Hi PJ2

The TITANIC was unsinkable, but for an un-designed for event (clogged Pitots?), the way she struck the iceberg.

She was built of a horizontally stacking series of watertight compartments. But she struck the berg tangentially, a glancing blow. So she acquired a long gash in her hull, the first seven compartments communicating with the sea. A head on would have smushed her to three/four compartments back, and she would have remained on the surface.

Tragically, she should have been steered into the iceberg, not away. She sank to the bottom of the Atlantic, 12,500 feet down. At 2am, her Captain was called back to the bridge, (familiar?). He was too late, and could not have helped.

Hubris, Sir, indeed. Boasting at Nature's door, not advised, eh?

Take care,

Oh dear.

I think it's time to officially add Dozy's addendum to Godwin's Law here, namely:

This may sound a little presumptuous of me, but I think I can get away with saying that Habsheim is not relevant to this incident or this discussion. Feel free to PM me if you want to know why. Regarding Ziegler and his oft-quoted "concierge" remark, he didn't say anything about his concierge being able to fly it in a degraded control mode or damaged state, so can we please leave that tangent there?

As it happens I'd be willing to go to the mat and bore for England on the subject of Titanic as well, but again it really isn't relevant to the case we're discussing.

It's pretty clear to me that until new information is released, this subject has been discussed to a standstill.

Tex Johnson actually rolled one, and managed not to put it into the trees.

Chutzpah, claiming an addendum to one's own petard. :ok:

I don't follow.

Johnson planned and executed an unauthorised addition to a flightplan he otherwise stuck to like glue, but nevertheless had planned that addition in secret and went in knowing exactly what he was doing. Asseline got lost (not his fault) missed his TOD waypoint, tried to fudge his descent profile to catch up and ended up in the trees. Equally importantly, Johnson was not carrying passengers.

Quite what this has to do with AF447 is beyond me.

Airbus, Flight Plan, Boeing, Display flight.

Wheat/Chaff

I think both were demo flights, wait, I know they were. Airbus needs to stop promoting to chief pilot or even F/O, those who lose the plot, in cahoots with the platform/Format. Funny how many nincompoops get into the front dere, yes?

Are you trying to tell me Airbus doesn't have a glossy release prepped at a moment's notice to exonerate the a/c for any foul/up? In at least one case, the manufacturer applied pressure to have the investigative body carry their d'Eau, No? Pre Paris Air Show? Fetes d'avions? Nothing wrong here, nope.

If Airbus wasn't addicted to excuse making, they might release all the data they own? IOW, the whole deal, they got off BEA? By that I mean, if they are innocent, what is behind the white knuckles holding on to 447's data?

Goes to motive, and intent.

Everything Airbus has done since 1988 pertains to 447. Didn't auto/recover from CFIT result from Asseline's folly? Not all bad, then? Weren't they attempting to get their arms around "Unreliable Speeds" when the 330 went down? At some point, it might be nice to admit a problem, take a breath, (PARK THEM), and not fly until the problem can be sussed and mitigated?

Mon Dieu! Je ne sais pas! Moment, s'il vous plait.

[Quoting in full in case the original post "disappears"... Apologies.]

Forgive me if I'm appearing dense here, but it appears to me that despite the fact that you're using mostly English words, and your sentence structure is largely OK, I can discern no coherent meaning from that post at all.

If I sort of squint and angle my head slightly, however, it would appear that you've just tried to imply a conspiracy between Airbus and French authorities to absolve Airbus of any problems with their products and to blame pilots when things do go wrong - a conspiracy that is ongoing and goes back to 1988.

If that is indeed what you're saying, then you've basically confirmed what I've suspected for about a year now - that your continued posting of ever more bizarre theories, alternating with assurances of good intent, were nothing more than a smokescreen - behind which lurked merely another person who bashes Airbus because they never got over Habsheim.

To which all I can say is : Even Captain Asseline is over *$!?%&g Habsheim by now!

To answer your "points" (after which if you want to talk about this it does not belong in the AF447 thread) :

• Both were demonstration flights, but AF296 was carrying passengers because it was due to continue from Habsheim to a sightseeing flight over Mont Blanc. The Dash-8 barrel roll would never have been considered under those circumstances. The decision for the former lay with AF ops, not Airbus - the latter lay with the test pilot alone (AF447 : No relevance)
• Capt. Asseline was an AF training captain, *not* an Airbus employee (AF447 : No relevance)
• *Every* airframe manufacturer will, in the absence of an obvious design problem, try to prove their product is not at fault - think Boeing and the 737 rudder PCU issue (AF447 : No relevance)
• The decisions as to how much data is to be released, when, and to whom are based on relevance and made by the investigating authority, not the manufacturer. No investigation bureau in the world has ever released full, unexpurgated FDR traces, and yet you conclude that because the BEA is doing the same, they or Airbus must be hiding something. Paranoid much?
• The pitot tube replacement work was scheduled at the airlines' discretion, not Airbus's. In the meantime Airbus met due diligence criteria and published a procedure to be followed in case of UAS, which was not followed by this crew
• An AD grounding the fleet would have been overkill in this instance, because procedures were established to deal with the problem without incurring additional risk - just like the increased approach speed numbers to counteract the 737 rudder hard-over fault in the late '90s

I dread to think how many hours I've spent patiently explaining documented facts that refute the claims of skulduggery between the BEA and Airbus either then or now, so I'm not going to repeat myself further.

I'm glad you've finally revealed your true colours Lyman. I'd like to say it's a weight off my mind, but frankly I've barely given this any thought of late - and will not be doing so until more information is forthcoming.

Recovery trajectories
 

I'm sympathetic to Dozy's pov that missing new data the subject has been done to death, but we need not expect to see any new factual data ex BEA since their "cartoons" already give much more information than is customary in accident reporting. The data has, after all, been enough to keep these threads going for a year or so!

OTOH, with HN39's help (but any errors are mine!) I have been able to construct a means of calculating performance at and beyond the stall, and this in turn allows a systematic study of recovery possibilities - something that AFAIK has not been presented here before, so perhaps it qualifies as "new data"?

On the diagram, the yellow line is the actual AF447 flight path derived from BEA traces of inertial ground speed and barometric altitude, corrected for wind effects wherever possible.

The purple line is a theoretical calculation of that flight path using the developed method with actual flight pitch and power (N1) as input data. Given the fact that the aircraft was gyrating with six degrees of freedom and the model is restricted to three, I think it a reasonable match which gives some credence to any recovery calculations. Others may differ.

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...aths1804am.jpg

Wherever you see a red line the stall warning was, or would be, operative.
The blue bits on the recovery trajectories are the final pull ups.
All recoveries assume 104% N1 throughout.

The interesting finding for me was that it is not necessary to go to extreme nose down attitudes to recover - in fact it may even be counterproductive, since although you arrive at a good 'flying' speed at a higher altitude, you have further to go in pitch and if you do that at a moderate rate the extra time uses up all the benefit. Countering that by a more aggressive pitch up rate looks as if it may get you into secondary stall territory.

The other point is that the actual rate of pitch down at entry into the recovery is not all that important either. If you are going to be in a 10 deg ND dive for 60 seconds it really makes little difference if it takes you a few seconds more or less to get there.

And you are most certainly correct, not in the FDR, in the QAR most probably but the chance we are informed some data were retrieved from the QAR would be that those data can further advance the main idea behind that last piece of mind formatting :


Still, the AP/FD vertical engagement mode trace must be one from the FDR. I am concerned we have not seen it yet, like I was concerned we have never seen the vertical acceleration trace for Perpignan ...

Sidesticks suppress information of GREAT value for a PNF – Did it play a role for AF447 ? – I think it did.

It depends at which AoA the recovery process is engaged. At 40 degrees of AoA anything short of 30 degrees of negative pitch is useless. Airline pilots are not trained to command such negative pitch especially at a time when minimum altitude loss was the most important credo.
In the meantime I must admit your graph is a bit complex for me.

ACARS: Excellent system. It worked, brilliantly.

Two way Comms: FAIL

UAS drill: FAIL

RADAR sytem: FAULT

Engines: Excellent

INTERFACE FAIL

PITOT PROBES: FAIL

Coincidence? A a=system designed solely to make money, to minimize gear down time, and streamline operational reliability, performs flawlessly. Had they arrived, the work would have begun at chocks in.

Is this a commentary on priorities? Yes.

UAS drill? Any pilot who cannot keep current with instant P/Power values, and be ready with gentle and decisive handling, needs to be back at ops, in the sim. Even DOZY can get a sim ride, AF is too cheap to add a drill of 7 minutes to the syllabus?

If it continues, perhaps we should address an upgrade to the way we fish parts and bodies out the SEA........

I have one word for the designers: PROACTIVE

Very interesting graph Owain Glyndwr. It appears that at lower altitudes, the nose down control is much more effective and thus the pitch down to flying AOA occurs much more quickly.

What assumptions are made in this graph regarding nose down trim performance by the flight control system? What assumptions are made with regard to AOA management by the crew since the flight control system does not manage AOA in Alt law.

They could have still recovered down to ~5000 feet if all went perfectly? What a tragedy.:(

Dozy got a sim ride through an act of incredible kindness on the part of three people he will always be eternally grateful to (one in particular).

Dozy managed to perform a manual takeoff first time, followed the FD around, recovered the aircraft from the AF447 scenario *twice* and managed a successful FD-led landing on the second attempt (having fumbled the throttle/stick co-ordination on the first). Dozy did all that in around an hour and a half. Dozy hadn't been anywhere near the controls of an aircraft since he last got out of an AEF Chippie in 1993.

How you can say there's anything wrong with an interface that allows a clumsy doofus like Dozy to manage that I cannot fathom.

Doze. If you expect to be taken seriously, you will have to be serious. It is outrageous that you should compare your jaunt with a certificated long haul ATPL.

OWAIN. The graph is beautiful, but I too am having some difficulties. Could you take us through some of the data? For instance you have a G demarcation that looks luscious, but can you give some direction as to how it may have felt, indexed with a/s, and ROD?

many thanks.

DOZY: "Followed the FD around...." There's a ripe apple, can you elaborate?
Is that something an ATPL in 447 land might do?

Machinbird

None - it is just a performance calculation in which the crew is assumed to apply pitch at a given rate until the desired steady ND value is achieved, and then to fly constant pitch attitude until about 250 kts EAS at which point it is assumed that pitch is reversed at the same rate as going in, unless the S/W boundary is exceeded in which case the pitch rate was backed off to keep inside the limit (this only applied in the 3 deg/sec FL350 case). There is an implicit assumption that since the crew did not have AoA information they couldn't fly to manage it, but they could fly pitch.

Don't look for too much detail in this picture - it isn't there.

Yes, but can you see anyone passing through FL60 at 10,000 fpm applying 10 deg ND pitch and holding it? This line unfortunately is very theoretical.

Lyman

Since there is no G on the graph I am at a loss how to reply, but the pull-up 'g's were in the range 1.4~1.7

I'm not comparing anything, I know full well that controlling the aircraft is merely the base level of what you can achieve. An ATPL would have to do a lot more. However, "following the FD" is *exactly* what the AF447 pilots had been trained to expect to do 99% of the time.

The reason I was able to recover (aside from the complex psychology behind me knowing I was in a sim and them knowing they weren't and that their lives were on the line) was the fact that I knew what was coming and how to recover, whereas it would appear that they did not. I had about 5-10 minutes following the FD on a departure orbit to get a feel for the thing before the scenario was loaded and I got dropped in the doo-doo.

That wasn't me blowing my trumpet by the way, that was me saying that the Airbus cockpit ergonomics are in fact very good. So good that even I could acquit myself with minimal egg on my face.

There was no radar "fault" either - the radar's exactly the same as in any other airliner of that vintage.

Your day job wouldn't be concierge by any chance... ? :E

Hi,

Owain Glyndwr
Can be also ...
The lack of data has, after all, been enough to keep these threads going for a year or so!

O.G.:

I'm curious about your Mach lines vs CAS vs altitude.

For example, your chart shows Mach 0.8 at 30,000 is 288 CAS.

I get 304 CAS for Mach 0.8 at 30,000.

In addition, I show A330 Va reaches about 315 KCAS at 27,000 where it intersects the Mach 0.78 Va limit for the aircraft.

You have 0.78 Mach intersecting Va at about 290 KCAS.

:)

(Is it an ISA + x thing?)

No way 10 degrees ND was enough to go anywhere, be it at 5000, 20000, or 35000 feet on the way down when the AoA was already above 30 degrees.

OK465

No, it's a senior moment. I picked up the wrong values from the spreadsheet. The Mach lines shown are EAS not CAS. doesn't change the other numbers though which are all CAS - these Mach lines were just for background info. Thanks for the correction.

No mate, way above my pay grade. ;)

After revisiting Habsheim, I'll have to contradict you here.
On page 48 of the Habsheim report, the page selection for the ECAM lower display or SD was already available :

http://i45.servimg.com/u/f45/11/75/17/84/af447_31.png


If I was one of those 3 pilots, I would make sure, where ever I am ... to provide ALL the data to my family and friends, before I let them kill me a second time.

@CONFiture

If I was one of those 3 pilots, I would make sure, where ever I am ... to provide ALL the data to my family and friends, before I let them kill me a second time.

The inference is clear, and your standing is one of integrity and passion. Can you elaborate? I for one believe the power of silence and secrecy must stop. It can stop with this tragic loss.

What are the data going to say to us? (Possibly). It is quite clear, and do not believe those who say: "It is traditional to keep data witheld". That is true, but does not suggest why, only that it is 'traditional'.

No human being or group has the right to keep secret material that is relevant and has bearing on Public Safety. Secrecy is toxic to Safety, and the right of all people to decide their own agreements and plans in public carriage, finance, and destiny. Enough of this.

with respect

Thanks for your support Lyman.

Following any accident, serious incident, or incident that requires data extraction, AS SOON AS the data are extracted, a FULL copy should go to :

1. the investigation body
2. the manufacturer
3. the airline
4. the pilots, or their pre-designated representatives

Add anyone you like to that list … but #4 is ineradicable.

Thank you. I find it reprehensible that those here who would defend the secrecy clamor for us all to assume that the displays were available and accurate for the crew, when they need a leap of faith, yet the actuals re: ECAM, clearly extracted, get no such clamor. What is the fear? Alice would be pleased at the hypocrisy.

Two then, for the heirs to be informed.

So you think the FDR readouts were different than the flight instruments the pilots saw? Just asking??? Both sides of the cockpit attitude indicators failed so the PF pulled up into a stall? The senior FO not flying let him do it?

Anybody can think anything .. as anybody (public) haven't seen so far the AF447 FDR listings
If the FDR is published .. methink many speculations (anyone) will be shut down
When we say a small child can not open the cabinet because it contains a secret .. his imagination will invent many things
Only when he opens it he will know the truth and imagined jams and sweets can maybe be no there as expected :)

Bubbers, jcjeant

I would ask that you read BEA IR #3 pp. 79 to wit:

"4.3 Recommendations relating to Flight Recorders
Analysis of the FDR parameters and audition of the CVR provide information that is essential to an understanding of the event. However, it is difficult to reconstruct the indications that were available to the crew on their instrument panel, especially the instructions given by the Flight Director crossbars when they reappear. It is also impossible to see whether there have been any attempts to re-engage the autopilot. A view of the instrument panel would complete the information provided by the FDR and the CVR and would make it possible to confirm the indications that were available to the crew and the actions that they made. Numerous recommendations have already been made on this subject over the past ten years without any real progress having been made.4.3 Recommendations relating to Flight Recorders
Analysis of the FDR parameters and audition of the CVR provide information that is essential to an understanding of the event. However, it is difficult to reconstruct the indications that were available to the crew on their instrument panel, especially the instructions given by the Flight Director crossbars when they reappear. It is also impossible to see whether there have been any attempts to re-engage the autopilot. A view of the instrument panel would complete the information provided by the FDR and the CVR and would make it possible to confirm the indications that were available to the crew and the actions that they made. Numerous recommendations have already been made on this subject over the past ten years without any real progress having been made."

It is BEA who suggest there are serious problems with the indications available the pilots, as to reconstruction, availability.

Specifically, autopilot commands, attitudes and speeds. OH, and FLIGHT DIRECTOR CROSSBARS


Thought you might be interested.

respect

Habsheim - interesting accident. A pilot performs unauthorised manoeuvres and then blames his machine. The luddites immediately rush to support him. Fast forward to now certain individuals are trying to link this to AF447. This isn't a quest for the truth this is a quest to prove outlandish theories. Let us lay out the reality of AF447 - the pitots iced up causing UAS. That is all. There is literally no evidence that any of the other instruments went Lady Gaga. The flight crew didn't respond to the incident in an appropriate manner putting the aircraft into a stall. That is all. No smoking gun, no conspiracy, no manipulative manufacturer. Just mundane errors - a whimper not a bang.

One commendable early notification was along the lines:
" We do not know yet what has happened to AF447 but it may be connected to Pitots and / airspeed..."
(Was this from AF, AB or BEA ? It doesn't matter.)
This would give any pilot a chance to reread the UAS Drill for his aircraft. Do people still do " Touch Drills " ( Touch - but don't move anything...) ?

o Hathat than
 

OC The attempted linkage of Habsheim/447 is in your mind. If you had taken the time to read for comprehension, the nexus was only that ECAM artifacts are available via DFDR post accident/incident. There are similarities whenever complex machinery of any kind meets its destruction. Wiser people than us seek out these commonalities, and forge us new processes.

Linktrained. I for one get immense pleasure and some comfort when you share your history here. Everything has a beginning; we stand on the shoulders of our forebears, and ridicule them at great risk to our safety, if not our conceit.

It is possible the PNF was getting out the UAS checklist while the PF was pulling up because of fear of being too fast if the overspeed was going off. Every jet I flew had an UAS checklist to fly with inop airspeed indicators. It seems he would have monitored what the PF was doing while he was getting it though. Just read an article in a pro pilot magazine about knowing how to fly with no operable air speed indicators. Seems like some of the corporate pilots have a higher understanding than airline pilots how to deal with their planes when they develop a problem. The last jets I flew with AOA indicators were corporate aircraft decades ago.

Well, the stall warning system did not behave as most of us would have expected it to, but other than that, I agree.

Now if you were in BEA's position, what kind of recommendations would you be developing to prevent the next accident?

The stall warning should not operate before takeoff speeds are achieved so why should they not be silenced if they go to those low speeds. They are normal for in flight conditions.

One good reason would be that there was no weight on the wheels, i.e. they were airborne where such things matter greatly.

Anybody of you the experts can tell me other type of aircrafts (excepted Airbus) that the stall alarm stops when the aircraft is still in full stall state ?

he
 

jcjeant

Howdy there. AF447 died of a frequently terminal (fatal) condition called STALL. She did not crash due to STALL WARNING.

On an a/c that shuns manual control and seat of the pants flying, there is no ALERT/STALL. ONLY a WARNING. It is clear the crew rejected STALL, (both its warning, and its physical eveidence) at least to me. Therefore, they are left with textbook aero behaviour of the STALL condition to diagnose it: Nose Drop and BUFFET, to get that the airframe is STALLED. The NOSE did not drop, at least characteristically, in fact, the PF may have lifted the NOSE each time he started to recover! Leaving the Mush state, and transiting through the beginning of LIFT, the Nose would have dropped, and the STALL WARN activated, at least once.

The "Buffet" that is touted by BEA as "possible", to me seems questionable, and anyway, it did not serve to alert the crew sufficiently to STALL.

So here. The evidence strongly points to crew ignorance of the STALL condition, and the physical clews were missing also. Without some emphatic a/c warning of ACTUAL STALL, the outcome is assured, as we see. There is no recovery from STALL, absent strict and prescribed maneuvers, as discussed here at length. Without a starting point (diagnosos of STALL), the crew will drop into the sea, again, as we see they did.

It is not a fault of the aircraft sufficient to even raise one's eyebrows. (IMHO).

The problem is straightforward. The Autopilot will not operate without Airspeed reporting that meets its criteria. The crew will not be able to fly without accurate a/s either, failing certain requirements that were obviously missing. At the very least, the Pilot Flying did not immediately acclimate to manual control, and never did understand his instruments, (assuming they were working, and accurate).

The a/c crashed due to the events we see reported by BEA, the picture is clear.
Unprepared, in turbulent air, and without accurate airspeeds, the plot was lost from the git by PF, and the PNF either did not understand either, or lacked the training to seize immediate control, instead (we assume) calling for the Captain, to help. What exactly caused the chain to fracture so quickly and terminally is open to discussion. By the time the a/c departed aero flight, there was no chance to recover, given the conditions to hand.

For me, the table appeared to be set for disaster directly by the lack of response in changing out defective (in theory) probes, and indirectly due lack of even a basic recognition of the dangers in flying an aircraft with such rapid changes occurring in a very narrow window of parameters. I do not understand how some here (with a straight face) are so dismissive of the piloting, and so reassured by the a/c. The a/c was no more in a state of readiness than the people. IMHO.

bon nuit

BTW, what happened to that leak re: Captain's initial reaction upon re-entering the cockpit? He is upposed to have said, "What are you doing? That is a STALL, Go with the nose down!!? " The quote in the report is "Er...what are you doing?"

Any question, regardless of content missing, means he knows something is wrong. On page 31 BEA IR #3, the last thing reported from CVR is "Er...what are you doing...." The conversation is then shut down, no more CVR, indexed with the plane's attitude. Why not? Those three pages, if continued further in sequence would tell us the rest of the story.

Lyman
Of course there is an attempt to link Habersheim with AF447 otherwise why mention it?

Machinbird
A very interesting question - will a UAS warning system actually be practical or developable? If so will it actually be feasible in service? We know that pitot tubes are being changed to the more reliable Goodrich models. However, it is probably time to replace the pitot tube with something new though what that could be is beyond me. I would recommend considerably more training and hands on experience for pilots and a thorough reorganisation of Air France's flight operations (which might even be underway as we speak) as I do believe that there is an airline specific cultural issue here.

'The stall warning should not operate before takeoff speeds are achieved so why should they not be silenced if they go to those low speeds.'I was under the impression that aircraft systems have some idea of altitude. Seems reasonable to enable the stall warning as appropriate when at 35000 ft irrespective of any other logic.

Hi,

Old Carthusian
If you challenge the culture of the company .. you must also include the various unions of Air France pilots
They are to represent the pilots .. but not only
They are guard dogs and should intervene when things do not unfold as planned by the rules
More .. there are also official control agencies who must play a role
If Air France has reached the point of having a bad culture .. one can not discount some others players
The Helios accident report:
Airline execs convicted over 2005 Greece crash | Athens News

@ O.C.:
 

All Thales probes have been replaced per AD.

Besides the probe replacement program, several hardware and software changes have been introduced, IMO they are optional and not mandated.

- BUSS (SW always available) - already available before AF447!
- FMGEC: AP/FD not available after UAS condition. (Last MOD)
- FCPC: F/CTL ALT LAW (PROT LOST) ECAM MSG accompanied with reason. (Last MOD)
- FCDC: More rigid USE MAN PITCH TRIM PFD message when autotrim not available. (Last MOD)
- FWC: **NAV IAS DISCREPANCY MSG When 2/more IAS are detected to be different.
Added AoA data filtering to improve SW detection in turbulent conditions.

- AoA: Conical shaped ground base to prevent water ingression. (Last MOD)

** Don't know if F-GZCP was equipped with this mod but the mod was available at that time. (BEA doesn't mention the presence of this message, suspect it was NOT available in F-GZCP)

The B787 is equipped with ADR voting logic, details are not known by me, but the fault isolation logic determines which ADR supplies PFD.
Above that there seems to be a synthetic AS available when the voted fails

http://i474.photobucket.com/albums/r...ab999/Vsyn.jpg