I too shall declare my interest: A320 Captain.

I really don't know where to start with this thread. So much noise, so little signal. The number of red herrings and long irrelevant side tracks is so great that no one can even start to address them.

The PF quickly and correctly diagnosed the situation. Loss of airspeed indication, resulting in AP/AT off and Alternate Law. He then incorrectly pitched up to 10° until the AoA was just 2° from the stall.

In this perilous position, the AoA increased again to 6° and the aircraft stalled. The response was incorrect with TOGA + pitch up.

So, two apparent errors. So much has been said about the wrong procedure being used (TOGA + pitch up is used in many other procedures) and a lack of training that I won't bother. But here is something frightening:

Most older Airbus pilots have done their time in cranky old jets and turboprops, where you fly by pitch. Everything is done by pitch settings - choosing, setting, adjusting, waiting and so on. However, in the world of the safety committee it is fine to pluck young lads straight from a Seneca and place them into an Airbus. To mitigate the risk, the flight director must be on at all times. Now all the cadet has to do is put the square in the centre of the cross. Never has a pitch been noticed nor noted.

I asked 5 first officers in the cruise to look me in the eye and tell me what pitch we were at (2.5°). 4 cadets answered between 5° and 10° :ooh:, and one ex TP guy answered correctly at 3°. Not much of a sample, but indicative I suspect.

The Airbus is a fine aircraft. It is conventional, and simple. On top is a thick layer of cotton wool, that should protect us from our silly mistakes.

Once the cotton wool is removed, we are back into a simple jet. The snag is that with the current drive to train/recruit people as quickly and cheaply as possible, not one of the recent arrivals has ever flown in "simple jet mode" (by pitch and thrust). Incredibly in our airline it is now even prohibited to take off with the flight directors off.

I feel sorry for the two FOs on the flight deck. Without the FD they will have been in new territory. Without the airspeed, it is no time to have to guess pitch settings and develop a strategy to keep the thing in the air.

I hope the airlines have a good think about this. I imagine the safety departments will, but nothing will happen due to the cost of recruiting people with experience on conventional types.

PS: Below 60 knots I imagine the stall warning is inhibited because there is not enough airflow over the AoA vane to make it accurate and trustworthy.

PPS: Has any Airbus pilot here ever actually heard the stall warning in the sim?

Hi,

NO ... methink it's a bug in the forums
Sometime it's more than 1 false "last page" :)

You're right, that's frightening.

Blimey, which airline do you fly for? I'll make a note not to fly with them as there appears to be some serious shortfalls in your training department.

Hi,

Maybe all this is right ...
But passengers also have ears to listen ... and I am than most (at least those who were not asleep or woke up) will have noticed changes in engine speed .. and it will have more of a worry about .. even if they did not know that the plane was heading towards the sea
Moreover, I wonder what that could be displayed on the seats screens .....

Aside to wiggy - No, you aren't alone. But it just a forum housekeeping thing. As Page 59 (e.g.) gets nearly full, an empty Page 60 gets created. But until the posts actually flow over to page 60, you can't get to it (and there's nothing yet to see anyway).

Well they were descending, stalled at ~120 Knots with the AOA sensors exposed to the airflow, so the sensors should have been providing useful info. Can anyone explain therefore the logic in inhibiting the stall warning with no weight on wheels? Maybe not the first hole in the cheese....

Do the number of hours an FO has flown as PF count for his/her career progress ?

Yellow Pen,

I over egged. The flight director must now be on for take off and initial climb out. It may be off for an ILS if conditions are suitable, and will be off for hand flown visuals.

However with the level of inexperience we now have, not many captains will be so happy at the thought of a <500 hour pilot flying a raw data ILS, when most approaches and landings with a full house of aids can be just a tiny bit "variable".

We have an industry wide reputation for having an excellent training department. However we (like many other airlines) now refuse to recruit experienced first officers, and restrict ourselves to Seneca -> Airbus low hour contract first officers. Hence my point - many recent Airbus pilots may have no experience of flying a jet on pitch and thrust alone.

Already discussed in the Techlog thread.

I'd say if a 200,000-kilo plane is in the air, and at less than 60 kts, it is stalled, regardless of whether the AoA vanes are trustworthy at that speed.

The Stall warning logic should be "if the plane is not on its wheels, and the AoA vanes indicate a stall, then the warning sounds. It ALSO sounds if the plane is not on its wheels and the AoA vanes have reached their maximum reliable point (even if no longer trustworthy)."

I'll concede that an A330 in the air at 60 kts is improbable - but the improbable is what warning systems are intended for.
_________________________

RE: the reported quote from the Captain "We're in a stall, REDUCE power and pitch." I take it that has to do with the A330's low under-wing engines? A high power setting (or rapid power increase) would cause more pitch-up, making it harder to lower the nose and break the stall? We've seen that noted in the case of 737 stalls or go-around incidents.

Usually, stall recovery involves INCREASED power.

Hundredpercent

You nailed it ! This is exactly what it is along with a twist of over confidence.
I'm sorry but 2 F/O's at the front, even if qualified ( WTF does it mean anyway ? ) is not the same as a skipper and a F/O.
When the captain is on the flight deck, there a clear chain of command. There is also at least 15 years difference of dealing with crappy flight conditions and I'm sorry, like it or not, that makes a hell of a difference.
It's become a very touchy issue where F/O feel insulted whenever they're told they are not as " good " as the old man in the left hand seat.
Again, it has nothing to do with " good " or " bad". Commnanding a flight is a job that one learns and creams with experience. A sprinkle of humility sweets it nicely too.
What some airlines need to do is to acknowledge there is a gap that needs to be filled and very pronto.
Lufthansa has a Senior First Officer training syllabus where emphasis is put on leadership and left hand seat handling of the aircraft in emergency situations. The roles are very clear when the Captain is in the bunk.
Others have second first officer which is another way of clearly stating who does what under who's authority.
So to say that 2 fully qualified pilots are the same is just ludicrous.

If the debate remains an egotic one, I'm afraid we're not going to very far and to finish : Yes !!! I think the Captain has to arrange his breake so as to be in his seat for the tricky part of the flight and as to 447 I am damn sure the outcome would have been very different had the Captian been on the flight deck for the reason Onehundredpercent so elloquently explained.

True airspeed fell to 60 knots or not?
 

Surely the IAS only fell to 60 knots during the icing of the pitots? I don't think the a/c's true airspeed ever fell that low or am I wrong? An in-flight IAS of 60 knots will always be considered UAS if I understand the FBW 'logic'.

A colleague of mine brought a 744 back to Europe from South America on the very same night as AF447, on one of the parallel airways if I recall his account correctly. He had 10,000 plus on 744s, a South Atlantic regular and he reckoned that in his HO the sigmet chart showed the ITCZ was no "trickier" than normal.

So what are we defining as "tricky, and therefore captain must be in his/her seat weather"? Look at a Longhaul sigmet chart for, say, Asia and the subcontinent in the monsoon season...where's the "tricky part of the flight"? Probably starts at SIN maybe ends at Karachi, and then there's the "tricky" high ground and the "tricky" comms, around Kabul, oh and then after that the inevitable CBs (with associated severe turbulence of course) around Moscow or the Crimea and the dire warnings about being very careful if deviating in Russian airspace.."tricky" or not? Again a sigmet chart for the North Atlantic will quite often show that the NAT tracks are planned to pass through or very near to areas of forecast Moderate to Severe CAT..so by some definitions the whole of the Atlantic could be "tricky" on some nights.

If your are seriously going to mandate/insist that the Captain must be in his seat for the "tricky part" of every flight, irrespective of the qualifications and/or experience of the other pilots, how are you going to do it/pay for it? BTW I've no problems with two captains on a three pilot augmented crew if that's your answer :ok:

Wiggy,

You may, perhaps, be being facetious with your suggestion, but, as a Captain, I think it would increase my chance of sleeping from "no bloody way" to "yeah I might nod off" were it to be adopted.
My current ops involves moderately long 2 sector night ops with the "official duty" involving me "sleeping":D for a bit in Row 1-3.
Well,let me tell you, I don't, I do go back,so as not to ruffle feathers, and probably I never will manage to zzzz, so it is as well that I don't make too many of them in a month.
In God (& Pratt & Whitney, what about CFM?) we trust, the rest? :hmm: := NFW ! !

Who design that ?
 

Who designed this (to create a page nobody can read and wonders why) ?:ugh:

Is it Boeing or Airbus ! :{

What am I looking at?I asked 5 first officers in the cruise to look me in the eye and
 

When 80% of first officers think like that , surely they must be a product of the "Sausage Factory" training system.
There are many of these type of training schools in the antipodes.

The 'extra' pages are for the posts that the mods have deleted. The trick is to look at the post number of the last post on the page. If the number of the post is devidible by 20,chances are there is another page to read!;)

ie this was the last post at the time of posting.

What should a PF bet on : instruments or human thinking ?
 

Hi Meccano

My point is statistics:

• An instrument is 99.99% reliable at min
• A pilot is 97% reliable at max (this is why a plane has automatic protections)

The PF on the AF447 sees:

• vertical speed : -10000
• speed : no data
• pitch : > 15°

What should he bet on :

• no speed, therefore he doesn't believe his instruments : 0.01% x 93%
• he stalls : 99.99% x 93%

Sincerely yours.

IMHO I think flight data monitoring has been a factor in the demise of flying skills. Unfortunate as it is, the same experienced Captains who used to let f/os fill their boots and learn under their informed guidance, now are sick of newbie flight managers who use the tool to berate the smallest indiscretion and tend now not to take the risk. Sadly I believe the pilotless flight may as well be introduced.