It seems some posters on here have been drinking from the fountain of knowledge and some only gargled!:E

Air rabbit, Owain G et al

Some interesting info so thanks for posting. My vague recollection, from reading Flight International, was that the problem was largely due to the large rudder input and then the REVERSAL afterwards.

From a line pilot's point of view I cannot envisage why the FO would have thought that such inputs were necessary. No criticism implied- there but for the grace of God etc. Apart from an engine out condition one doesn't touch the rudder in normal ops. In an extreme attitude then of course it may help to use rudder eg high bank angle with the nose yawing below the horizon. I believe that was an example described in the American Airlines training video that I watched many years ago. That video was withdrawn from use after this crash.

The other point I have had drummed into me is that with powered flying controls one has to treat such controls with more than a little respect. With the rudder in particular it is a large control surface and and so, for example, when cycling the rudder on the pre take off checks one must do so SLOWLY!

BBK

I failed too. Teldorserious, could you help please?

Thank you dsc810. Gliders are not built like airlines, but it is assumed that starting piloting with gliders is a good pedagogy. As we learnt it from AA587 wrong practices were accepted from the community of pilots. We have to change now these false ideas built on very particular situations with bad solutions : Learjet dutch roll or communication between glider and trailer. Didactic is important. We know that in critical situation our brain is regressing to what we learn first. How we learn to fly is still coming out after thousands of hours. What you have well learnt in initial formation is for ever. Poor initial training is expensive and dangerous.It is important to give effect to accident reports like AA587 in pedagogy.

This has been an interesting and illuminating discussion, thanks!

Quote from tdracer:
I don't seem to recall anyone ever claiming that the 707 airframe wasn't robust.

When I did my base training with AA at DFW in 1975, I was surprised that no attempt was made to demonstrate dutch roll characteristics and recovery at altitude, even though the a/c was equipped with only one yaw damper. (BTW, I'm not suggesting that dutch roll recovery by the pilot would involve any use of rudder.) Four years earlier, my VC10 conversion had included several full demonstrations (up to about 40 degrees of bank) and recovery. The VC10 has(d) 3 independent rudders, each with a yaw damper.
One possible interpretation was that the a/c was not inclined to serious dutch roll at altitude - we all know that it would on the approach. On reflection, I'm wondering if the B707 airframe, specifically the vertical surfaces, may have been merely adequate for the regs? Has anyone got a copy of Davies to hand?

Quote from flarepilot:
that plane would still be flying if it had a rudder limiter based upon speed. at low speed full throw, at higher speeds less throw.

It has precisely that.

Clandestino,
Your posts are always well-informed, but could I respectfully suggest that you might resist the temptation to nit-pick the statements of those posters with whom you are broadly in agreement, and that you allow for the context in which they are made, and the audience? I'm sure you don't mean to sound arrogant..

Quote from Teldoserious:
Must be fun to get an Airbus type...

Indeed it is! The OP has made some unsupportable assertions (not all as cliched as the above), and in doing so has done us readers a favour by provoking the authoritative contributions of AirRabbit, Owain, and some others.

Teldorserious, out of interest what A/C ratings do you hold or have held?

I gather you've never flown an Airbus, what about Boeing?

He has no ratings what so ever. He has appeared under numerous identities over the years, and always wears his ignorance on his sleeve.

john smith

just about every plane I can think of in the transport catagory has the admonishment that the pilots operating handbook assumes the pilot is an experienced and knowledgeable pilot and does not hand hold the novice.


shutting down the engines in cruise is generally recognized as contrary to maintaining altitude

scanning the instruments is generally recognized as a requirement for precise flying...

an experienced pilot knows that.


but what us experienced pilots didn't know was that using the rudder in a certain way WOULD CAUSE THE PLANE TO FALL APART.

I am of the generation that had it drilled into them BY THE FAA in its approved methods that structural failure wouldn't occur below certain speeds with full control throw.

(not unless their was previous damage to the plane)


In the modern cockpit there are some odd placcards...one I mentioned was about limiting control throw to HALF above 40,000'

many of us go to work every day in planes that have placcards saying you can't do a Catagory 2 ILS without proper training and operating equipment...now most of us still think that one is out of place...BUT ITS STILL THERE.

A placcard describes something unusual about the airplane, it is akin to the pilots operating handbook. Even a short paragraph in the airbus POH saying not to screw with the rudder would have done the trick

OF COURSE, who would buy an airplane that has a placcard or POH statement like: IF YOU SCREW WITH THE RUDDER THE PLANE WILL< REPEAT WILL< FALL APARt and KILL EVERYONE.

sorry john smith...if you knew the plane had this problem and you didn't tell all us other pilots, shame on you.

I just wish I had copies of all those books and tests I've used over the years with statements about what controls, what speeds, etc , all FAA approved.

DP Davies would have had something to say.

Oh, by the way...getting ''locked into " wake turbulence is something we train for...and it can be a bitch ...can't anyone conceive that the wake was bad enough to start a whole cycle of events that ended up showing the weakness of this plane?


I am reminded that there was a dissenting opinion from an NTSB member about the probable cause and the tail had previous , unknown or unreported damage.

makes one think

oh, and an A310 lost a piece of its rudder on a different flight...hmmmm

makes one think

I think that it is a separate issue. Losing a rudder is a lot different than losing the entire fin which happens to take the rudder with it.

The partial rudder thing was due to some sort of disbonding I believe.

Maybe that's the reason there is no placard in transport airplanes explaining use of rudder?

HN, exactly.

Isn't it somewhat tiresome discussing stuff with two different SSG personae in one thread?

Since the trolls(Brian and Denti) have jumped in, the thread derailed. I'm out.

If the Airbus can't take a rudder back and forth, so be it. You can believe that all planes are like this, completely nullifying what us pilots do every day in training, in x winds, in single engine ops, or day to day flying, stepping on the rudders all day long, back and forth, at all sorts of speeds. Still here.

The sad part is some still havn't learned the lessons from this accident. Boeing has pages of text on what is, or isn't, acceptable rudder input.

"If you believe that all planes are like this" - we're talking about commercial jet aircraft. What a/c are you talking about? What commercial jet a/c can you swing the rudder back and forth, stop to stop, with no cause for concern?

The lesson is that Airbus made a crappy tail that couldn't be inspected for fatigue, and it did fall apart under conditions that many of us have exceeded in other aircraft, by orders of magnitude, every day in turbulance, upset recoveries, and normal training regimens.

I've got a technical question (this being the Tech Log forum) that I haven't seen addressed, even in the NTSB report.

What sequence of effects or factors led to AA587 then losing control and crashing after losing the vertical stabilizer?

Yeah, yeah. I know. "Duh! The tail fell off!" Except that aircraft (even large jets) have lost their vertical stabilizers without subsequently crashing: http://www.murdoconline.net/wordpres...52-no-vert.jpg

I'm figuring the probable effects were:

- abrupt shift to a nose-down cg with the loss of the stabilizer's weight from the tail.
- "snap yaw" in reaction to the loss of the rudder's yaw force in the opposite direction.

BTW - I don't mean to imply that the AA crew could have saved the aircraft. They had little altitude or time and were in an already confusing situation. The crew of the B-52 pictured were test pilots intentionally trying to identify structural weaknesses. So they were at a safe altitude, and expecting (more or less) something to break.

AFAIR, according to tests after the AA587 accident the "crappy Airbus tail" did exceed the required and specified strength specifications by a considerable margin. A more valid point of Airbus-related criticism was the sensitive reaction of the rudder pedals, translating even very small pedal movements into considerable rudder deflections at higher speeds. And indeed there was apparently some widespread confusion regarding the limits represented by Va, including the FAA itself.* But all this has nothing to do with the tailfin strength or accessibility of the Airbus vertical stabilizer.

* Cited source: AA587: The Perils of Flying by the Book | Flying Magazine

@pattern: the B52 on the picture still has an (albeit small) remaining piece of vertical fin that stabilizes the airplane with regard to yawing movements. Without any fin and the resulting weathervaning tendency, AFAIK no airplane can be controlled in flight.

@pattern

I'm not sure about this but I believe that the B52 didn't have any hydraulics in the vertical stabiliser - I'm sure someone here will correct me if I am wrong there.
When AA587 lost its fin it also lost all hydraulics since it was supplied by all three systems. Consequently there was no aerodynamic control of any sort available whereas, if I am right, the B52 at least had elevators and ailerons.

What we have here is a failure to communicate
 

DEAR JOHN SMITH...

I see the problem...you don't understand that thousands of properly certificated FAA approved pilots did NOT KNOW THAT STOMPING ON THE RUDDER would cause the plane to fall apart.

thousands of us learned that if you were at or below Va and applied full control movement the plane would not fall apart.

it was on countless examinations and in FAA literature of the time.

Even while flying other planes, that had rudder LIMITATIONS and rudder limiters WE (PILOTS) were required by the FAA and OUR AIRLINES to memorize and display knowledge of limits imposed by design of the plane we were flying.

I can still explain how the rudder limiter system works on douglas systems and boeing systems and that if the limiter system fails we have to KNOW NOT TO USE TOO MUCH RUDDER ABOVE CERTAIN SPEEDS.


What the properly certified airline, training program, and pilots who were involved in the A300 inflight breakup DIDN'T know then is what you claim to have known all along.

Hence my advice about a placcard or a POH write up.


I'm glad you know...but I didn't and a whole airline didn't and the FAA didn't know.

But you knew.

yeah, right.

now we know...and maybe that's why the airbus is so junior at some airlines.

Here is a cut and paste out of a Boeing 777 AFM:

I'm pretty sure all Boeing AFMs have that same statement. It didn't use to be there - it's addition was in direct response to the A300 AA587 crash.

Do you really need a placard to remind pilots not to do something that the AFM tells them not to do?

I agree with everything Flare said.

You see some of us teach this stuff, some of us have been getting ratings, some of us have been getting types, some of have been going to school every year and some of us have had to teach and regurgitate the definition of Va now for some time.

It's absolutely full out of deception for peeps in here to say after the fact, after the crash, after the FAA redefines Va, to say ..

'Yeah, well, you know, when WE flew, we never thought that Va, full scale deflection and all that meant anything...because you know...we didn't trust the test pilots, or the manufacturers to give us a speed that we could trust to hit a top, come out upside down, do a recovery any which way...because you know...WE knew all along that three pedal imputs in an Airbus would take the tail off.'

Meanwhile, the rest of us are pounding on the rudders for single engine work, side slips, x winds, upsets, stall recoveries, sometimes bad spin recoveries...and yes in twins, tprops and jets, because you know, pilots should know this stuff..and believe it or not they do upsets, stalls, and recoveries in airlines...right? Or do all you guys just get a little beep and push the nose over and call it good.

Either flare and I are getting putt on by a bunch of kids in here or the airline guys are just following what they are told.

This year Va is x, next year y. This year CRM is great, next year crap.

Maybe because its on me to pull the levers back when things get bumpy I have to know this stuff.

whether or not those who are doing it as in at work at the front end heed these savvy words
from the coal face and inputs Teld, please keep it up. you have a large readership and no mistake

BTW how come that chinese 747 that stalled and only recovered feet from the briney off NW america all those years ago not serve as an example to all plane makers in getting it right on the drawing board and making them Boeing tough?

Teldoserious

I think some of us airline guys are merely trying to say that large rudder inputs, other than for assymetric yaw conditions, are pretty much unheard of. Possibly in an "upset" condition if it helps to pick up a wing and/or prevent further yaw. I'm not an expert but I've never heard it suggested as an appropriate response. In a vortex encounter I'd expect to use aileron primarily.

Light aircraft may need an appropriate rudder input and I've spent a fair amount of time teaching "co-ordinated" controls. If you're teaching in an aircraft with barn door ailerons that are prone to aileron drag then it's essential. Perhaps that is where your confusion is arising?

tdracer

I suspect all the Boeing FCOMs were amended after the AA crash.

Cannot say anything for commercial jet aircraft and will readily stand corrected as always, but apart from the (AFAIK rather controversial) "falling leaf", I cannot think of any manoeuvre with oscillating hard rudder inputs. And frankly, even if at speeds well below Va in the spamcans I sometimes fly (let's say at 80-90 KIAS), the idea of giving several alternating full rudder inputs just feels wrong and abusive.

BBK or anyone with Bus experience....

In a bus, can a pilot at say a 200kts, aerodynamic forces be damned, step on a rudder to full stop, and the resulting action in the tail is that the rudder slammed hard over would result in a resulting bang or resonance in the fusilage because the rudder slammed over that hard on the vertical stab?

IF that is the case, that would answer something.

Mr. Teldorserious:

May I ask that you clear up something that is bothering me? Am I reading your posts correctly by understanding that when you started flying you were trained, and trained well, but were never trained, at any point in your career, to NOT apply full rudder in either direction – and specifically were NOT trained to never move any flight control from its hard-stop in one direction to its hard-stop in the opposite direction as fast as you are able? Further, am I understanding you to say that it is because of this absence of training in this specific area, you have determined independently that it must be permissible to apply full flight control input, for any flight control, to its mechanical or aerodynamic limits, in either direction, and then to rapidly move that control in the opposite direction to the opposite mechanical or aerodynamic limits? Or are you saying that you were specifically trained, and if not trained, at least told, that moving this control to one of its directional limits and then rapidly moving that control to the opposite limit, was an acceptable behavior in whatever airplane you were currently training to fly?

I ask this specifically in light of the fact that the AA587 accident airplane FDR readouts clearly show that this is precisely what the F/O did. And in light of your answers to my questions above, we might be able to discern that you are convinced that the accident resulted from inappropriate actions by that F/O or you are convinced that the accident resulted from operating an airplane that was built and certificated in accordance with grossly inadequate standards.

Thanks in advance for your clarifications.

Am I to understand that you have never gone to the mechanical stop in any plane? Did someone tell you never to go to the mechanical stops or from mechanical stop to mechanical stop during your control checks?

Am I to understand that you have never landed in a crosswind which required full control to the stop in order to maintain control?

Am I to understand you were told you could not go to the mechanical stop ?

I've been saying over and over that there are certain planes that have limiters (mechanical or lock outs) and that they are well covered in POH and in FAA examinations. I've mentioned placcards till I was blue in the face.

BUT THE FREAKING A 300 didn't have that now did it? Anyplace in the A300 manual from the 1990s that said: DO NOT USE FULL CONTROL THROW OF ANY CONTROLS STOP TO STOP?

IF SOMETHING IS OBVIOUS, does it need saying...YES...and if something is not obvious it really needs saying.


In one transport jet I flew, we could not take off unless the rudder limiter light was working properly and if it failed in flight we had a MANDATORY MEMORY ITEM of which speeds to use full or less rudder.

DID THE A300 have that ? I doubt it.

Maybe the designers assumed something about the A300

and when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME

nope, don't blame the copilot...there may be dozens of men to blame, but he didn't have a placcard, or a POH limitation, or hours of lecture and examination.


But I will say this...when I first saw the A300, many years ago, the first thing I THOUGHT TO MYSELF WAS...GOSH THAT TAIL SECTION LOOKS WEAK.

But you see, that is just what I saw and didn't have a POH, placcard, or a lecture to tell me anything.


you don't have a second chance at a first impression.

Could be true but I still don't see how "Don't ever rapidly cycle any flight control on any aeroplane under any circumstances" is envelope dependent. IMHO it is far more basic than teaching the pilots how to recover from the corners of the envelope.

While I'm far from being satisfied with the level of training that currently exists, I do resent the attempts to draw the syllabus even further along the wrong way. Of course it is uncommon to see wake vortices handled the way it happened on AA587, most folks use wheel/stick to roll the aeroplane. That rudder is to be used to induce roll only when wheel is not enough should be basic airmanship which lead us to...

...my opinion that the biggest problem with AAAMTP was the third "A" - advanced. I'm not suggesting that program was problematic by itself. That flying folks lacking some basic understanding are quite capable of misapplying potential life saving action and turning it into lethal one was clearly demonstrated. I really don't know whether it's better to tailor the program to dumbest common denominator and have nothing advanced in syllabus lest it be misunderstood or insist on higher selection and training criteria so every pilot can get to grips with advanced concepts.

In ideal world choice would be easy.

Could be no one was killed in UK through getting way too much yaw at too low speed on a winch... yet.

Wrong theories, not practices. Until AA587 no one tried to put "whatever I do with controls below Va won't kill me" to test so misunderstandings about Va were widespread but didn't increase the death toll until that fateful day.

Well then pilots mustn't have brains because in critical situations they mostly apply what they have learnt last.

So if it's wrong, one is doomed? Fortunately it doesn't work like that in real life. It can be forgotten, rejected , expanded upon or whatever. It is likely to influence one but is far from being set in stone.

Too complicated for beginners and totally unnecessary to go through whole of it. "Don't cycle your anything and don't pick the wing with the rudder if there's enough aileron" would suffice.

Heck, I could pump up my number of posts just by repeating "People with scant understanding of dynamic stability should not be overly assertive around here" ad nauseam.

Today everyone in the airliner market is compelled by law to buy such contraptions. Not with the exact wording but close enough.

Just those who haven't a) read the report b) understood the report c)both.

And I'll copy-paste the relevant part it for you once again:

Just plain lie.

That indeed was a problem... fixed now.

Airbus, ATR and Bombardier too.

If it stalled nearer the TOC than TOD, outcome would be pretty different.

How about a hypothetical conversation with an Airbus test pilot -

'Did you slam the rudder back and forth when testing the bus?'
'Yes, that's what test pilots do'
'Do you do it at different speeds'
'Yes, that's what test pilots do'
'How did you determine Va'
'We flew to the limits of mathematical fatigue to see if the math was right, examined the structure. Adjusted the numbers, butressed up the airframe if needed, that's what test pilots and engineers do'
'Do you think a left, right, then left application of rudder would take the tail off'
'If it did, then all the Airbus test pilots would be dead or better skydivers.'
'So what is the problem then?'
'Fatigued structure, bad engineering, a bad landing? Went through severe turbulance too many times, bad manufacuring that day, they put that tail on the day before Christmas. Temp issues with carbon fibre, the alumimum condensed moisture in there, maybe it's like the Alaska jack screw deal, mechanics signed the tail inspections off with out getting on a ladder, hydraulics too strong calibrated incorrect, slamming stops, terrorism, it did happen with an engine out...two failures at the same time...what are the odds of that?'
'so do you think the pilots screwed up?'
'Well what do you think an airline pilot could do departing on climbout, standard engine out procedure in a big whale that I couldn't do with an empty plane, both of us in parachutes over a test area trying to break the plane?'

hey clandistino

you quoted the ntsb and the 16 million flight hours stuff


tell me, how many flight hours did the boeing 737 have before the rudder hardover that caused the crash near pittsburgh, pa?

I never respected people who quote other people in their replies...

the substance of pprune is pilot experience...i'd much rather hear a narrative of what you have observed in flying instead of pasting quotes and commenting upon them


hey teldorserious...isn't it funny how all the people defending the bus might not have been old enough to hold an atp when the accident happened?

A lot of talk about Va but in reality....who knows what their Va is on the airliner they fly. On the one I fly, it is a continuously changing number and it has been the same on the last several that I have flown. Vb is memorized of course in knots and mach and it is less than Va for my type.

I'm sure someone will pipe up and scold me for not having all the Va speeds memorized but I suspect that there is a high percentage of competent pilots in airliners that are the same.

Try asking your other flight crewmember at a particular altitude what their present Va is and see if they know, In fact, I will ask right now to all, what is your Va at 5,000 feet ASL at max landing weight.

SSG 3.7

Give it up, the Airbus experimental test crews did not such "slamming" of the flight controls because they are professionals, not frustrated "free lancers" with a CE-500 rating, th certification criteria requires not such "slamming" because to do so is very hazardous. Not FAR 25 certified plane cn stand rapid, full throw control reversals. Neither can many military planes. The C-5 tail was subject to very elevated fatigue levels due to air refueling training missions; a BUFF lost its rudder in mountain wave; a KC-135 was nearly torn apart after a wake encounter during Desert Storm. If you fly like you write, I don't want to be near you. Please submit NOTAM prior to flight.

GF

Flare - Probably more suprising is how many have been flying airliners since the Wright Bros and just believe everything they were told.

But to your point, I got into it years ago with a guy at a CFII renewal. He's telling me he's a pilot at United...telling me that they got an 'illegal' IFR clearance and such, that's why they blew an altitude or flew through some restricted area or some nonsense.

Ofcourse I ask why they accepted the clearance and flew it, ect...and he got flustered...argumentative...

Well later on, a guy pulled me off to the side and said 'yeah, don't worry about that guy...he got 'in' with United by writing manuals for them, as a way to get a pilot job, he's got 800 hours...now.'

Now this is before the internet, so there is just no way to know who we are talking to here and what their experience level is. I just know if I you and I were ferrying a BUS, hit turbulance, flew under Va...what are we supposed to do, leave our feet on the floor? What if we had an upset, stall recovery, windsheer....sorry no rudders for you...

Galaxy - Picture yourself in that 747 at Bagram, the plane rolls one way and all you got is rudder, then it rolls the other...oops...can't push the rudder the other way to save the flight...because Airbus says you can't? Do you realize with your logic, you would be dead in that scenario? I guarantee after all your blather under that scenario your rudder would look like a humming bird outside my window unless you truly were a robot kool aid drinker more interested in saving the tail then saving the plane. Well who knows if you get into a stall you will have time to pull out your sops manual or call dispatch for advice. Maybe we can put a time machine in your plane, to create some temporal distortion bubble around your plane, so you can sit there, pushing the rudder one way...nope that didn't work...hit stop, count to ten, yep...ok, NOW I can hit the other rudder, see if that works....because you know...Airbus told us not to wiggle the rudder too much.

I hope you don't use the rudders in turbulence, at least, in a jet. Sideslip is a no-no in swept wings. Read your D.P. Davies Handling the Big Jets.

GF

Wow! So much for civility, eh? Geeze … and we’ve never been introduced, either. OK.

Just for clarification … “going to the mechanical stop” is not the problem … going from one mechanical stop to the opposite mechanical stop during pre-flight control checks is not the problem … it’s during flight, after having reached a mechanical stop in one direction, THEN rapidly going to the opposite mechanical stop, and then reversing that to the original mechanical stop, over and over and over … that is what presents not only a problem, but a significant problem.

No, please do not understand that … and while I’m not sure what brought you to ask … but you should know that if I ever attempted to land in a crosswind that would require full control to the stop and then full control to the opposite stop and then full control to the opposite stop … and continue … I’d never again drink that much before I went to sleep … those kinds of nightmares are not worth it.

Am I going out on a limb here by thinking that you’re describing going to the mechanical stop while airborne – with the presumption that you believe that certainly no one would ever expect their student’s to read and understand the regulations under which the airplane they’ll be flying was certificated? Well, on every airplane I’ve ever flown operationally, someone, someplace, made sure that I understood that there would be minimal times when full control application would EVER be required – in any axis – and it doesn’t take the proverbial “rocket scientist” to understand the regulations under which airplanes are certificated. I even included in an earlier post, the specific language contained in the US regulation (§ 25.351 Yaw maneuver conditions, for your reference) - where it clearly describes returning the control application to NEUTRAL after application to the control stop limit. Am I to understand you’ve never read the rules used to certify the airplanes you’ve flown? And, before you ask, yes, I’ve flown a lot of different airplane types (more than I care to list here – no brag – just a lot of work) and the A300-600 is NOT one of them … in fact, my experience on Airbus equipment is limited to the A320 and A330 – and then only a few trips around the pattern and some “up and away” flight control tests in each. But, by that time, I really don’t recall if I was specifically reminded as to how to handle the control application – as it wasn’t really necessary.

Oh, by the way … does everyone require a note someplace or a placard installed for all of the actions that we are NOT to undertake? Are there “Do not eat the contents” statements on Laundry Detergent, or automotive oil, or gasoline?

As long as we’re swapping questions … are you saying that you’ve never read or if you read you don’t understand the regulations under which the airplane you’re flying today was constructed and certificated?

Also, are there are any placards on the airplane you currently fly that tell you what the maximum aileron control limits are … or the elevator limits. What about maximum gear lowering speed? … or maximum flap extension speed? … or anything like that? No? Would you feel comfortable in kicking the rudder on your airplane from stop to stop to stop to stop … Or, perhaps you could enlighten us as to the kind of questions asked of you by the FAA for the airplane you’re currently flying that ensures them that you understand what, if any, limits there are for your airplane? And by the “all CAPS” comment, I would guess that all of the airplanes you’ve flown had placards or notes in the Flight Manual telling you what NOT to do? How about flying the airplane upside down? Is that in your manual? No? How often to you do that?

Really? What speed were you supposed to hold if you wanted to use less than full rudder?

Well, IF the A300 designers assumed something about the A300, they failed in their attempt when they were thinking of my involvement – so … please feel free to speak for yourself on that topic.

Is that right? Really? Perhaps you could consider going to work for one of the major airplane manufacturers … in that they wouldn’t have to go through all their research, testing, and any re-design issues … they could simply ask you.

Again … really? What about a first chance at a second impression … or is that overly deep?

Just fly like you were taught over 30 years ago. In the last dozen years button pushing seems to be the new way. AF447 is an example of how well that works. As far as rudder usage in wake turbulence it is a roll problem, not yaw so the AA FO probably used very little rudder no matter what that captain said. The NTSB doesn't always tell the truth.

The only test pilot that would qualify to be involved with the hypothetical conversation you propose would be ones that have been drawn on multiple-layers of photographic film and speak in a tone reminiscent of Donald Duck. Beyond that, a written response certainly isn’t warranted!

Yes, I know the rudder deflections on FDR but as I said recently my friend had uncomanded out of control deflections and they were not touching the rudders in their A300.

I’ve known members of the NTSB and their technical staffs for more than 3 decades now, and they’ve always provided the material (for anyone to read) from which they’ve drawn the conclusions they publish. I do recognize that there are times when their conclusions seem to ignore some of the materials they include in their official reports – and I cannot (nor do I intend to) explain those kinds of shortcomings. However, in this specific case, the FDR is pretty clear that either the Captain or the F/O in the cockpit managed to repeatedly displace both the rudder pedals and the aileron control to (and in some cases it would seem, beyond) the mechanical limits. The A300-600 does not have reversible controls – meaning that if you move the aileron or the rudder surface on the airplane – there is NO movement of the respective cockpit controller. But this airplane DOES record the cockpit controller movements – all three axes, and the rudder pedal movement corresponds exactly with the rudder surface displacement. And to avoid repeating myself (see my previous posts) there is little doubt that someone in the cockpit made 7 aileron reversals and 5 rudder reversals within that 7-second time frame. There is nothing on the CVR to indicate that the Captain was assuming control of the airplane – and, in fact, after the first wing vortex encounter (which, the F/O handled quite professionally and correctly, by the way) the Captain asked the F/O if he had encountered a “bit of turbulence” and it was the Captain on the radios after the initial application of power for takeoff.

My question would be – how did they know that the rudder was being deflected? Unless Airbus has changed the control philosophy to one of reversible controls – displacing the rudder surface will not affect the positioning of the rudder pedals in the cockpit. If the pedals in the cockpit were being deflected, again presuming Airbus has not gone to reversible controls on this airplane, must be due to some anomaly in the rudder “feel” system. Of course that isn’t good and should be noted and repaired. In the accident airplane both the rudder surface AND the rudder pedals were deflected – meaning that one of the cockpit occupants must have been “on” the rudder pedals and commanded the rudder surface position.