jcjeant
 

Agree.

As I said before, no-one thinks it odd that it's legal (certified) to have an autopilot that under certain conditions in cruise gives back control of the plane to the pilots. The same conditions in which the pilots are not trained to fly the plane.

On Basics
 

Hi,

Bill Macgillivray:

A basic (and old) mandatory skill is aviate your plane. AoA is ESSENTIAL (to fly non rotary wing a/c).

This VERY BASIC "detail" was simply not "respected".

:{

Read the CVR transcript... Appendix 1
 

This is a chilling read, but I think brings the lack of understanding of what the aircraft was doing into sharp focus. From everything I can tell the whole verbiage is there. It is not a happy read at all.

I thought it was interesting relative to the point that visual cues take precedent in the human mind over aural cues in time of stressful situations.

In the WSJ today: The article talks about more improvements to be tested on a 737 as well as changes to GE and or CFMI engines that will improve upon fuel consumption efficiency.

To note that this kind of cues are already implemented in many video games :ok:
Of course .. it's more easy to implement those in a video game instead a airliner :)
Would be the future of flying be a kind of video game :confused:

Great news
 

Great news coming from R&D. With a powerful "man-machine interface tool" to crews "near the edge". (as such was the case in AF447 before put a/c in full stall)

Thanks for very important information at a "right moment" for us here. BEA "final report day".

I think Boeing missed the point. If they need school-kid directions because the pilots are overwhelmed with data, maybe they'd be better addressing the cause rather than finding yet another piece of data to flash at them?

Besides - the FD bars on the AF jet were commanding a CLIMB, so how are Boeing's magic arrows going to react any differently under the same situation?

How about a declutter function - HIDE all but the MOST important data, and silence alarms? Blank screens if you have to.

Near the edge
 

A well developed SW together Air Speed DSP could improve easily the current situation.

As far i can imagine, the idea of the info TD bring us is to simplify crew work in abnormalities.

Your 3 questions are important. We need to wait.

Hi jcjeant,
Yup, only a matter of time as the pace of technology continues on its rapid pace. Maybe not in our lifetime, but, if your great-grandson or great-granddaughter aspires to be a pilot, this is a preview of the future. There is already a shortage of these "pilots"....

RR_NDB,

Re: Great News

I though you would like this!

5 degrees nose-up at FL350 or thereabouts - which is what the flight directors showed at the time of SW - is *not* a climb at cruise thrust.

Newbie question
 

Hello All, I am a newbie and an airline enthusiast. I used to work for an airline but in their IT so I don't claim any knowledge of powered (or unpowered) flight.

I have been keeping track of this case ever since it happened.

I saw this in the news today and signed up on this forum just to ask this one question. I read the cockpit recorder transcript here.

Air France 447 Flight-Data Recorder Transcript - What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 - Popular Mechanics

What ruled out the possibility that the Bonin guy was not suicidal?

This is a reasonable question, given that several crashes over the years have had such implications, so I'll let it stand.

However, please let's not venture into conspiracist realms .. JT

Hope that puts an end to the "thunderstorm" brigade. It is deemed to have been "nothing exceptional", though the wise decision would have been to avoid it.

A bit of a "soft" excuse when you've already managed to dump most of the kinetic energy available.

Machinbird;

Your PIO roll proposition appears to have been confirmed.

In the CVR transcript I notice some PNC call during event ..
2H10.55
2H10.59
2H11.02
2H11.24
2H11.30
It may be that PNC was concerned that something was abnormal ....

Well, I didn't even make it past the first two pages before discovering this gem:

back to the actual report...

Will do JT.

The CVR transcript looks all wrong for a deliberate attempt to sabotage the flight. Bonin's words reflect a mindset of being gradually overwhelmed by a problem, and increasing anxiety as the situation worsens. In every case of suicide/homicide in aviation I know of, the perpetrator has never betrayed anxiety - instead becoming task-focused and shutting out all extraneous human interaction.

Also his wife was on board - they were both returning from a holiday to Brazil which if anything seemed to lighten Bonin's mood based on second-hand evidence.

Everything else aside, all evidence indicates a pilot who tragically got out of his depth and was spooked enough to try the wrong thing over and over.

Thank you for the heads up.:) Haven't yet had the time to read the report.

I've read through the report and the appendix (just one time) and honestly I'm none the wiser than I was after the report a year ago.

Fundamentally, there are three pilots flying one of the best aircraft in the world and they put it in the water. What I do not comprehend is why they did not comprehend.

All the final report offers is speculation.

It was true and it's about the only thing I am confidant of.

Appendices
 

I can't seem to find a download with all the appendices.

It's worse than that. A tremendous amount is deemed either unneccessary or too expensive by the bean counters. Some operators insist the automation is used to get the absolute cheapest operation of the aircraft, and the bean counters do statistical analysis on the cost of training for some scenarios against the cost of the incident should it happen.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, and this incident is Airbus' Titanic, they have some serious soul searching to do in many areas.

Appendices
 

gums

Try the annexes au rapport final area at the bea site...
Rapport final

"the lack of understanding of what the aircraft was doing"
 

Hi,

MountainBear:

:confused:

:confused:

A good machine is transparent. You ALWAYS control it. Through a constant comprehension.

:ok: ???

First off congratulations to the French institutions for their endeavours in retrieving the evidence and the subsequent analysis. Irrespective of sidesticks and yokes, aoa indicators , huds or other technical options, the fate of this aircraft was a consequence of the actions of 3 human beings over a 4 minute interval in their otherwise peaceful lives. No machine can be perfect so its an equation of competence, training, knowledge and readiness.

a tremendous amount of basic flying skills are no longer required to be taught.

.. while the automatics are working ... which is why my old slide rule still sits in the bottom drawer (not that I would like to have to demonstrate my residual competence on the beast at a moment's notice).

Through a constant comprehension.

.. and apprehension ...

No machine can be perfect so its an equation of competence, training, knowledge and readiness.

.. not a bad summation.

Clearly there has to be a point beyond which diminishing returns makes additional training investment a moot point and not rationally justifiable .. however, establishing just where that point might reside depends a lot on what coloured glasses the viewer is using.

I have noted, in a variety of test circumstances, that a characteristic of the experienced pilot is a tenacious devotion to achieving the goal. This admirable trait is defeated if we don't give him/her a fighting last ditch chance to save the day when all the gee-whizz stuff takes a holiday.

Thanks IT, got the full CVR appendix and others.

As many here expected, a combination of training, CRM, and the control law reversions/displays all played a role in the tragedy.

I shall cut the crew a bit of slack. Not a helluva lot, but I have to look at their experience and previous training. And then there's the belief by a few that the "system" will take care of them.

I shall not cut the FBW mechanization a single atom of slack, nor the associated lack of clear displays to the crew as to what they had available ( so-called protections) nor basic steering guidance for the crew that had thousands of hours using the AP and not actually flying the jet. Don't mean to be harsh, but it's what I feel.

This will be a landmark accident report in terms of recommendations and findings and.....

My prayers are that we shall see improved training, improved CRM and maybe some changes in the reversion sequences of the FBW systems when the air data sensors fail.

Well done, Gums. (We're all bz reading...)

:ooh:

I read the final report and much of what was discussed in these pages is there.

My only nit is that there is no discussion that the crew seems not to have been aware of or concerned about altitude until the 10,000s digit dropped off the altitude display, i.e. went from 5 digits to 4:

2 h 13 min 31,7 PF (*) au niveau cent -- FL 100
2 h 14 min 07,3
PNF je cabre PF ben il faudrait on est à quatre mille pieds
PNF I'm pitching up PF Well we need to we are at four thousand feet

and while recovery from 4000' would have been unlikely even then they did not think of stall.

Earlier on we have PF:

2 h 11 min 58,2 Je… j’ai, le problème
2 h 11 min 58,6 c’est que j’ai plus de vario là

who feels he has lost VS indication.

Perhaps if the VS pointer was red, thick and flashing it may have clued in the crew in time.

Changes made by Air France - post accident
 

An interesting decision, but confirming a common language policy and easy comparison with similar documentation worldwide. IMO to be applauded.:D

I keep reading the "• Appendix 1 CVR Transcript" because I think it does speak volumes about the mind set of the crew. I still think that humans factors were the main cause of this crash. There is a lot of paper work that contributes to diverge the attention of the crew from flying the airplane. CRM was no where to be found that night. How do you get a Cessna pilots license without knowing what Stall means? Who cares about over speed when altitude keeps dropping? 25,000 feet (actually 28,000) were casually lost at level 100 and keeping the wings level was more important? ...? :ugh:

Anyways, it is over for now until the next one.

Yes, and just humans. The sad thing is, if at the first sign of anything going wrong, they'd all trooped out of the cockpit, sat down, had a coffee and a croissant and come back to their seats five minutes later, they'd probably still be alive to talk about it.

Something in the CVR transcript I have not seen til now... Very late in the text.

2:13:53.0. Page 31 CVR transcript (English)

Captain: "So wait...AP off". (sound of selector button....)

Que?

RR DNB:
 

I would suggest you apply for a job within AIB.

IMO the most sensible solution:

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



To not understand - the AIRBII Man machine - and in particulair the displays, Ecam messages etc. for NON Airbus pilots is excusable.....but NOT TO Airbus pilots.

question
 

I`m not apilot by far.But I`ve read a few a.i. reports, so i think i know a bit more than the common man on the street.

sp pls somebod answer my question.Would`nt a simple spirit level (water gauge) in the cp have heled ?
There a so many technical revolutions today ,flying to the stars.why is it not possible to have a display in the cp showing the attitude of the ac from outside (head up-tail down) with a big blinking red arrow under the fuselage pointing downward,combined with an alarm and a voice,saying "correct your attitude" which can`t be cancelled until this has been done ?

The AP is off from the beginning of the event
I suppose the captain moved the AP selector to OFF (useless command IMHO)

Quote:
Is 60 kt really too low cut-out for widebody?

As discussed at length before it is 60kt 'apparent airspeed' derived from pitot tubes which will all be significantly under-reading at high angle of attack. I'm sure someone can post a calculated trace of actual speed through the air, taking into account vertical and ground speed and estimated wind.

Why 60kt? To read a 10:1 turndown in airspeed in range 30-300 needs a 100:1 turndown on the pressure sensor - so just double the lower value to make sure we can measure it?

- I very much hope EA is not a pilot but if he/she is that this view is not common across the industry. We have seen this 'concept' a few times on the previous threads and it does demonstrate a complete lack of understanding as to how aircraft fly.

That information was missing in Interim #3 and explains the AoA variations without pitch variations in the simulation prior to A/P disconnect. It remains odd that the normal acceleration trace does not reflect the AoA variations.
This may explain the difficulties I encountered in trying to correlate the side stick commands to the airplane response.

Apologies if it has been posted earlier. Strangely the report never mentions that the IAS becomes increasingly erroneous after the AoA exceeds 25 degrees.

http://i.imgur.com/ibRLy.gif?1

When was this lecture?


It certainly pre-dates AF447 accident but is creepily prescient.

Exactly. It's from 1997. Had the same stuff in 1988 in the RAF. Gave the same stuff in 1992.
This is why airlines should run their own training schools, ab initio, not rely on self-financed pilots getting trained by anyone they think will pass them at the most affordable price.

Question to all those who fly for a living or have done so:

Would you have, as Captain, taken a rest break right before traversing the ITCZ?

A question was raised in the final report about the timing of the Captain's break but was sort of brushed aside. Perhaps there would have been a different outcome had the Captain stayed awhile longer in the cockpit but that's easy enough to state in hindsight.