Nope.....never used one.....never needed one.....never wanted one. I don't have to worry any more either. RETARDED.....I mean RETIRED !!

Hi,

Actually .. the BEA have the full CVR (voices and background noises) and so also the full CVR transcript
They have also the full FDR data
They just decided to release fragments (transcripts) of those in the interim report N°3
These are selected pieces of BEA
Ce sont les morceaux choisis du BEA

Besides the system failure, due to suspected malfunction of the pitot head, BEA's third interim report points towards likely lacuna in training in recovery from stall at high altitude. This brings us back to the need for relook at the training in human factors and performance, including maintaining Situational Awareness through all phases of flight.

Rananim

On the traces for the Elevators and the THS, shown is the THS remaining in position at -3 degrees during the fatal climb. At the Top of the climb, the airframe STALLED, and it was at this point the THS started to lumber full NU. This migration was caused by the demand of the Pilot and the a/c's low airspeed.

At this point, well into the LOC, the Pilot would probably have selected more elevator and more THS TRIM, if available. He had applied TOGA, and was holding the stick back full. This isn't consistent with a Pilot who would be looking for ND TRIM. It may have everything to do with why no one found NOSE DOWN.

A belabored point, but the fatal accident happened well in advance of the STALL. That is the issue. The answer to the crash is in the a/c layout, the controls management, automatique, and the Pilot's responsibilities at the loss of NORMAL LAW. IMHO.

Taking sides is madness. That way lies BAU.

Rananim

Sorry but you are incorrect, there are forces on the sidestick, it does not just flop about! As the trim had moved to nose up "significant" effort would be required to hold the stick forward to get the nose down. It would be much "easier" to hold back stick as the "pilot flying" did.

iceman, wdr, I think that is mostly nonsense.

Define: "Flop About"?

Bubbers44
I generally agree that AF447's crew's training was deficient. Initially I thought that issues in roll control overrode the pilot's ability to keep the nose where he wanted it, but now I am inclined to believe that the PF could have been in Normal law and would still have caused a climb because his scan was completely broken and disfunctional.

He palmed the stick from the start. The amplitude and frequency of control movement is the indicator. That is no way to fly smoothly!

The PNF must have been so concerned with the PF's technique, he didn't start the UAS drill, but instead nagged him to control the aircraft. (The PF's control technique was a greater emergency than UAS.)
He should have given him an ultimatum to get the aircraft back on altitude or he would take control-and then acted. PNF's efforts to get the Captain back on the flight deck delayed proper corrective action tremendously. Sometimes you just have to take charge, whether you are mentally ready or not.

If you were to ask the average Airbus pilot to fly an S-1 or S-3 pattern manually in alternate 2 law (with a little turbulence to make things interesting) up at cruise altitude, I think a lot would be very embarassed.
I don't think the average B pilot is likely to do much better in his favorite machine either. (Note: S-1 and S-3 Patterns are USN basic instrument instruction maneuvers). Maybe we need to emphasize instrument fundamentals again.

S-1 pattern
http://home.comcast.net/~shademaker/S-1Pattern.jpg

S-3 Pattern
http://home.comcast.net/~shademaker/S-3Pattern.jpg

Owain

Well, there’s no intent to denigrate anyone and I never implied “not up to the job”. Even a genius can provide an inept design. As Dozy pointed out, there might have been a broad selection of pilots involved in the design, just as your friend. By the way I truly honor his credentials.
With all the information about how and when and why a design was created, we tend to forget to look at the outcome. This is the essence of it. Unfortunately this design seems not to convene to a lot of pilots, just read on these pages. That is the troubling fact.
Now what does that tell you of a design? At the least I would expect that the manufacturer and regulator would also listen to them. Not only lecture them to understand the system better or get more training, although this can never be wrong.
It is like wanting to change the human (good luck) instead of going the way we all thought was intended, namely to adapt the helpful automation to the humans capacities.

Confusion with the absence of tactile feeback started with Habsheim, as the PF was not sure if the AT really was giving TOGA because nothing moved and then clicked back to idle and TOGA again losing precious seconds, and still lingers with AF447, seeing the clicking through detents and swinging the stick.

We need to accept that not all pilots are of the stuff of the forementioned designer. An airliner needs to be designed for the average pilot. Some may be able to work with the single channel input, some may not. My point is that probably more are of the second breed, at least that is what I experienced and I am of that club myself.
This leads me to the question as to why not adapt the system to the prevalent talent that operates it? As Dozy rightly points out

So go ahead and change all the flaws, not only the pilot's.

Just a few remarks on Dozy’s other reflections (I like your factual way of discussing)

I was always told to expect the unexpected and always stay on top of the things. This involves a healthy amount of initial distrust.

Even remote chances need to be correctly addressed. Otherwise no need for V1 or ETOPS ‘cos the chances are statistically very remote.

That is my point.
This particular problem with automation gets too little attention.

Lyman

WDR I don't think you understand, if you cannot grasp what "flop about" means with regard to stick forces - do you fly the Airbus?:ugh:

The neat thing about Boeing is when you flop around you display to your fellow pilot you don't have a :mad: clue what you are doing so the other pilot will take over before you kill everybody. Airbus makes it so you are not sure what is going on.

Gretchenfage

OK, I accept you did not intend any denigration, and that "not up to the job" was my interpretation of the gist of your remarks. But you did seem to be implying that the pilots on the development team were incapable of understanding how line pilots actually fly their aircraft -and yes, I can confirm that there was discussion with a range of pilots.

I am not a pilot, so I cannot speak from personal experience, but I have to say that just from reading these pages I see the world divided into two camps on this question of tactile feedback and throttle movement under A/T command. Those who have flown the AB design seem to be generally (but not exclusively) happy with it, those who have not seem generally anti.

I am sure that AI are well aware of the preferences of about half the pilot population, but in practice there is no way they are going to throw away the results of twenty years development.

Habsheim has been done to death, but I just went back to the accident report to refresh my memory, and I was right - the pilot planned to and did, disconnect the alpha floor function, so there was never any chance of the A/T giving him TO GA thrust - he was in charge of that himself, and he left it until he was at 30 ft and 112 kts before moving the levers. 5 seconds later he hit the trees. Those high bypass engines take about 8 seconds to spool up? I am surprised that an experienced pilot would not have been aware of this.

I don't see any absence of tactile feedback here - was there ever 'tactile feedback' on manual throttle movement?

Well actually they are designed for an average pilot having a bad day, but as PJ2 has said from time to time it is difficult to set a limit on exactly how bad a day and how many poor decisions you have to take into account.

Which is fair enough, but whether you are in the majority is unproven surely?

Quote:
This wasn't just pilot error, this is a systemic problem affecting the airlines and the industry as a whole
So go ahead and change all the flaws, not only the pilot's.[/quote]

I agree with Dozy, this wasn't just pilot error, although we might differ on what the other factors were.http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...lies/wink2.gif

OK again, but the problem is to identify the remote chances well before they matter. For example, only a few short weeks ago these discussions were full of remarks along the lines of "Don't be silly, no pilot would fly like that" It seems to me to be harsh when people criticise AI for failing to predict that they would have to design for pilots taking the aircraft so deeply into stalled conditions.

Don't get me wrong - I am not saying that with hindsight the aeroplane could not be improved - clearly it can be, and IMO will be, modified in certain respects, but I am also saying that reasonable people would perhaps agree that the need for these changes depends on the new knowledge of what the spectrum of possible pilot actions might be.

It will for sure get more now.

Thanks Owain

Hopefully.

(just for info: I have flown all modern Airbus, MDs and Boeing)

For decades we have hired pilots that had thousands of hours to fly our airliners. Now some airlines are hiring kids who just got out of basic flying school. The two left in this AF airplane needed a supervisor. They had no clue what they were doing on their own if things got out of the norm.

You ain't seen nothin' yet. Over the next few years, just watch the thousands of 200 hour cadet airline pilots in Asia coming off the sausage machine flying schools in Australia, Asia and USA. They may be able to type at 80 words a minute into the FMC; but situational awareness and flying ability is another thing altogether.

Perhaps, but how did these pilots acquire thousands of hours, if they were not allowed to fly airliners? I can see only four other options:
1) General aviation. GA could be a reasonable source of pilots in the US in the past, but not so much in other countries and certainly not in the future. Considering the latest trends in the economy, GA is a luxury that will soon become totally unaffordable to everyone except the rich. Obviously, you can't hope to recruit all the pilots from just the richest 1% of the population.
2) Military background. Maybe, but the number of military pilots is not so high and will probably decrease in future, due to a general shift to unmanned planes.
3) Small regional airliners. Maybe, but with rising fuel prices and falling real incomes, more people will prefer other travel alternatives like trains and such. Also, the regional airliners tend to become bigger to save costs. E.g. Dash-8 used to be a small Dash8-100, but now we have Q400 that is like 2 times longer...
4) Bush flying in Africa and similar remote places. But would you expect every pilot to start their career in Africa?
To sum it up - the future is grim, and with the way things are going, soon there will be no way for pilots to acquire thousands of hours before they are allowed to fly an airliner. Obviously they won't be going to a widebody right after flight school, but I see no way to avoid 200hr co-pilots on 737's and the like.

Kind of scarey, isn't it. No talent up front, just a guy trying to figure out how to fly a jet.

Flop about means.....do something....quick...

Machine..... I've always had great respect for USN training.

Their safety culture and accident rates were always regarded as superior by aviation safety researchers.

Just my experience, there maybe some worries about 200-hour pilots, but it depends a lot on their training. Puppy mill schools without standards beyond the decency of payment--very frightening. Put into place structured training with high standards, lots of training in the outer reaches of handling--no problem. Pilots should have exposure to and evaluated on stalls, spins, some acro and even formation, which does teach some skills in handling. Lots od actual instrument time. All in jet aircraft, too.

Will it been done, I doubt it, too expensive.

I don't think any 200 hr pilot should be flying an airliner. It never happened in the past. When we had FE's united hired 300 hr guys in the 60's but they never touched the controls for years. I don't want to fly on a foreign airliner if they allow this. American pilots are all in their 40's plus with tons of experience, why take your chances with an airline with low hiring standards?

• planned - yes
• did - no

Except that alpha floor was inop due to the altitude, nothing was done to disconnect the alpha floor function. Do you have a quote from the report that states otherwise ?

Habsheim has never been done to death, actually I cannot find a single thread dedicated to Habsheim ...

The three pilots of AF447 had about 20,000 hours between them. Didn't make much difference. There's more to this game than just hours, I think.

Hi,

Other guys trying to figure how to fly a jet
Interesting similarity in this report (from page 17 of the report) with AF447 cockpit events
other jet .. other company .. other culture .. other era .. other original cause (but pitots anyways) .. but pratically .. same guys
http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR75-13.pdf

Sorry - hasty reading on my part. It was the autothrottle he disconnected, but it has the same effect - the automatics had no control over thrust; it was all in the hands of the pilot. (Section 1.11.3 of the accident report)

I think the 727 stall and the same stick back behaviour from the crew finally puts the technology argument to bed. Thanks jcjeant

jcjeant,

That 727 report does read similar to AF447, I agree.... Lessons not learned?

It seems that the 727 also did not have an angle of attack indicator. Why this instrument is omitted so often? It would have prevented both accidents.

Just to be clear here, there is a subtle difference. If the pilot chooses to disconnect the autothrust by use of the instinctive button on the thrust lever (to manually control the thrust) then Alpha Floor IS still available provided the aircraft is not below 100' RA. At Habshiem, the aircraft was below 100' RA so Alpha Floor would not have activated......

If however the autothrust has been deactivated by the pilot (hold instinctive button for >15 seconds) or is u/s, then Alpha Floor is not available. If the pilot has deactivated it, it will only be available again once the aircraft has completed an air-ground cycle i.e. It's lost for the remainder of the flight.

Alpha Floor is an autothrust protection not a FBW protection.

Despite it's detractors the Airbus/FBW/Alpha Floor system can get you out of a whole heap of trouble..... But it is imperative that you understand what it's doing, why it's doing it, it's limitations and how to recover back to normal flight.

Know your steed!

bubber44

You do know that LH, BA and others have been doing just that, quite successfully for decades? The USN and USAF put 200+ hour pilots into all kinds of situations far more demanding that level cruise all the time. Think of shipboard ops.

Flying time, if it is the same hour on autopilot over and over again, is just numbers in a book. The training environment is key to safety, not a whole bunch of hours. 20,000 combined hours didn't help AF 447.

I did say "theoretically". And as for what I do/don't know...

It doesn't matter - the PNF's verbal reactions to the PF's handling are all in the CVR traces - down there in black and white (along with red, blue and green in this case):

"You're going up, you should be going down"
"Above all, don't make lateral inputs so large"

- to give but two examples.

You're being selective with semantics. What he did was permanently disable the autothrottles in order to get the aircraft into position for the flypast despite the fact he was too high and off course (because AF's briefing sent him to the wrong runway) - by the time he crossed the threshold of the grass strip he was too low and too slow (and getting slower!). Disabling the autothrottles meant that his thrust setting commanded the engines to spool down and also that the automatics could no longer apply TOGA power if the aircraft got too far into the low/slow corner of the envelope (in effect *partially* disabling the alpha-floor protection). To my mind this could be explained in two ways - either he didn't fully understand the parameters of the very safety feature he was supposed to be demonstrating, or he had complete faith in his ability to execute the manouevre with the safety feature partially disabled. Please feel free to PM me with your thoughts on that.

One last thing - reading the actual BEA report in that case reveals that it was not simply the PF and crew that came in for censure - AF's p*ss-poor preparation of the flight plan, and the discrepancy between AF's guidelines for airshow displays and the national regulations are also explicitly referred to, but the press chose to ignore that, because the PF's Quixotic war of words with Airbus made for more sensational copy (and also arguably because said PF became their primary source for leaking information on the investigation so far - crossing him would mean losing their "exclusive"). As such, it has become received "wisdom" that the BEA focused on pilot error to the exclusion of all else when this was not in fact the case.

Using the search function (thread titles with term "Habsheim") reveals two threads dedicated to Habsheim, one of which was in the last year. Doing a search for threads and posts with the terms "A320 trees" reveals about a hundred threads that are partially or completely dedicated to Habsheim over the past few years, including one called "Airbus technology defects" by "the shrimp", who was either one of Jacquet's devotees, or even the man himself - you even posted in that thread, so you're being completely disingenuous.

Anyway, no more discussion of Habsheim here - we're already outside the main thread of discussion anyway.

Not at all, and I have explicitly stated that several times. I slacked off too much at university to be accepted into the safety-critical real-time module which is necessary to do the kind of work required in aeronautical informatics.

I find it slightly bemusing that you believe in order to have the viewpoints I have I must therefore have some part of my livelihood connected to the manufacturer (and indeed consider me to be a "shill", which under most circumstances I would take as a deep personal insult), so let me just be clear - I do not, I am about as neutral as it is possible to be on this subject, and even if I did, I would still be neutral because I take pride in my work as an engineer and as such I believe it is of the utmost importance that anything which is universally perceived as a problem must be fixed - and I have in fact done my career more harm than good on more than one occasion by speaking up about policies that I believed would lead to an inferior product at the end of the day.

I argue that is more to do with the fact that manufacturers have the deepest pockets, and as such it is in the interests of the lawyers acting on behalf of the affected to go after them primarily. I'm not saying that the manufacturers are or have ever been blameless - they've all done things for which they should be less than proud.

Let me be clear again, I'm not interested in blame and never have been. I'm interested in finding as many factors as possible that *actually* led to the loss of this aircraft and want to discuss what it is possible to do to prevent it.

It's not the first time that has happened and sadly it probably won't be the last. A poor repair by Boeing engineers killed 520+ people in one go in Japan, yet you don't hear arguments on this board that the idea of repairing the pressure bulkhead, or indeed pressurising airliners in the first place was a bad one. I could make the argument that is is in part because the introduction of pressurised airliners didn't bring with it dark accusations of trying to replace pilots in the way that the introduction of automatics going all the way back to the stick pusher devices of the '50s did*.

I'm not going to make that argument though, because it is counterproductive to what I'm trying to get out of this discussion.

I disagree - it is an accepted fact that technology has it's limitations - the continued weary complaints about home and business computers crashing at inopportune times and being difficult to fathom a lot of the rest of the time are but one example of that.

I believe that the attempt to blame automation in general (and that of the Airbus FBW philosophy in particular) is also counterproductive. The analogy I'd make would be akin to blaming the manufacturer of the Stanley/utility/boxcutter knife for all the crimes committed with it over the years. Both aircraft automation and the Stanley knife are simply tools. They have legitimate uses and in such cases are very good at what they do. The problems occur when they are abused for purposes for which they were not really designed (cutting aircraft handling training to the bone in the case of automation, use as an offensive weapon in the case of the Stanley knife).

[* - This information comes from Davies' HTBJ, which is one of the bibles of airliner literature.]

PULKOVO 612 Tupolev Tu-154 (85185) seems to have had an AOA indicator and it didn't help them, very unfortunately. Also available, is an official simulator video on Youtube.

Quoting Safety Concerns:-

Yes indeed, thanks jc.

There's one particularly close parallel. The factor that started the 'accident chain' in the 727 case appears to have been a misunderstanding prior to takeoff, resulting in the pitot heaters not being switched on. And we all know that a similar pitot problem initiated AF447's problems - except that the cause in that case was outdated/inferior design.

The 727 pitots froze up in the climb - and apparently relatively high-pressure air trapped inside them, while the unaffected static ports went on measuring the drop in outside pressure, resulted in very high speeds and a very high rate of climb being shown by the instruments. The pilots appear to have concluded that they were in a dangerous overspeed situation and reacted accordingly - and, tragically, fatally.

The AF447 pilots initially lost all airspeed indications. Later on they seem to have received some 'valid indications,' but they were so low (like 60 knots) that they (knowing that the pitos were stuffed anyway) probably felt that they could disregard them. Meanwihle the altimeter was unwinding at over 10,000 feet per minute and the wind noise (with the aeroplane standing on its tail and falling fast) would have been unlike anything they had heard before. They then lost the vertical speed indications as well.....

No way, IMO, that AF447 can just be put down to 'bad flying' alone. Various instrument malfunctions and lost displays (mostly caused, apparently, by the malfunctioning pitot-tubes, which were known to be sub-standard and should have been replaced much earlier) must have played a big part as well?

I know it's only a preliminary report but the BEA makes no reference to what the crew got up to in Rio, and whether they were properly rested in accordance with the rules.

Dozy Dozy ...
 

So Dozy, now you even go to the extend to literally modify the CVR translation to make your point ...

Page 92 EN or 96 FR

Must try harder - the actual phrases from the English version were:

"Go back down "

"According to the three you’re going up so go back down"

"You’re at... Go back down"

"Above all try to touch the lateral controls as little as possible eh"

I don't see any substantive difference between the phrases I pulled from memory versus the ones I just wasted 5 minutes re-downloading just to prove a point.

I am very sorry but I do not quite agree, IMHO.
In the case of that B727, the pilots were erroneously misinterpreting a "consistently" high-speed information given on all speed indicators. They were "tunnel visioned" for the same interpretation of a "high speed situation". And they were all dealing with that false high speed situation. This is consistent with a "there's the high speed mach buffet" statement of the co-pilot.
Later on, the captain "understood" they were on a stall and asked for flaps 2º,but failed to properly use ATT indicators.
In the case of the AF447, they had no clue of what speed they were flying. That's when you turn on to the "feed-back" of your flight controls. When there is nothing more one can rely on, one would tend to feel the aircraft. I do concede however that there are a lot of common errors in both cases. The first ones being not to follow ATT indicators and SOPs.

But when the control column feel at overspeed (vibration, unresponsive controls) is so similar to that of stall (stick shaker, unresponsive controls), one could argue that the benefit of active artificial feel is limited.

@Intruder, below - I was referring to the NWA 727 incident linked a page or two ago, where the pilots indeed mistook the stick shaker for Mach buffet.

You would have to get significantly over the VMO/MMO to get the vibration similar to a stick shaker. Also, control feel, even artificial, is WAY different at high (over-) speed than at low (stall) speed. Artificial feel is generally designed to be "heavier" at high speed to help prevent overcontrol.

alph2z
That's a different accident. Pulkovo 612 did not have any failed instruments. The official report states that the pilots deliberately tried to climb over a thunderstorm, lost a lot of airspeed in the process, encountered heavy turbulence and hail at FL380 and lost control at FL390. The indicator is there to allow pilots to avoid dangerous AOA well in advance (unlike stall warning/stick shaker). Obviously, it will not help if the pilot insists on flying at a dangerously slow speed, at the aircraft's maximum ceiling, in hail and in turbulence - all at once!!

And what does it change to the fact that your following statement is plain wrong ?
Please quote your FCOM reference ... ?


Can you make your mind at least ?

Initially you state it is :
"all in the CVR traces - down there in black and white (along with red, blue and green in this case)"
but when caught out it is suddenly only :
"pulled from memory" ?

But the point is, whatever your CVR quotes are, they show one thing :
2 PNF had no idea what PF was doing with its sidestick, at best they were guessing.

And it is dishonnest from you to substitute :
"Above all try to touch the lateral controls as little as possible eh"
by :
"Above all, don't make lateral inputs so large"

Very different meaning !


No he did not.
Or quote the report reference … ?

There is no such thing as :
"partially disabling the alpha-floor protection".
As you don’t understand the system, read A4 post above if you’re ready to learn, maybe you will accept if it’s not from me … ?

If this a/c had a yoke instead of a sidestick, then what was happening would have been clearer to the other pilots.

I dont think the Captain and PNF realised that PF was holding so much 'nose up' input.