That's why training aircraft don't have non-interconnected sidesticks. :)

One would hope that by the time someone has ended up in the flight deck of an airliner that they would have the requisite training for controlling the aircraft at that level (in terms of ability and altitude!). Airbus certainly haven't condoned pilots being certified without that training, but it would appear Air France let it happen anyway. Why the desire to crucify Airbus, when Air France seem to be the problem here?

Airbus's ace-up-the-sleeve has always been the ease of type conversion between their narrowbody short-haul types and their widebody long-haul types - weight saving was simply an added bonus. The advantages of starting from a clean sheet in that manner seemed at the time to have provoked a severe case of sour grapes from the other side of the Atlantic, which at one point considered the monopoly of western airliner design it's god-given right. The early years of competition between the two were bitter, but it seems to have resolved into a more friendly rivalry these days - unfortunately some seem to not to want to let it go.

The comment about no high altitude training hand flying being inexcusable is naive. It was the norm when we came to the airlines. We were expected to know it. We were dispatched at high altitude with no autopilot with FAA blessings. The problem with inexperienced pilots going through airline training programs is they don't have the money or time to spoon feed new hires. They start their job barely qualified in normal conditions. You can't expect much performance in the AF 447 crash and you didn't. That is the new culture.

I have to enter at least 10 characters... But this was all I wanted to say :ok:

Then would you not agree that the culture needs changing?

Look, I may for various reasons have abandoned any attempt to fly professionally early in life - but I'd have thought that if it's in your blood you want to do it to the best of your ability. To reduce it to "just another job" is ridiculous. The airlines expect you to handle these things manually at cruise altitude without training when things go pear shaped? I suspect there'd be an uproar of sizeable proportions if it ever got out that that was the norm...

Sidestick
 

Hi Bubbers44,
After the plastic vertical stabilizer snapping off, the crazy computer automatic dive, the flat spin caused by too far aft CG, the total loss of elevator control due to THS autotrimming, the complete loss of artificial horizons (meaning a quadruple failure of inertial systems), the supposed lack of alpha indicators (which exist but that no company really care to add on pannels) or control surface feedback, etc. theories... we are back, now to the so flawed sidesticks that can not allow any cross control check of imputs...

Actually, this feature exists on all Airbus aircraft, but it's not displayed after take-off. Then, one should ask Why it is like that?
In fact, because nobody using those aircraft seems to be very concerned about such an "obvious" need or it would have been made possible from two decades. Nonetheless, it could be very easy (and cheap) to add it, without changing anything to the actual stick system, via a stick pushbutton commanding to display this function (see below) during whatever phase of the flight.

Going on lawsuits against Airbus on such a case would be a non-winning game. Nothing is showing that it was a factor at all, neither that doing otherwise is better. It is obvious that the PNF complained about PF initial imputs almost immediately: he saw them and was able to take over at any point (including by blocking PF further actions) but he refrained from doing so.

Function displaying sidestick imputs:
http://takata1940.free.fr/sidestick.jpg

SS vs Yoke
 

When they started to design the 777 (and that's a long time ago) Boeing consulted pilots from around the world. Their preference was clearly in favour of the sidestick.

Not wishing to be seen to follow Airbus, Boeing disregarded this opinion.

Quoting Sidestick:-

Sidestick, I don't know everything about the Airbus displays, but as I understand it the PNF would normally have been able to monitor the control movements of the PF (in the captain's seat) from the Flight Director; but that this depends on the availability of some 'crosshairs'? If you refer to the FDR/CVR transcript (Page 86 onwards) you'll find that the FDs were cutting in and out at intervals throughout the descent; and in the body of the report the BEA says specifically that the crosshairs were cutting in and out even when the FDs were working in other respects? So I for one am none too sure that the PNF had access to the information he needed?

Oddly enough, the BEA has 'covered itself' (in what is only yet another 'interim' report) on this aspect; saying that finding out what information was actually available to the pilots at any particular time will need 'ongoing analyses':-

They also put in some stuff that just about sums up what I for one currently suspect turned an upset into a crash. We all know that such accidents almost never have a single cause: and also that the thing that started off the whole event was the sub-standard pitot tubes (which could and should, IMO, have been replaced months previously). My own view, on present evidence, was that the next most important cause was the inadequate stall warnings; that they tend to communicate 'approach to a stall' and don't 'change their tune' if the aeroplane HAS in fact stalled. And also 'shut up' if the ASI drops below a given speed. Not getting at Airbus specifically on this, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Boeing's stall warnings work the same way.

RWA - I think we are pretty well convinced by the AB 'knowers' that there is no way PNF would know what PF was doing with the SS when airborne except by a/c manoeuvre. I also believe that the failure of the stall warning system to perform adequately, while a hugely significant factor, is overshadowed by the initial and so far unexplained and 'un-noticed' pull-up to above safe altitude. Once there the dice was indeed heavily loaded.

If what Bubbers says about 3 pitch/roll SS movements a SECOND..................!?? - that is either a fault in the system or one of the most bizarre episodes I have seen of 'stick thrashing' and AF need urgently to review the 'pilots' in their fleets. Was he simply 'chasing' a wild FD?

No.

takata, I would be curious to know if you are actually one or more of the following :

1. FBW Airbus pilot
2. Multi crew pilot
3. pilot

My reading is that the stall warning system performed exactly as designed and accepted by FAA, EASA and others.

Performed Exactly as Designed
 

I've seen that so many times on these pages in defense of AB, in effort to end a line of thinking. How about considering the design is just plain defective?

How much of the PNF attention was on the ECAM and not on the PF joystick actions? In a yoke airplane, PNF would have been aware of PF actions at all times. Same goes for stationary throttles.

FAA data cited in Mitchell and Revans (2004) AvSpace&EnvMedicine

Mitchell cites the risk of pilot error inducing fatal accidents commercial RTP flight by age is lowest age 50-54 years old.
Taken as an index of one, the relative risk of a 40 year old commercial pilot is 1.25, and a multiplication of the risk by 2.5 for pilots under 30. This explains the intuitively correct CRM call by Sullenberger for "my aircraft".
In a situation loaded with risk for aircraft upset, the most experienced pilot would be , according to the accident figures, by far the superior. Sorry all you young atpls...you'll be closer to magic in your late 40' s.Accident rates for pilots at retirement age are also significantly lower than the 30's and under.Interestingly,if one includes back into the stats all those older commercial pilots who have lost their medical clearance due to risk of sudden cardiac death, the statistical overall rate of pilot error accident risks improves dramatically

Froom et al (1988) describe an ever greater jump in risk (by a factor of ten) between 30 year old pilots and their 10 year younger colleagues in the miitary aviation setting.
The situation also reminds me of the now famous "Rumsfeldts", where there is alot of unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns ...the worst place to be in any aircraft.

The AF 447 situation strikes me as one in which the incipient risks required the most experienced hand flyer right from the word go...no time for liberte,egalite,fraternite.....

if you get my drift.

@ CONF iture
Well who cares what I'm doing for a leaving. I know that the purpose of such function is not aimed at controling PF imputs. But, as both stick imputs are already linked to PFDs, it would be no big deal, if such was really asked and needed by customers, to modify it for cross checking pilot imputs (and I seem to remember that we already had such a discussion about two years ago).
Even adding some feedback thru electrical commands would not add tons of hardware (weight) nor tremendeous development costs to the manufacturer. The very same could be say about "non-moving" lever thrust, silent autotrim, etc.

On the other hand, you just hate this brand, whatever their reasons being to do it like that. I can't remember a single feature you actually liked about an aircraft you are supposed to fly. On my side, I'd like to know why is your grief so deep? Personnal vendetta?

Hi Greybeard,
It seems that there was not a single ECAM TB sequence popping up before 2 minutes after UAS, hence 1 minute+ into the full stall developement (0212+); the only one showing up, quite late, was ADR DISAGREE; there is barely no call about a procedure performed by him, either...

re #2697
 

Hi takata,
no big deal but just to make it clear:

The post you are referring to was not issued by myself.

Thank you for your valuable infos on the VSI!! I checked 34-14-00ff but somehow missed this.

AMEN to ALL of that, Brother. But, you'll NEVER get the AB supporters to agree, unfortunately.

Quoting bubbers44:-

I think this may well be a matter of 'super-sensitive' recording, rather than anything more sinister. If you ignore the 'snaking lines,' and just count the basic 'ups and downs,' rather than the 'zigzags,' there appear to have been only about four of each in the period referred to. And we have to remember that the PF had just taken control after the autos signed off - according to the Report, his main concern at that time was to correct a tendency to roll. He'd have been mainly concerned with moving the stick sideways, not forward or back; if he'd moved it even slightly forward or back during the sideways movements (and assuming, as one has to, that the systems were probably recording in fractions of a second) it was probably 'no big deal.'

Looking again at Page 111, though, I noticed another thing. Assuming that I've interpreted the graphs correctly, while the THS was still moving towards 'full-up,' the PF applied full nosedown for quite a long period; probably because, as the report says, he was (correctly) countering the zoom climb. But the THS just continued on it's 'merry' way to full up.

What's more, if you look lower down, the Angle of Attack graph starts increasing at exactly the same time that the THS starts moving, at what looks like an exactly-equal angle (though opposite on the graph). And reaches its highest angle just as the THS arrives at 'full up'?

So (assuming I've read the graphs right) why didn't the THS react to the PF's apparently 'solid' nosedown input and 'get sensible'?

Hello Mimpe
Your numbers are very interesting.
But is it really a question of experience or is there more about this?
If its is only experience than this should be a constant about the history of aviation.

If its not a constant than there might be other factors like for example changed traning involved.

The "Airplane with HAL" :

Number of A330s built : 802
Number of A330 hull losses : 6

Percentage lost : 0.75%

The "Old-fashioned pilot's aircraft" :

Number of DC-10s built : 386
Number of DC-10 hull losses : 31

Percentage lost : 8%

You were saying?

How about a boeing?
 

Do most of you agree that a boeing aircraft faced with the same conditions and failure would have clearly handled the problem and not ended up in the drink?