CRAP or CREPE??
 

Well DC-ATE, as you can read in the BEA preliminary report, the airplane reacted in a totally normal way, as soon as a proper stick input was given: when the stick was pushed forward, the pitch attitude lowered and the AOA decreased.
Unfortunately the proper stick input was not maintained long enough to effect complete recovery from the stalled situation.
Nothing really crappy about aircraft response there, Fly By Wire or not.
"Even" an Airbus is a totally normal airplane if you treat it as such.

Do not get confused by Airbus being FBW, it is not statically unstable as an F-16 is. I am not gonna explain that further, that has been done very well by old Gums a lot of postings ago already.

They even have "FBW" instead of throttle linkages on some race motorcycles. Why you may ask? So they can eek out a few less milliseconds on the throttle response time. EMIT, I agree if the aircraft did everything the pilots asked of it and if the pilots were not asking the correct questions then shame on them. However I still do not fully appreciate the fact that in essence every time you try to make a input you are asking a computer permission and depending on it's programming you may or may not get what you are asking for. Granted you do have to make the correct inputs, that is where YOUR experience comes into play. It is up to you as the pilot what kind of experience you can bring to the table and what kind of experience the bean counters are willing to pay for. Now we are back to front wheel drive cars made for mediocre driving skills.

Personally I do not mind FBW at all as long as it (the wire) is going through a control tube

I did have the opportunity of jump seating on a A320 (when you could do such a thing) and when we were at FL I asked what would happen if we lost all electrics, I mean ALL. I got a look like I was a kid asking what if a wing fell off. After a bit the captain said something about the FO opening a door to the RAT and then they would spend the rest of the fuel load trying to get a computer on line so they could land it. Yes, it is not unstable like a F16 (Neither is a dart or an arrow) but really what is the real purpose of FBW? I mean we have had fully coupled auto pilots for quite a while and they operated servos and worked just fine. Are we really saving a bit of weight so we can get another 10 passengers on board? Are we trying to reduce response time of a few milliseconds? They are even doing this to freakin helicopters, why? I do not think the benefits out weigh the negatives, but this is just me.

Do you want to be a board member so if the company fails the blame can be passed around or do you want to be a pilot where you(the crew) are fully responsible for the outcome of the flight?

Maybe I am getting old.

Quoting EMIT:-

Unfortunately, EMIT, you appear to be assuming something the BEA's (increasingly suspect) note does not say. In fact, it only states:-

So there is no evidence that the PF did not in fact maintain the nosedown inputs?

Typically of the BEA (on this occasion) the note later mentions both pilots applying simultaneous inputs - but it doesn't indicate whether those inputs were up or down......

On the other hand, the BEA DOES say without equivocation that the THS remained in the same 'full up' position that it had adopted (for whatever reason) at the onset of the accident "until the end of the flight." And, as the BEA said in the earlier Perpignan report which I quoted above, this would likely have left the pilots in a situation which they "could not manage to counter, even with the sidestick at the nose-down stop"?

Hi,

This one of the reason why I posted in the thread in Tech Log:
The BEA communicate .. but not inform .. just like a tabloid
Too much people confuse the words communication and information .. they are two different beasts ...

Guys, my guess is that the BEA report is deliberately incomplete to hold off the inevitable lawsuits to the proper time, ie. after the final report is published. In my view, it says all that needs to be said, without actually giving anything definite the lawyers can grasp on. Unfortunately it also leaves enough holes for those on this forum who of course know exactly what actually happened to try and squeeze their pet theories into the gaps.

I'd say the "how" , even if not the "why", is clear enough, and the real professionals (should that be singular?) who have contributed to this topic have it about right.

- we would all be interested to know exactly what happened - since you obviously do, can you tell us? It would save an awful lot of bandwidth (or should that be a lot of awful bandwidth...?)

Quoting fizz57:-

Sadly, I think you're pretty nearly right there, fizz57. Except that I suspect that the BEA's thinking was even more short-term than that - that they were just required to shove out something that 'hinted' at pilot error, to get Airbus 'off the hook' before the Paris Airshow.......

Sadly, I have to disagree there. The BEA's job is to determine the cause(s) of the accident as soon as ever possible, so that similar accidents can be avoided in future. Maybe I'm an idealist dreaming of a 'perfect world' - but we are probably all agreed that the BEA's note is more notable for what it leaves out, rather than what it puts in. The BEA's job is not to 'play poker' with lawyers - however much pressure the political guys put on them.

In a word, it's one of the most 'unprofessional' documents I've ever read in my life.......

Quoting jcjeant:-

Exactly right in my view.

OK - I'll stick my neck out with a couple of 'speculations'......

1. As to the stall warnings cutting in and out, my guess is that this had to do with the 'Indicated Airspeed' being understated due to icing and/or the steep pitch-up. As far as I know (though I very seldom flew anything that had any sort of stall warning) stall warnings are 'disabled' below a given airspeed - simply because, if they weren't, they'd go off during the landing flare.......

2. As to the behaviour of the THS, if I was involved, I'd look very closely at the question of whether, if the autopilot and autothrust 'sign off,' it is designed to 'fail safe' or not. After all, the normal 'duty' of the THS in automatic flight, again as far as I know, is to maintain a precise altitude. For all I know, the THS, both at Perpignan and in the AF447 accident, was simply going on with that 'normal job' - trying to regain the assigned altitude it had last been set to maintain, before the autopilot was switched off (Perpignan) or 'signed off' (AF447)?

To repeat, just 'speculations.' Constructive comments/further information/corrections welcome. But anyone who feels the need, by all means 'flame away' if that's your wont........

While waiting for the 'insight' from Fizz......................

1) Nothing really wrong with a stall warning 'going off' in a landing - if you land a C150 PROPERLY the stall warning should 'bleep' just as you touch. I agree it is not a nice thing to have on a commercial jet, however, it might frighten the pax.

2) Cannot agree with that para -THS is not 'dropped' with loss of A/P. It runs throughout the 'normal' flight regime in AB330 ie it does not 'fail',. A/P or manual. It is not there to maintain 'altitude' but to trim the tail to relieve elevator displacement (ideally!) to allow full elevator authority, just like any other trimmable tailplane.

Vel Paar's comment :bubbers44 :Wow! bubbers, your grandpa must be the CEO of your airline! As far as I know, most air carriers want their pilots to utilise all the automation available to ensure smooth, economical and safe operations. I have unfortunate colleagues called up for tea and bickies when the AIMS/FOQA indicated some minor excursions when they flew manually without FDs.
A few indulgent chief pilots may just wave off such " no SOP " ops but they are getting fewer and fewer.

Here we go again.....:(
(MHO..)

G, so you are all in favor of no flying skills, just punch the buttons. Did you notice by chance what happened to AF447 using your technique? Sometimes the autopilot quits and it doesn't matter what button you push, you are just F*****.

G, I am sure the UAE would have a hard time training a competent pilot so maybe button pushing a computer is your only option. I will be watching the news for the results. I'm sure something will be on in the near future.

Training
 

IMHO the question is "how do I practice flying outside the norm". The answer has to be using the simulator mostly. I can't really see how sail plane flying would help when the flight deck is lit up like a christmas tree, chirping and whooping, betty nagging and the ECAM scrolling by like the credits on a cheap movie. These pilots knew how to fly and recover from a stall. The big question is how did they process the PFD, ECAM, warnings... That kind of real/perceived multiple failure situation was never trained for. You can't get it in a sail plane or pitts.
The other issue is that you cannot go manual flying around coffin corner in chop. I question how much free play the earlier poster does at FL370 or above. Some manufacturers don't recommend manual at the cruise alt for particular types, its just too woolly to be playing buggles up there. As throwing out the SOPs and going full manual whenever he wants...:bored:

BOAC, the thousands of hours spent in a Cessna 150 giving dual reminds me of the stall warning right at touch down. I would never want to hear it in an airliner. We were never exposed to that in airliners because it was well before stall. One time in 23,000 hrs I got a stick shaker in a 727 on a tight turn with speed brakes out at night going into Puerto Plata. I immediately stowed the speed brakes and landed normally. I appologized to my copilot even though he didn't care because it had never happened before or after in my career or his. Stowing the speedbrake fixed the problem because the speed was right, the speebrake brake caused the alert.

Exciting
 

xcitation, previous post

Flying manual, even at FL370 is NOT DANGEROUS, it is just NOT ALLOWED because it is RVSM airspace, where extremely accurate altitude keeping is required.

The 100 or 200 ft margin that we lazy, easily bored humans would maintain if we tried it for 9 hrs would be unacceptable for separation purposes. That is the reason why we delegate that task to ever sharp, never bored autopilots.

Glider flying would be a good training means to bring home the point that flying is a matter of maintaining attitudes and angles of attack, not something of text on screens, whether your IPhone or ECAM displays. Sure, those screens may convey important information, but the flying thing meanwhile is to keep the nose more or less near the horizon, with the blue sky on the side where your aircraft roof is.

FL370, or whatever level you are flying, should give ample margin for normal flying, if not, you have gone too high. Climbing towards, or starting a descent from level, is not against RVSM rules, by the way, neither is flying manually for a short time, e.g. to trim the aircraft properly.

:D Well said EMIT! (Goed gezegd!)

Now how did that happen?

I believe what all the self aggrandizing by the seats of their pants aces forget is that most shiny new jets fly out of and into airports where RNP/PRNAV requirements dictate use of the automatics. To fly manually on these SIDs and STARs is to invite possible deviations which can be " career stalling " for some.

Enough of all these great stories of heroics...the world is changing rapidly and like it or not the automatics will rule the future pilot's life. I love flying manually and I am lucky to have flights into airports where RNAV/PRNAV procedures are not required.

The challenge is to be totally proficient in correcting all the anomalies with the automatics entirely or partially. The supreme rule is never ever getting into situations where you have to use your super self declared " acy profiency " to manually get out of situations where you have gotten the automatics into. In my years of training pilots I have seen proud " old aces " get the automatics into !!!!ty situations and then proudly clicking them off to fly manually, mostly to an untidy end. Their pride.....they didn't crash despite the " failed automatics ". Actually there was absolutely nothing wrong with the automatics in those instances; the problem was the self declared aces did not understand the proper use of the automatics and misuse the functions.

This is not to say that pilots need not maintain their proficiency in flying manually. We have to strike a balance and the world is not going to change just to please those who think peddling the modern contraptions old fashion way is the be all and end all.

Manual flying above cruise alt
 

@ EMIT

Aren't you contradicting yourself?
Out of curiosity how much manual flying above cruise alt have you done and was it in chop?

Agree. But just what measurement of balance? Presumably you are talking about a balance between automatic pilot competency and pure flying skill competency. Surely a captain or copilot pilot licensed to fly a type of aircraft should have 100 percent competency on both skills. In your dreams is the reply from one cynic. If this is too optimistic then let's barter a little. Are you suggesting equal competency? Or is the balance 10 percent towards manual competency and 90 percent automatics competency?

Practice makes perfect and if the company policy is to stay on automatics from lift off to near touch down, then that only leaves the flight simulator for honing manual flying skills. Where simulator time is dictated by costs and company policy requires full use of automatics in the simulator, this leaves only a few minutes of effective time per session for the pilot to practice manually.

For example, there are many operators who regard simulator practice at unusual attitude recoveries in IMC as a total waste of time. Often the instructor hasn't got a clue how to instruct on these manoeuvres anyway. Which is one reason why there has been an increase in loss of control in IMC accidents in recent years.

Until authorities bite the bullet and insist more emphasis be placed on pure flying skills versus automatic pilot monitoring skills, the current trend towards loss of control in IMC will not reverse.

A37575, as you know there is no way to quantify what you are asking. However I do think that most of us are saying there is too much reliance of flying the aircraft through it's automation because most of the pilots now do not have the refined hands on ability that only comes with actually flying the aircraft (an aircraft) by hand.

Surely somebody who knows nothing of the industry would imagine this, it does sound logical however we know this to be sometimes false. I do not know what your background is however some of us have spent a lot of time actually flying, and I do not mean hours monitoring a FMS and auto pilot. Also I do not mean to come across that a person with 2000 hours flying an ag plane makes a better airline pilot either. That is the other extreme,

I think the "balance" referred to here would be a pilot with enough practical knowledge in aerodynamics so as to know what is happening (not so much the minutia) and why it was happening and if it was not happening the way it was happening incorrectly would have no problem analyzing the situation correctly using all relevant data, coming up with a plan of action and not be afraid of hand flying the thing sometimes contrary to what we use as a bible called the SOP's.
How this person gets this knowledge and the intestinal fortitude required to put the plan into action usually comes from a diverse education, not just the academy approach and not just the utility approach but a knowledge based from the mix of the two, and not just those two.

Balance

Contradiction?
 

xcitation #1973

No, xcitation, I was not contradicting myself. The discussion about manual flying, as is referred to in this thread, is about the so called danger from an aerodynamic standpoint, i.e. too great sensitivity of flight controls, or eeeeeek "coffin corner"!

The danger of inaccurate flying in RVSM is risk of collision. That is irrelevant in the discussion about AF447.

Are you not contradicting yourself - in one post you write about flying AT cruise altitude, in another one you query me about flying ABOVE cruise altitude.
To be sure, initially, the AF447 was AT cruise altitude, their real problem started when they went far above it through the setting of an unusually high pitch attitude.

Setting that unrealistic pitch attitude may be the result of never flying manual at high altitude, it is not the result of manual flying at altitude being somehow dangerous or exceedingly difficult.

And totempole, writing posts like this does not put me into the category of self aggrandized aces, I hope? Don't worry, my religion is to be highly proficient in automatics AND in manual.
Autopilots however, do not need training or recency to stay proficient - when they are one day unproficient, they announce it with a failure light. Pilots look physically the same when able and proficient or when not recent or unproficient. That's why I take every opportunity to fly manual and sure, some times or places are not opportune.

The challenge is to be totally proficient in correcting all the anomalies with the automatics entirely or partially. The supreme rule is never ever getting into situations where you have to use your super self declared " acy profiency " to manually get out of situations where you have gotten the automatics into. In my years of training pilots I have seen proud " old aces " get the automatics into !!!!ty situations and then proudly clicking them off to fly manually, mostly to an untidy end. Their pride.....they didn't crash despite the " failed automatics ". Actually there was absolutely nothing wrong with the automatics in those instances; the problem was the self declared aces did not understand the proper use of the automatics and misuse the functions.

I suspect Totempole has hit the 447 nail fairly on the head.
Not suggesting the crew did what is suggested in his post above, but its a fact that manual flying did not work out on 447 unfortunately.

The reason AF447 had the problem is when the AP threw the flying to the PF, he didn't respond properly and zoomed it up into a stall. Knowing how to hand fly at high altitude acurately would have saved the day but apparently he couldn't. I don't know how hard flying at altitude with a side stick is but it is quite doable with a yoke. Have done it quite a few times. Sometimes we dispatched with AP inop with FAA blessings.

quoting Bubbers44:-

Bubbers44, I don't think we can draw those sorts of conclusions from the fragmentary and incomplete information so far provided by the BEA. In fact, the more I read that Note the more convinced I become that it was deliberately framed to suggest 'pilot error,' without actually providing much evidence. However, a careful reading reveals that the PF did NOT in fact cause the 'zoom climb.'

The first relevant paragraph says:-

So the first thing that happened was the autopilot and autothrust signing off, and the speeds (and very probably other instruments) going haywire. The PF made a left nose-up input, probably to counter the aeroplane's incipient roll and maintain altitude. Please note at this point that the time that movement was made was '2 h 10 min 05.'

The next paragraph of the note refers to a pitch-up some considerable time (at least eleven seconds) later. Please note especially the section I have 'bolded.'

That paragraph does not refer to noseup inputs on the part of the PF before the 'zoom climb' - indeed, it says the complete opposite, that he countered the climb with nosedown inputs, and succeeded in more or less restoring level flight.

That, to my mind, leaves open the question of what caused the 'zoom climb' in the first place? The only thing one can say with any certainty is that, on the vestigial information provided by the BEA in the second quoted paragraph, it wasn't the pilot?

The saddest realisation to me, on the limited info available, is that if this crew had resisted the urge to act, and just sat and watched, they may well all be alive today.

The hardest thing for any modern pilot today, is to NOT react to a screen full of warnings, and aural callouts, but to watch and fully assimilate the information available.

The 'hand-fly heros' may not have won this game either...

It's not clear that's the case.

Zoom Climb to above coffin corner
 

From reading all of this and associated threads, it seems that there have been 3 incidents reported on these threads of Airbus aircraft apparently undemanded 'zoom climbing'.

• The incident on approach to Paris may be different but resulted in the aircraft doing a wingover and recovering.
• The incident where an A340 climbed past an A330 in a zoom climb during the day VMC and recovered.
• AF447 appears to have zoom climbed to above the aerodynamic ceiling of the airframe. I am not sure that the system is designed to cope with suddenly being in the stall without any approach to it.

So it appears that something in the Airbus or handling can zoom climb the aircraft (has this happened with other types?)

I have only 'fallen out' above the aircraft ceiling in single jets where the aircraft were built for unusual positions and engine thrust had no pitch effect. If as everyone says the TOGA power would pitch the aircraft nose up, once that had been done and the aircraft started dropping stabilized but with an AOA that was on the wrong side of the drag curve, is it certain that there is sufficient aerodynamic authority in the controls to do a simple ND to recover?
Would the crew have to be more imaginative with large rudder deflection or even perhaps asymmetric thrust to put one wing down - and if they did that could they end up changing a stabilized stall into a spin?

It just seems to me that perhaps there was only one chance to recover from what happened and that was at the top of the zoom holding full nose down and reducing power which should have bunted the aircraft back into a flyable state. But the 'standard' stall recovery of NU to 5deg and TOGA was precisely the opposite.

There's a problem. Use of full automatics in the sim. Seems to me that sim sessions ought to emphasize training scenarios one can't do in the aircraft.
How can such a fundamental flying skill set be a waste of time?
Is this a symptom of institutional worship of autopilot?

This scares the hell out of me.

I am required to fly commercially next month to the east coast for a business meeting. You are suggesting that in some companies, skills necessary for IFR competency are being institutionally neglected, and allowed to atrophy. The flying public need to be warned.
.
The training issue.
IF stall training is restricted to "near the ground environments" THEN the one time you stall at altitude you are playing catch up.

Based on a number of incidents related in the past two years on this topic, some crews in the past have caught up, this crew was unable to, as were some of the others in the past.

The question is, does BEA cover this in the final report? How much emhpasis?

We shall see.

There's always AMTRAK. Great way to travel even it it takes a little longer.

I agree, but my company does not. :mad:

I agree with you but I wonder how many glider pilots would check the trim wheel position in the middle of recovering from a stall? Bet most would wait until they had recovered to S&L.

Autotrim on a sailplane?

Quoting Ian W:-

I think you've 'found the smoking gun,' Ian W, congratulations.


That isn't referring to the AF 447 accident. It's from the British Air Accident Investigation Board's report on the 2000 A340 Atlantic 'zoom climb' incident you mention.

Apparently the autopilot and autothrust disengaged on that occasion too. The 'zoom climb' was triggered by the aircraft going into 'Angle of Attack' Law (yet another law for us to half-understand :)).

http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/publ...pdf_501275.pdf

I find it very interesting that the 'protections' began to zoom-climb the A340 18 seconds after the autopilot and autothrust disengaged. That's just about exactly the same time that the AF 447 zoom climb commenced, as shown by the excerpts from the BEA Note that I quoted above.

Read
 

On the quotes about the A-330 / A-340 zoom climb Airprox incident in NAT RVSM airspace:

Read the report, then you will find great differences with the AF447 case. This Airprox case was a situation with moderate to severe turbulence, large wind speed fluctuations that caused large speed (and Mach) variations and those initiated the incident. One such speed fluctuation caused AOA to increase to Alpha protect, etcetera.

There is no occurrence of the ERRONEOUS speed values that AF447 experienced, no LOSS of valid speeds, etcetra.

The cases are completely different, although the quotes try to make them similar.

Quoting EMIT:-

Oh dear, EMIT :).

AF 447's speed readings were 'fluctuating' too; I don't somehow feel that it matters whether they were also 'erroneous' or not.

My own feeling is that there appear to have been only two obvious differences beween the two cases:-

1. The A340 only zoom-climbed at 6,000ft./min., whereas AF 447 zoom-climbed at 7,000.

2. The A340 crew were fortunate in that they were operating in daylight and no doubt had a visible horizon to work with.

But OK - if the 'systems' didn't cause the AF447 upset, what (in your opinion) did?

To tell you the truth I have no idea what "Alpha Prot" is nor does it really matter. I do know that for whatever reasons autopilots do strange things; due to a software error, stray trons floating around, faulty sensors etc. My question is this; Did the crew have access to reliable information as to what the aircraft was doing at the time either through the primary instrumentation or the standby and if so did they have control authority to put the aircraft where it needed to be or was it really out of control?
If they did have access to the actually flight path information of the aircraft and if they had access to the control of the aircraft why did they let it diverge so much for so long?
Now I am assuming they were night, IMC and kinetics should not used but if they knew something was amiss for whatever reason why did they not respond earlier? 18 seconds and close to 3000 vertical feet is a long time/way.

If the systems did cause the initial upset but the pilots failed to react in a timely manner and control and correct flight path information was available to them, then poor training did them in. If the systems did cause the initial upset but control/flight path information was not available to them then it was/is a design flaw.

Thats the point, there isn't one so you don't get to learn how dangerous having one can be.

RWA, from the discussions over at tech log, Alpha Protect works in normal law. At some point early in the AF 447 event, the pilots reported alternate law. At that point, Alpha Prot should not have been a factor in the behavior of the aircraft.

IMC
 

Quote RWA

The A340 crew were fortunate in that they were operating in daylight and no doubt had a visible horizon to work with.

Remark EMIT: the Artificial Horizon is a perfect replacement for the Natural Horizon, the AI is used 100 % of the time during night and IMC conditions. A pitch of 15 degrees nose up is visibly crystal clear on an AI and is highly unusual in a civvie airliner at FL 350. The suggestion of another poster that maybe, the line Pitch 15, Thrust TOGA was inappropriately "quoted" inside the PF's head might hold some value. (the quoted pitch/power combination is the one to use in case of speed indication loss just after lift-off).

Quote RWA
But OK - if the 'systems' didn't cause the AF447 upset, what (in your opinion) did?

Remark EMIT: IF after all, the PF did not himself STEER the a/c into the zoom climb, then at least he should have seen the pitch change to 15 degr nose up, a very inappropriate pitch at that altitude, and should have tried to steer that pitch down to a normal value of 2 or 3 degrees above the horizon. This was not done, a lot of backstick was maintained.

Even though stall warnings, speeds or whatever were rightly or wrongly blaring, every big jet pilot must know that 15 degrees nose up at FL 350 is not gonna work in the long run (longer than a few seconds).