AF 447 Thread No. 6
 

AF 447 Thread No. 6

Thread part -

(a) #1 starts here and finishes here. Posts = 3890
(b) #2 starts here and finishes here. Posts = 2537
(c) #3 starts here and finishes here. Posts = 2071
(d) #4 starts here and finishes here. Posts = 1061
(e) #5 starts here and finishes here. Posts = 1978


Links to the various BEA reports are given below. If I have missed any of the useful papers, please PM me with the URL and I can include it.

(a) BEA site - French, English
- Report link page - French, English

(b) Interim Report (No, 1) Jul 2, 2009 - English

(b) Interim Report No. 2 Dec 17, 2009 - English
- Update Dec 17, 2009 - French, English

(c) Estimating the wreckage location Jun 30, 2010

(d) Wreckage search analysis Jan 20, 2011

(e) Briefing and associated update May 27, 2011
- Briefing - update French
- Briefing - update English
- Briefing - update German
- Briefing - update Portugese

(f) Interim Report No. 3 July 2011 - French, English

Miscellaneous pertinent links -

(a) Airbus Operations Golden Rules
(b) ALPA FBW Primer
(c) C* and Civil Transports - Cranfield
(d) Longitudinal Flight Control Design - RAeS
(e) Longitudinal Stability: Effect of High Altitude and CG - Boeing
(f) pitot static system performance - USN (Pax River) FTM

Search hint: You can search PPRuNe threads with a filter in Google by using the following search string example -

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This will search for mentions of THS in the AF447 threads of tech log only.

Just change the THS in the string to whatever you want to look for. This allows one to search for any term or phrase of interest throughout the threads.

Adding the site:URL end part is the magic that restricts Google to only searching in Tech Log.

This filter technique is absolutely wonderful and can be used generically to find things of interest in PPRuNe - appears to work OK in the PPRuNe search function as well.

Wow, the first to post on this thread...

I get the feeling the Airbus 320+ was designed for single pilot operation from the beginning.

Just a remark on the last post of thread #5 -
Predator Drones are of course flown by pilots, here's the "flight deck":
Image Viewer images/stories/full-size/uas_15-110712-02.jpg – TechNewsDaily
It just happens to be not on the aicraft.

takata re: SPIKES.

The Airbus has this elegant escape from CFIT? NON?

Max power, roll full, and pull back max.

A max effort, 'at the limits' safety manuever. During which the a/c nibbles at Stall? and wing drop? No sweat, the Bus knows SPIKES.

The Pilot doesn't. As above, for Alternate Law, the STALL WARNING needs some looking into.

Fair enough HeavyMetallist, I didn't make a very good job of saying that it just isn't always possible to avoid the stall... we've had two or more in A-Buses fairly recently. And note too, this aircraft configuration seems to have fairly benign stall characteristics, stays pretty straight - waggles its wings a bit - but doesn't appear to spin or nod seriously. Likewise, from the Turkish Amsterdam experience, that 737 seemed to mush straight in, and was close to a recovery should some more height have been available.
Note! Both to some extent auto-trimming + inattention accidents.

But please don't think you'll ever avoid stalls 100% - that theory has been proved wrong since the Wrights. In fact, may well have helped cause this accident..
So.. at least... let us talk seriously about educating pilots about what stalls [really] are, not to be so scared stiff of them that they yank the stick back and open up the gas every time the very idea enters their head rather than a firm & steady ND, which has always been the No. 1 lifesaver! (which rarely will do any harm, speed is safety, even near the ground it can be fairly readily re-converted to PE!)



I know they're not stupid ... I worked alongside some of them for years. But yes, again, was over the top in trying to make the point that the instrumentation aspects of this accident are not simply (and only) about icing pitots. Many assumptions that were made at original design time have to be re-assessed.. The whole thinking behind some of the most important basic instruments should be looked at again... it can very often be the 'off-design' case that suddenly become 'on-design' to catch you out. Here we have ASI basic (heating icing venting) pitot problem, ASI high alpha position error uncertainty, compunded by an AoA vane that really should be 99.99% foolproof and not reliant on an ASI cutoff, nor prone to any weather related problems itself and from Perpiganan - a lot more robust in basic nature.

Better backups should, indeed must, be de rigeour and not 'optional extras', ne'st pas.. these are civil airliners carrying many hundreds of passengers... lets just thank our lucky stars that many more have not dies in the last few decades from glaring faults that have caused many tens of extremely serious in-flight incidents.. every one a serious accident or a/c loss in the making.

and again, come back from the precipice of l/h and r/h sidesticks. They are NOT a good ergonomic solution

It's type specific. First time I stall my current aeroplane, remaining lifespan of my passengers, my crew and me will be measured in seconds. 200 is very best we can hope for or perhaps it would be: the shorter, the better. I can understand the irresistible temptation to indulge in aeronautical generalizations based on single or few cases as I'll be first to admit it's boring, very uncool and perhaps even a bit frightening to rationally debate positively lethal stall characteristics of some T-tailed turboprop regionals and ways of dealing with them. Here we have real-life-case-study of heavy jet that even didn't spin at extreme AoA so we can indulge in heavily romantic notions such as: "they could have recovered it if: computers let them, they had yokes, stall warning didn't stop, they didn't fly into the storm (they didn't anyway), protections were working, it wasn't Airbus" or whatever half-informed mind would come up with.

Personally I find them acceptable. I have flown yokes with right and left hand, centrally mounted stick with right and left hand, sidestick with right hand, didn't find anything difficult or unacceptable about any of them and loved to handfly any aeroplane I was given at the time. A320 was by far nicest and easiest transport aeroplane I've flown though to be fair, I must add that it is also the only jet I'm rated on. She was docile even in direct law although I haven't experienced it outside the sim and I've come across only one pilot who got it on line (dual radalt fault). He claims it was even easier than sim and knowing him, I'll take his word for it.

It would seem that Airbus, Lockheed Martin (ex General Dynamics), Dassault, Sukhoi OKB and Cirrus are not believers in ergonomical unacceptability of sidestick.

Training, sidestick etc..
 

I've made my views clear I think the primary cause of this accident is the Air France training/hiring/promotion practices however, I find myself thinking of some other things as well. The engineering of the aircraft, placement of probes and such is without doubt very good (and I am a Boeing fan). In almost all cases, things will work as they should and even (most) did in this case.
I do see valid points with the sidestick vs. yoke argument. I see a lot of times in the CVR/FDR data where the yokes may have made a difference. I think the yoke would have even more explicitly told the PNF just how badly the PF was 'over-correcting' for small deviations and he might have put some 'gentle pressure' on the yolk to smooth things out a bit. PNF had the experience, the seniority and the hours in the airplane but not the authority it seemed. With a yolk, 'sending a message' might have been easier through feel than verbally as he tried to several times unsuccessfully.
If this accident happened even in that case, we may have seen traces more similar to Egypt Air depending on how far the pilots were willing to push what they thought was happening. Looking at the last few seconds of the traces, strangely similar to Egypt Air and I'm sure this was due to confusion and two pilots not trained in how to react and their responsibilities in a crisis and a captain's poor decision to leave the authority in less skilled hands.
I don't see the yoke vs. sidestick being an issue except in crew teamwork. With good training, it seems to have been proven either is a safe and effective way to handle an aircraft. However, in those crisis times when two guys have to work as a team, the sidestick may not be the best solution.
Then again, what would have happened in the Egypt Air case had it been an A330? The computer would have summed the inputs and they would have had level flight, once they got the engines restarted obviously?

There's an awfully long discussion going on about this but (as an SLF) would a real pilot please explain how you could sit for minutes with a nose high attitude, good power from the engines, a descent at 10000+ ft/min and not at the very least suspect - or admit as an option - you were stalled. As it clearly did happen it seems to me that the complexity and general protections offered by the aircraft in normal operations are such that they (and the training) have distorted the mental perceptions and outlook to the extent that physical realities have been exstinguished.

OK, lets not confuse the issue with military references, I'm not silly enough to suggest that a sidestick is not the solution at high lateral and vertical 'g' loads in a confined space. It's also rather ignoring the fundamental of left & right propensity, since there'd only be one in amil a/c and whichever it was, you'd get used to it...

Ever tried hoola hooping ?

Which is your 'normal' direction - clock or anti-clock ?

Are you as good at it clockwise as anticlockwise, can you keep it up both ways ?

Unlikely, and what you are comfortable with, definitely helps in an emergency - one of the few times you'll be manual flying at altitude soon.. an emergency.


The Cirrus stick looks like you could almost use either hand - an interesting half way house?


I am very sure that the s/s, whilst it may (should) be mentioned in the final BEA report as a contributing factor (in the confusion at least, if not in possible overcontrol and climb (UP) fixation)... will never be condemned nor changed in ABs

.. because very much on the whole, it is satisfactory for the purpose intended and the vast majority of AB pilots are used to it, proficient with it and would not let it affect their flight control, whether left or right seat.

All this is not the same as saying that its innate ergonomics and possible l/r positioning for PF (and/or PNF) did not come into the safe conduct of flight after 2:10:00 for AF447 - because very clearly, in this instance, it did!

Shutting eyes to any facet involved in such a serious aircraft accident is never a good idea... whether 2,500 other aircraft have that facet or not... or even 250,000 others.

These poor guys put the sidestick

NU - no stall warning
ND - stall warning

For me it's like a nightmare.

"What would I have done in this situation ?"

The more I think about it, the more I feel angry about this poor design and totally sorry for all the lifes it took.

Hi HarryMann,

Some interesting points raised there. It seems a shame that the AB cockpit is designed around mostly visual and auditory clues.

The pilot is deprived of sensory feed back from the other pilot's SS inputs, elevator displacement load due autotrim (and by Elevator Displacement by FCCs) and Thrust Lever position when autothrust is engaged.

When it the automatics dropped out during UAS, Manual Thrust was required with no "muscle memory" of where the TLs should have been before, and there is no elevator load feed back due FCCs. Roll is direct and much more rapid than it was in Normal Law.

Why can't the AP simply hold "ATT" like we used to have with CWS (control wheel steering) 40 years ago? It would have freed up a few more brain cells.

Hardly - fully autonomous aircraft are not fit, yet, to handle combat landing for a C130 or some aspects of air superiority work.

Those are the roles I had specifically in mind with that post. Taking pictures and dropping bombs when in a complete air superiority situation is relatively easy. How many UAVs or AAVs get plinked from the ground?

Zorin 75, some fully autonomous drones are appearing. Their only level of non-autonomy are the high level instructions - go to (location), circle it at some radius at some altitude, take pictures, send back interesting looking pictures. The chain of instructions can include a series of way stops for pictures and other uses. Nobody's "flying" it with a wheel or joystick. It's more typewriter driven and handles all the details of avigation itself. This hit the news fairly recently - amidst some apocalyptic rhetoric and reference to the Terminator films.

I think hand flying using those brain cells and knowing how to do it would have prevented the whole fiasco. 3 degrees nose up, 85% N1 would be a good start.

RRT

Forgive me, but isn't that exactly what the Alternate law does if left alone to fly the aeroplane?

Quote:

---

So how does an airplane with a pitch-rate command or g command fly? Essentially, it

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Hi Owain,
I'm afraid not.
In ALT LAW, Pitch remains stable provided there is no ss input, but roll is direct and will constantly need an input until the aircraft is trimmed correctly. It seemed to give the PF loads of work because he hadn't practiced the technique sufficiently.

The only place to practice would be the simulator (twice a year normally - Unless he had UAS of course)

OK - I had pitch in mind not roll - I fully accept the difference.

So in AL2, the Pilot is presented with different 'feel' in two axes?

The a/c is a package, and given the PF has made some fundamental mistakes, should one additional challenge be DIRECT in Roll, and not in PITCH? The Rudder needed to be a 'suggestion' from Captain?

You know, the fundamental flaw here may have been a clumsy catch from Auto. That is not difficult to understand in Simulator? The cost per pilot, five minutes in a 45 minute syllabus? Twice a year? A Grand?

How about a "pitch lock", like "throttle lock"?
 

Hi rudderrudderrat,
Or unless there is turbulance - true?

It seems to me that the PF had to make some roll inputs immediately after the AP disconnected, due to the turbulance (page 74, English version), and the (mainly NU) pitch inputs which led to the stall, were inadvertent and unintentional (e.g. perhaps muscular tension (not unexpected due to the "surprise factor"), and/or seat adjustment, and/or l/h vs. r/h seat usage, or other unknowns etc. as has been mentioned here before).

My point is that without having an "H-gate" arrangement (like a manual car gearstick) on a sidestick or control column - which I'm not advocating, of course - then it's impossible to only make inputs which are only in either roll or pitch. There will always be an amount (hopefully very small) of cross-coupling between inputs in those two dimensions (at least in my experience) especially when there is turbulance.

In other words, a design which requires roll inputs, is going to get some pitch inputs, like it or not, with a normal pilot - add in the surprise factor, turbulance, lack of high alt hand-flying training etc. etc. and this can all add to the amplitude of the pitch inputs, which seem to have been unrecognised by the PF, and the lack of recognition then caused the long duration of that NU input (which, integrated over time, drove the THS movement).

Can we ever expect a total lack of any pitch input, when there must be roll input, during conditions such as those? I'm uneasy (as a non-expert) with adding yet more automation into a situation like this, where the automation can "give up", but I can't believe there isn't a better way than dumping roll and pitch control onto a surprised pilot at FL350, at night, in some turbulance.

Interesting, the AB design seems to recognise a sort of "keep things as they were" philosophy (not unlike the UAS procedure, when above MSA) regarding the throttle at the point when the AP disconnected, since throttle lock occurs (until deliberate manual control of the throttles is commanded).

If that is appropriate for the throttle (and it seems to me that it is appropriate, for the short term immediately after an event like AP disconnect), why not also for the pitch control (again, until there is a deliberate decision from the pilot to takeover that function, which must not then be trained for pilots as an immediate reaction)? That would give some time for the PF to "catch up" with what is happening, rather than force him/her to takeover more than roll inputs initially... Just a thought.

[Edited to add: Of course that sort of "pitch lock" idea, would have to mean "with neutral elevators". Perhaps this isn't such a great idea, but I just don't believe that we can expect a total lack of unintentional pitch input, when there must be roll input, and with all the other factors that were against them...]

[Edited again to add: When you said earlier:

Is that the same as having an initial "pitch lock" (until deliberately overridden, when the PF has "caught up") which I've been trying to describe (badly)?]

I don't believe that to be the case. The stick's neutral position, in both axes, is fairly certain... it's rather easily maintained in that 'detent' - if you will - of one axis while being moved within the other.

A key element of manual instrument flying is building a mental picture of what the instruments are telling you and then controlling the aircraft with that information. With a PFD, it is much easier than with steam gauges since the majority of data is in a narrow visual span.

My present conclusion regarding the PF's control problems is that his scan was broken and disfunctional. His problems were very likely compounded by an inappropriate grip of the stick from the start, i.e. palm instead of finger tips.

The core of a manual instrument scan is control of the nose attitude and roll attitude-just put the pipper above the horizon line by the appropriate amount (~3 degrees in this case) and level the wings. Then drag in peripheral data from the sides, altitude, heading, and airspeed. Make small corrections as necessary. In the case of AF447, since airspeed was not available, apply suitable power to ensure stable speed.
In just a few minutes of this tedious flying, they would have been well down the road and away from the weather-but this did not happen.
Altitude never entered the scan, nose attitude did not enter (or else an inappropriate response to earlier training did). All the PF's attention appears to have been centered on controlling roll attitude which he was badly overcontrolling.

I can see two approaches to preventing this type of accident.
1. Provide a wing leveler function in Alt 2 law so the PF doesn't have to touch the stick except to maneuver. (The lowest common denominator approach)
2. Emphasize basic manual instrument skills under worst case conditions during recurrent training e.g. flying the S-1 and S-3 basic instrument patterns (by hand of course) at altitude in Alt 2 law. (You can always ask to try flying this just to prove to yourself that you can still do it.:})
I am hoping the regulators mandate the second approach.

Hi 3holelover:
Thank you for that, and I'm happy to be corrected. I can only speak from my GA (control column) piloting experience, where no such neutral "detent" or bias exists. Now you mention it, the SS "detent" you mention, sounds rather like some PC joysticks :)

Having said that, I still believe that even with such a "detent", in a high-stress situation, the effects of adrenaline could easily overpower the PF's fine muscle control which is needed to "respect" such a bias toards neutral pitch. Therefore the only way to ensure that such a neutral bias is respected by a pilot who is "high" on adrenaline, may be to enforce it with some kind of lock. I'm sure that would bring its own set of challenges, however...

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Hi Machinbird, Thanks for your thoughts.

I've done limited IFR training, but your comments certainly make sense to me.

Perhaps, in the heat of the situation, with immediate roll inputs being required, this seems to bring us back to the PF being "behind" the aircraft and its initial state (inc. attitude), so that his NU inputs changed that state before he could get a good scan going (if that ever happened).

I also think the subsequent changing of what instrument data was available and valid (especially airspeed and v/s) could easily have led to confusion over which data to trust & which to ignore. Of course with hindsight, we can see there was "only" incorrect airspeed & intermittent loss of v/s indication - but he didn't know that :uhoh:

Understood, and your approach (1) would have a similar result to my thoughts about a "pitch lock" i.e. the pilot would not have an opportunity to inadvertently change the pitch when controlling the roll, as he/she wouldn't need to control the roll either when the AP disconnected, with that "wing leveler".

My concern about approach (2) is that, while it is much preferable and I am all for pilot training for hand flying, it's different in the shock of an emergency. As someone else here said, a sim or training session where you know you're going to get emergencies thrown at you, or where you know you're not going to get them thrown at you, cause different human responses than a nighttime flight at FL350, with no warning that those emergencies are about to happen. Therefore can we really rely on approach (2), without also having some additional help (like approach (1))?

This type of situation where humans don't take over very well from a "monitoring" role, was discussed in a paper by Dr. Lisanne Bainbridge called "Ironies of Automation". Well worth a read, for those who haven't, IMHO. I'll try to find a link... This isn't specifically a piloting problem; it's a human problem and has also been seen at nuclear power stations etc.

Hi Diagnostic
One man's emergency is another man's "Oh the ding blab *@% autopilot just quit, guess I'll have to earn my living. Training is the difference. If those pilots had recent experience with the two mentioned instrument training patterns and could master them, then it would have been no big deal.

The Ironies of Automation.

The cognitive capabilities of humans.

Humans and Automation: Use, Misuse, Disuse, Abuse. Free pdf download.

Trust In Automation: Designing For Appropriate Reliance - Research and Read Books, Journals, Articles at Questia Online Library

The problem of automation: Inappropriate feedback and interaction, not over-automation.

Training for new technology.

Hi Machinbird,

Thanks again and I do agree that training is the key! I'm just not sure we can rely on some (beancounter-driven) airlines to give pilots all the training (inc opportunities for hand flying) which they really need - hence my wondering about what additional automation help can/should be incorporated, to avoid overcontrolling in Alt law hand flying. Perhaps the answer is "none"; but perhaps further automation help (in addition to more training!) might be useful.

Me, cynical about airline training policies? Surely not! ;)

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Hi safetypee,

Thanks for those links, including The Ironies of Automation paper which I mentioned.

automation and feedback
 

Thank you Safety, thank you. The Norman paper is appropriate and a necessary "read" for all here.

Before adding to 'bird's ideas, I must point out that the accident started when air data sensors went south.

So what do we do when that happens? What do we do when the A/P disconnects and autothrottle keeps power setting where it was?

Well, it depends upon the design of the flight control system (FCS), old fashioned or the new FBW systems. It also depends upon crew training and "attitude" of the crew.

As a pilot, I would prefer a more straightforward reversion sequence, similar to 'bird's #1.. No need to go straight to the "direct" law where electrons simply replace tubes, cables and hydraulic lines. Just revert to a very basic "control stick steering" (CSS) and replace insistent efforts by the FCS to "protect you". Provide warning and caution indications of mach, AoA, etc when available, but basically fly attitude that is available from embedded sensors in the FCS. In other words, you have a very capable autopilot type function and have time to assess the loss of air data while maintaining aircraft control. Retired, 'bird, Smilin' and others here have flown with CSS, and it is easy.

Inherent in a FBW system are embedded sensors we used to use for attitude and navigation/weapon delivery. When the confusers fail, these sensors also fail or are ignored, You are SOL at that point. Meanwhile, you should have body rate, acceleration and even attitude sensors embedded. e.g if. you don't depend upon the external navigation/autopilot sensors - inertial, GPS, doppler, pitot-static, AoA vanes/cones, AHRS, etc.

We don't need a "wing leveler", just a "hold the roll and pitch angle when control pressure/movement is relaxed". Throttle/power is manual. You can even have the gee command active and the roll rate command active when you move the stick, as they are inherent in the FBW system.

So reflecting upon Norman's outstanding discussion of feedback in automated systems, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. He was too early for the AA regional ATR accident when the A/P was feeding in control deflection due to ice build up. When all went to hell in a handbasket, Sad sad, and there was also some distractions in the cockpit for ten or fifteen minutes before A/P disconnect.

Bottom line is there are too many "external" inputs to the FCS after the air data has failed, and the spurious stall warnings and such did not help the crew. With a straightforward reversion to a CSS type system, I think the crew would have handled the situatin better. I do not excuse the pilot's mysterious nose up commands for so long before the aircraft entered Chuck Yeager territory.

Hi Gums,
Agreed, sir - as others here have said before, a stall warning which turns off even when the aircraft is still stalled, is likely difficult for them to understand. I wonder how many AB pilots here, were taught that the stall warning could be silent with the a/c stalled, before this crash...? Yes, I know the attitude & airspeed should have been clues, but if they're (correctly) ignoring some instruments due to them being wrong (airspeed) or missing (v/s), how do they know they can trust the attitude displays?

Returning to your point about too many (pilot) inputs after the air data failed: Is it reasonable to expect civilian pilots who (whether we like it or not) now spend much of their time monitoring during the cruise rather than hand-flying, to instantly handle a totally unplanned transition to hand-flying, without occasional excessive inputs due to shock / surprise / fear / etc.? Especially with inadequate training for that situation? (Of course we're now seeing some improved training, as mentioned in the BEA report.)

My understanding of your eloquent posts (and please correct me if I'm wrong), is that your military flying was very different, in that you were very rarely using any form of (even basic) AP - yes? If so, then you were always "caught-up" with the exact state of your aircraft (through your ss!), in a way that a civilan pilot monitoring the cruise is much less able to be, unless hand-flying. Or do you believe I'm wrong?

It seems to me that the transition from "normal" to "problem" (it's not even necessarily an emergency, as Machinbird kindly pointed out), occurs to military pilots while flying; but occurs to civilain pilots, if in the cruise, when they are not (actively) flying and hence is a bigger shock and needs more time to catch-up, just because we're human. That's the time when control inputs have a greater risk of being inappropriate, due to the shock factor and lack of preparedness for that transition.

I think I'm probably just repeating PJ2 and his comments about them needing to "don't do something, sit there" :) - the requirement for immediate roll inputs prevented those initial moments of "catch-up", however.

I'm here to learn, and become a better (GA) pilot, so I'm open to being told that I'm full of &^%$ :)

An "in context" adaption of an excerpt from Ironies of Automation, by Lisanne Bainbridge, Department of Psychology, University College London.
The above is just one of many factors mentioned in the above paper that will have had a bearing on the outcome of AF447. The inability of the PF to get immediate stable control of the aircraft was reflected in his actions throughout the final stages of the flight.

Once stalled, the phugoid nature of the aircraft's motion coupled with a similar rolling pattern appears to have resulted in a sensory blockage as to where the aircraft was in the flight envelope, let alone where it may have been - a direct result of factors mentioned above.

Physiological and psychological aspects of this accident will feature heavily in the final report.

As an example the "circadian rthymn" has previously been raised in the MAK/IAC Final Report into the crash of an Armavia A320 EK-32009 near Sochi Airport on 3 May 2006. An adaption of a graphic presented in that report is reproduced below and attempts to quantify the increase in error rates expected at the low point of the circadian cycle which is nominally 0300 LST.
http://oi52.tinypic.com/2dbtpgw.jpg
The effects of time zone changes in relation to circadian time is difficult to determine, and in the above graphic the circadian time is shown as Local Solar Time. The social aspects of time zones that are quite removed from normal circadian time, e.g. Paris Local Solar Time and Central European Summer Time may have a modifying effect. Hence the showing of the Paris LST.

P.S. Thanks for the link safetypee.

Hi,

Will be interesting to have a circadian rhythm study about this accident:
http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR75-13.pdf
See page 17 .....
I doubt the circadian rhythm study will be useful ...

What on earth are you on about.

Back to the importance of a scan including attitude rather than airspeed when in any doubt of a/s.
A clear AoA display is another thing - some have suggested here that it is probably yet to be accepted as primary display data

Hi,

Check page 17
http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR75-13.pdf
the pilots actions and behavior and then .. think about the pilots actions and behavior of the AF447
Do you not see some similarities other than "circadian rhythm" ???

That is easily fixed in a few simulator sessions. Take away the airspeeds and then fly a few approaches.

Miracle of miracles, it works!:ok:

Properly set up to adjust for gross weight and configuration in the display, you won't even have to remember any numbers.

Use of autopilot
 

Thanks for nice words, Diagnostic. All of us can improve our piloting skills, regardless of the thousands of hours and hairy moments.

I flew mostly single-seat planes. Had about 400 hours in a true two-seat interceptor. That plane had attitude hold, heading hold/select, mach hold, coupled A/P to the steering for attacks/missile launches ( and I used it once when firing an actual A2A roket - the Genie). Also could couple the A/P to the ILS for instrument approaches and "monitor", as many airline folks seem to do. My later jets had decent A/P functions and being the only soul onboard, I used it a lot when in IFR and had to switch approach plates or just get a grip on the situation. Of all, the Viper was the worse. Our FCS engineers resisted external inputs to the system. And to make matters worse, we had no warnings that the FCS was not accepting any further AoA commands for "altitude hold". So I lost a buddy over the glass surface of the Salt Lake as his jet gradually descended while he fooled with IFF codes and frequencies and such. The Airbus is the opposite philosophy of the Viper engineers, although I always thot we could have had a much better A/P.

You are correct, Diag, that when not relaxing and letting otto do the flying that we were much more aware of EXACTLY what our planes were doing. Nature of the business, and I would not expect the commercial pilots to fly at the edges of the envelope just to get from point A to point B. Just think about flying 13 or 14 hours over the ocean from the U.S. to Europe or Hawaii in your chair right now. No restroom or help from someone.. Did we use otto? You bet.

Question to pilots actually flying "jets": by day time, do one see the contrails of planes that are at the same level (so they would be seen "in the thickness direction")? If so, do it happens to fly "inside" them? If so, do it follow a particular smell of the air?

Questions to the "physicists"
- What can be the sectional area of contrails (I mean "primary" ones, not when they develop gradually when the conditions are right)?
- If the conditions are "favorable", could the flue gas of a plane which was "recently" in the same place (in the air mass, for failing to consider the wind) cause ice crystals (or conditions which could generate them) which may "ice" Pitots?

Well, questions may be stupid and irrelevant, but I was wondering if the increase in the occurrence of "Pitot events" could not be due to increased navigation accuracy, so that the planes on defined routes are all flying so exactly in the same place, that they may fly through the contrails of others if the wind is near front or back?

Hi,

A trick used by german fighters attacking US bombers formations by the rear .. was to hide them self in the contrails of the B17 or B24 for approach at fire distance ..
I don't remember in any german pilot records I read the report of particular smell of the contrails or pitot icing (at a average altitude of 7000 meters) :8

@ jcjeant
 

You wrote in your post

I've not read the whole thread, or report yet. However, there are many references here to lack of airspeed. Surely there was a ground speed readout. Thus there was not a total loss of speed indication. That info, coupled to basic power/attitude V/S could give some idea of what was going on. Easy to say from the arm chair, but I have tried it in the sim on TQ courses. OK, an approach is different to high level flying. Headwind/tail wind etc., but ground speed would change with attitude. Block the pitot tubes and fly an approach on groundspeed. It really emphasised that power/att V/S works. If they were confused by high nose no stall warning, low nose stall warning, then pause, consider and look for other clues. What does the ground speed do with change of attitude? That can at least confirm that the ASI is giving out B.S. At high level there is a lot of thinking time. Remember the BA 747 that had all 4 shutdown in volcanic ash over SE Asia. They had thinking time.
A scenario with loss of a primary parameter such as airspeed should be a recurrent training exercise. It has happened on enough occasions, resulting in a crash, to be included. In all cases the a/c was flying and controllable; either blocked pitot or staic vents. Sadly, many of the 3 year recuurency items are tick boxes. They are not related to real life incidents/accidents. If knowledge of these is not passed on and trained how will we learn and not prevent their re-occurence? After Hudson I know many airlines suddenly included loss of thrust and ditching. It was fun and ticked many boxes. The same after BA's B777 glider, but not Air Trans A330 glider. That would take too long in the sim. 30mins at least, but you would tick many boxes; flight controls, alt flap, alt gear, aircon & press, panic management, and it would be a great CRM exercise. Why was it not done before? Do we have to wait for another high profile crash to consider more meaningful recurrent training? With commercial pressure on crew resources training is diluted to minimums. The downward spiral is tightening.

Indeed, but they had a Flight Engineer, remained disciplined, at post, and focused on trying and re-trying everything possible...
Flight Engineer worked tirelessly at re-starting engines, and eventually succeeded... whilst pilots flew, navigated, communicated and Captain thought things through strategically even, as well as tactically.
Even retained flexibility to change those plans at short notice, when engines started failing a second time...
Would in todays cockpit environs, IMHO, to be possible to lose focus and subsequently the aircraft, but then I am not flight crew, so have no right really to pontificate

To amplify just a tad on 3holelover's comment, there is a dead band around neutral position. That dead band makes all accidental inputs less likely. That's
the way I've programmed joystick based camera aiming software in the past. (The available joysticks were incredibly "noisy" around neutral position. So I had to put in a dead band.)