A33Zab;
Just trying to understand...., - Are you saying through the quoted statements above that setting TOGA thrust is contributing to the change in THS setting towards the NU setting? Wouldn't the increased thrust vector drive the THS to the ND position to maintain 1g, and not the NU which would exceed 1g due to pitch-up? That's how I'd be trimming a conventional aircraft...increase in thrust = pitch up (through increased speed and thrust vector), requiring re-trimming ND (to maintain altitude in a conventional aircraft, and here, to maintain 1g).

PJ2:
 

Youre right but only if they wanted to maintain 1g flight.
They wanted up, SS command >1g while A/C response was down <1g.

From the FDR plots I see (I may be wrong) that the elevator+THS became further biased 'nose-up' once TOGA was applied ... and that change is not so obviously related to an increased nose-up stick position?

The french for handbook (as in quick reference handbook) is manuel, which is masculine.

The assumption, working premise if you will, was/is that the bodies of the two first officers were retrieved with their seats. And that these were the bodies sent back to France for DNA identification. The successful results of the testing led the court to authorize recovery of the other bodies from the abyss.

The fourth seat in the cockpit was also retrieved at the time that seats 1 and 2 were recovered. There was wondering at the time on why the fourth seat and not the third seat was retrieved.

Three seats, two bodies. But the new information in interim report 3 raises the possibility, likely small, that the first two bodies recovered were those of the PNF who was belted in, and the wife of the PF who was sitting in the fourth seat, and also belted in. And that the body of the PF was not recovered (at that time) as he was not belted in. (The captain is now presumed to be standing or perhaps seated unbelted in the third seat.)

As the fourth seat was located directly behind the seat of the PF, this could explain why the PF was not belted in, as he could more easily turn to converse with his wife.

From a conversational context, when the PNF explains the smell of ozone, is he saying that to the PF or to the wife of the PF, who is a physics teacher?

A33Zab;
Yes, understand - so I would conclude that the rate of THS change towards NU was actually slower than if TOGA had not been selected. That does make sense, thank you A33Zab.

Buffet boundaries
 

Four hours into a Rio-Paris flight, AF447 was cruising normally at FL350. The crew noted from their flight data that they were still too heavy to climb to the next appropriate higher cruise FL.

But moments later AF447 'zoomed' – for whatever reason – up to FL380.

So having unintentionally arrived at FL380 at a heavier than planned weight, what were the new 1g stall (low speed) and Mach buffet (high speed) IAS boundaries for AF447?

@ A33Zab: Flight Mode
When I look at the typical pattern of flying, it would seem that most "hands on" flying by crews in the AB330 would be in the take off, departure, climb, and then terminal phases, to include landing. While the SS does not have artificial feedback per se, the SS (joystick) positions needed "to get the plane to do X" will over time become part of the pilot's tactile memory. (fingers, wrist, forearm, brain all having "remembered" this pattern).

I find it of interest that the "responds with 'g' " versus "responds with pitch" zones are so markedly different. If hand flying at altitude is not practiced, then the only muscle/touch/brain memory to rely on is the patterns from the low end and low speed flying regime.

This makes me wonder: was the aircraft responding as the pilot flying expected it to? If it wasn't (see some previous posters comments on the delicacy of hand flying at high altitudes) this would explain to me an early onset of pilot frustration and confusion. (Some people have used the term panic, which I see no evidence of. There is ample evidence of frustration, and of confusion).

The PNF is telling him to do this or that with the nose, he makes inputs, he acknowledges what he needs to do, but he can't get the aircraft to do it to his own satisfaction. (Nor the PNF's, nor later the Captain's).

I had previously suggested that Loss of Control is roughly defined as "your flight controls will not do as you command them to." AF447 is not just an upset scenario. From what CVR excerpts have shown so far, there seems to have been a mild case of loss of control (as defined above) even before the stall. LOC in this case meaning "he couldn't get it to do what he wanted it to do using his flight controls."

In sports terms -- you tend to play the way you practice.

Old Carthusian:
We are actually in rough agreement. I won't beat the dead horse about necessary and sufficient conditions, which pitot failure classifies as, but yes, as I've said on numerous occasions, malfunction not emergency by itself.

I understand your point, and I have been addressing and discussing training and systemic human factors issues for some weeks.
And program management. :p

But I will disagree somewhat with your summary here, or maybe just flesh it out a bit.



We are dealing specifically with

1. the man / machine interface (which means machine design is a player)
2. both training and proficiency (and currency/recency)
3. and
4. with the overall system's influences on behavior, both formal and informal. The aircraft manufacturer and company management are both part of "the overall system" in this regard. So too the regulatory realm, and airworthiness.

I'll take this criticism a step further: if you take a min/max approach to systems performance, you will frequently find decisions made that optimize an area of key interest (say, fuel consumption) which action sub optimizes another area. (My understanding on this is informed somewhat by retail, and by aircraft operations and maintenance).

I'll leave to the reader to puzzle out whose min/max priorities are a root cause here, in terms of how one runs an operation or an industry.

Hi airtren,
Don't be so short sighted. I mentioned that it may be a "part of the documentation" (generic class), because maybe you didn't noticed, but there is no mention of any procedure applied by the pilots and we know that there was no ECAM procedure until later. This could also explain why the captain was called back when the PNF was looking for "it".

The gender of the word (for "it") is certainly not ruling out such hypothesis; in fact, there is plenty of words that could fit: "classeur", "manuel".... he could meant also "ce putain de truc/machin/bordel..."

SaturnV,

The BEA report is mentioning that the composition of the pilot team was conforming the operational procedures - page 80. That does not say weather there was or not an additional person in the cockpit, or weather the statement is based on the CVR, or pilot bodies found and retrieved.

But don't you think that the voice of an additional person in the cockpit would be heard? particularly if the Ozone comments were directed to her?

It would be a very significant stretch - which seems 100% impossible to me - to assume that BEA has suppressed that from the transcript of the CVR.

Saturn/airtren:

If I may appeal to Occam's Razor, given that it is around two in the morning, (three Rio time?) isn't she more likely to have been in her seat, in the cabin, asleep? She has two boys waiting for her in Paris.

Autotrim Unhelpful
 

When entering turbulence, the classic procedure is to maintain pitch and power and let the aircraft just float with the updrafts and downdrafts, accepting minor departures from the assigned altitude (up to several hundred feet) and intervening with the controls only occasionally. Assuming that you were trimmed properly when entering the turbulence, you don't touch the trim. Assuming that the power was properly set upon entering the turbulence, you don't touch the power.

Gums:It was very unhelpful of the autotrim to run the THS all the way to 13, notwithstanding that the PF, inexplicably pulled back on the stick.

Hello PJ2

I think I've posted this earlier, but somehow it got deleted - my mistake - when I corrected some spelling errors.

The "Chapter 1.16 Essais et recherches", at page 42, of the BEA report is providing information that seems to be relevant to your thoughts.

Additionally, "section 1.11.3" is mentioning that it is possible to mine further data from the on board computers that were retrieved, in regards to the sequence of speed calculations and rejection, around 2:10:xx as they have non-volatile storage that may still hold readable data. This is work and effort that is planned, so additional information will be available in a next report.

airtren

Ed, wouldn't you want the aircraft to respond to your control inputs if you were flying it? If the pilot's stick inputs were to not be responded to or obeyed, don't you think there would be a greater cause for concern?

FBW or not, if I pull back on the stick, I sincerely hope the aircraft responds with an appropriate elevator command to do what I asked it to do.

(Granted, in normal mode, it seems that sometimes the aircraft doesn't do this ... different topic.)

Agree :ok:

The idea that the PF's wife was in the cockpit seems to have become a pseudo-fact with no basis as far as I can see? Sure it was possible but I cannot imagine it would not have been identified as a factor by the BEA in the information to date, or noted in the CVR. I assume the recovery of the cockpit seats was/is normal (in the context of such an accident at least...), but there has been no hint there was anyone other than crew in the cockpit as far as I can see.

airtren, if she was present and did speak (two BIG assumptions) her voice would be on the CVR. However, the CVR conversation presented in Interim Report 3 is not a full transcript, as extraneous conversation has been omitted. I think anything she said would be considered extraneous, and omitted.

The legal term in English for leaving out what she might have said if she were present and speaking is "redacted".

The leading clues to her possible presence are, 1.) the PF had not fastened his seat belt, which seems inscrutable behavior as he is flying the plane in turbulence, and, 2.) the retrieval of the fourth seat. If I recall correctly, it took about three hours for the submersible to descend to the wreckage, and a comparable time to ascend, and it would be unlikely that the fourth seat would be a priority item for retrieval given the effort and time it took to retrieve any item. Back when, I had thought perhaps they wanted to check whether the captain had sat in the 4th seat.

I think it is unlikely she was present, but given the clues above, I don't think it can be completely excluded given the partial information released so far. There are still whole gaps in the transcript, such as at what time did they attempt to contact DAKAR?
__________
GY, they did not recover the third seat.

I think it is important to continue discussing possibilities. BEA is the inscrutable one, and there are too many "reasons" for and against what is and is not disclosed, that an otherwise dismissive attitude is unwise? From a human factors standpoint, it is most important to entertain a four person cockpit. It would explain to this honorary Frenchman why some cockpit behaviour was lacking, and other types present. Improper seating has killed before.

Different topic? Maybe - but I think it's important to make clear that the only time it won't do it is if you've permanently disabled autothrust (as in held A/T disengage down for more than 15 seconds) earlier in the flight and the elevator deflection you are commanding would stall the jet.

That's one way of looking at it, but the other way of looking at it is that the ability to command trim with the sidestick was predicated by the designers on the (reasonable) assumption that the pilot would know what he or she was commanding. Another of the assumptions I frequently see made on here that irks me is the idea that the flight control logic was entirely predicated on the idea that pilots always need to be protected from themselves, which is categorically not - and never was - the case, unhelpful remarks made by one person early in the A320's career notwithstanding.

I've wondered aloud quite a few times if the perception of the Airbus FBW system among some pilots would have been different if Gordon Corps had lived longer. He was the yin to Ziegler's yang.

bear, I think her presence, IF she was present, is totally immaterial and irrelevant after 0208.
________________________________
Am I correct in assuming as there is no mention of the PNF leaving his seat, that the captain is able to open the cockpit door by himself?

others have spoken of the instinctive reaction to pull back on the stick. This may have a bearing on what happened in the cockpit. Here is where training and standard procedures are vital. As to why this crew did not follow the latter - this is what I mean by the realms of psychology and human reaction. The transcript released by the BEA is instructive.


If you go back to CVR there is something related to basic flight training how do we understand what flight controls do,how the wing works stall/spin awareness, AoA .

PF said he is not getting the speed with TOGA thrust and here it is teaching POWER for SPEED idea...

Later when he was told about Altitude he said he had FULL SS back. To him the PITCH controls Altitude

Another point, if you go back to CVR when the aircraft rolled to the right he said he had SS to the left. Again he did t get the result he wanted and there is a reason for that too.

Another one somebody said there was confusion on the flight deck .CPT said you are descending he was looking at the Altimeter where else but PF did t see it he was looking at PITCH ATTITUDE i would say thinking my SS is back nose high pitch i must be climbing. This matches 30 -40 deg AoA you can even tell by pitch attitude and high RoD. Where the airlane points and where the airplane is going there is your AoA.

At the end like many who give to their instincts and have wrong idea how thing works in flying end up like in this case again FULL STICK BACK PARTIAL OR FULL POWER.

You can have all protections you want like AB but the best one is if you have it in your head..It is basic training how it is done today pay and we ll make you a pilot in 6 months..Just check out some FTOs see their program and this kid i d say been trough one of them..