevator and rudder, but at the same time it must overraide all computer law: the normal law, alternate law , direct law, etc..
On news airplanes fly-by-ware, in the unusual emergency, last action must be only the pilots and not the law of computer. The computers works very goodin normal operations, but they’re stupid when in terrible Cb.

I'm Sorry, I Not well writing English language.

Except we do not have all the facts, nor lives on the line. How do you eliminate any margin of doubt and come to blame pilots. Even if they would have correctly identified a stall how would they recover. It is not a fighter, it was a fully loaded transport a/c. I read somewhere that they had 40 secs to correctly identify stall and begin recovery. Even then recovery could fail. Not a big time window given the confusing circumstances. 80% piltots have opposite/wrong reflex to stall warning. He was young and inexperienced, perhaps he was not in your 20%. This was all dumped on him by a long list of errors (training, experience, CRM, ALT law, software design, pitot fail, policy, accountants, weather...). Yes he made the wrong call. IMHO the question should be why not who.

About Reflexes
 

Unfortunately, when a pilot becames proficient in instrument flying and his reflexes on bringing back pitch and roll are sharp, then he goes to airline piloting. It is SOP to takeoff and in less than 5 minutes turn on the AP.

I wonder how many hands on (on type) flight time an experienced pilot (say, 5.000 hours) has.

I wonder if nowadays an airline pilot is able to hand fly his Airbus or Boeing from takeoff to FL 370 and hold it there for one hour smoothly, without sweating.

I can almost bet that this is prohibited by Ops Manual, or Regs.

All those sharp reflexes are long gone, and learn to hand fly smoothly only in an emergency, in only three minutes, how this is possible?

IMHO, in long duration flights, pilots should hand fly for at least one hour. And this would mean only 10% on the flight.

What is the percentage of hands on flying, nowadays, on a 10 hour flight?
One percent, maybe?

Many here will remember how difficult it was to believe the instruments on the beginning of IFR training, on real IMC conditions.

And, IMHO, the only way to stay proficient in IMC is flying with no AP. Flight SIM is kind'a OK, but how many SIM flight time an airline pilot gets in a month?

I think these pilots (AF 447) were good pilots, but they were victims of the system.

For Bearfoil and Rob2:

I have studied in minute detail hundreds and hundreds of DFDR readouts/data in the study of events of various types where the F/O was PF. In many of them there were instances where it was obvious that the captain should have intervened earlier yet he did not. This where the command structure is self evident. Now we had the case where 2 F/Os were flying together. It is not surprising that there was indecision when it came to such a need for intervention. There is a very strong case for mandating that the senior (and one hopes more experienced and competent) always assumes the role of PF when the captain is absent from the flight deck. Thus this CRM issue is avoided.

As for manual flying, it is worth bearing in mind that when flying in RVSM airspace there is a requirement for the a/c to have a serviceable autopilot. Should the autopilot fail ATC must be informed and the a/c leave the designated air space. The inference is clear that manual flight is not permitted. We may not like it and the downside is obvious but we are where we are!

Is is not possible to rescue an unused DC-10 or DC-8 from the boneyard in Arizona, and fly it around Hudson Bay, say, with a retinue of trainees in the back, taking their turns manual flying? It is unbelievable to me that manual flying is not one of the utmost priorities in professional piloting. Most people rationally assume that professional pilots are good at flying.

Depends, I would say qualities such as keeping a calm head in an emergency, prioritizing and keeping things simple are necessary for any good pilot.
How it looks now I'm not sure they all had those traits.

It seems to me a set of extraordinary circumstances happened to coincide and the PF was the worst possible out of the 3 who it could happen to (thats how it looks to me anyway)

Victor, I am not trackin. The senior F/O was Flying. Not clear why it is in any way beneficial that a "CRM issue be avoided"?

So, by experience do you mean Time on Type? Or flying experience?

Colgan shows us a Captain with more flight hours than F/O but with substantially fewer ToT. Since it is believed he may have been recovering from a STALL other than mainplane (by mistake), perhaps she (FO) was better qualified to handle his emergency? (Self inflicted?) :confused:

Rob 21

Good points. I have long maintained that the lack of hand flying should be ameliorated by a generous increase in Flight Simulator training. One reputable major I know of has done exactly that, and their pilots get three Sim sessions every six months instead of the customary two.

As always in modern life, the insurmountable stumbling block is put in place by the Beancounters.

And perhaps, commonsense? It has not in any way been established that manual flying issues played anything perhaps more than (possibly) a little too much NU one time? The rest is not manual skills, but SA, scan, and "knowing one's aircraft"? Not recognizing STALL is not perforce a manual skill?

Bearfoil, can you explain to a puzzled SLF? I thought the junior F/O was doing the flying during the crisis, and had been left 'in charge', vaguely, by the Captain.

Hi,

JFFFC
Dunno about the girl friend presence ... but what I know is that the crew on the flight deck from Rio to Paris .. was the same who make Paris to Rio ...
With that in mind .. I find it odd that the captain is concerned only for the return flight to the validity of the license of one of his copilot

overthewing

1. I am holding on to my perception of the "musical chaises" by a thread.

2. Discussing it gives me the 'vapors'.

3. I recommend a Movie: "Groundhog Day"

snug your lap belt. It will be choppy ahead.