Air France Crash - Report out today

[Lear70]

Ah, I gotcha now. Definitely agree with that, and hope I never see "severe" at altitude. That would suck. Moderate was bad enough...

 

[blackjack]

Good discussion at http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/489774-af-447-thread-no-9-a-10.html

Few of us understand how AF 447 appears to have been commanded pitch up when down was needed. Perhaps the PF was attempting to follow the flight directors. Someone in the pprune thread tried full sidestick down recovery and it took a significant amount of time at various altitudes. The other pilot made inputs at least twice. I suspect the inputs were released when the stall warning reappeared above 60 knots. Confusion and tragedy.

More display on the airbus would be better:
1) when outside of normal law the white cross should appear. Currently the white cross is referenced on ground during flight control checks showing what the contolling sidestick is commanding. Figuring out what the Pilot Flying is doing with the sidestick (or more correctly what signal is being commanded since dual inputs can be summed) should not be a guessing game.
2) direct Angle of Attack display - the crew could have seen AOA responding to their inputs resulting in less confusion
3) display more sanity checks (add GPS groundspeeds and altitudes) without having to select pages
4) flight directors should not reappear unless selected
5) full time display of the flight path vector (FPV, "the bird" is almost as good as AOA and can be reliable below 60 knots). currently many turn the bird off because it forces you into track instead of heading laterally.

Does anyone know why the checklist says the FPV can be affected if there is an altitude error? Does FPV level mean zero acceleration to or from center of earth? How is barometric altitude involved?

 

[nwaf16dude]

Sad truth, but the airplane probably would have recovered on its own if he had just let go of the stick. The nose would have come down as it sought the airspeed it was trimmed for when the autopilot kicked off...maybe not a complete recovery, but it would have taken it longer to hit the water than it did with the full aft stick input.

 

[JimNtexas]

An Airbus pilot told me that Airbus has updated their standby instrument to show AoA when the plane is in alternate law.

 

[troll565]

An Airbus pilot told me that Airbus has updated their standby instrument to show AoA when the plane is in alternate law.

more or less correct. It has a Red too fast or too slow indication. In between those two is a green area.

 

[thawednook]

From the A-330 FCOM.

"A backup speed scale and a backup altitude scale replace simultaneously the normal speed and altitude scales when all the three ADRs are switched OFF. This enables the flight crew to fly at a safe speed and altitude in case of an unreliable speed/altitude indication. The backup speed scale information is based on the angle–of–attack, and depends on the slat/flap configuration.
The backup altitude scale displays the GPS altitude."

At my airline, this feature is only available on the newer "Enhanced" aircraft. These aircraft were delivered from the factory with this. Not sure if there is a retrofit for older models or not.

 

[IBNAV8R]

I can't speak to European flight training but our own is extremely lacking, thanks in large part to our prestigious FAA.

We've abandoned basic stick and rudder flying and basic attitude instrument flying in favor of CRM, systems management and scenario based training. We can all take great comfort in knowing that newer pilots, (including ab initio) can make "canned" decisions for "canned" scenarios - not to mention they can fly the hell out of a simulator.

 

[densoo]

An Airbus pilot told me that Airbus has updated their standby instrument to show AoA when the plane is in alternate law.

How about an EFIS symbol somewhere that shows which contol stick is being activated. Green "L" for left, green "R" for right, and both turn red if both are activated at the same time (or whatever the engineers want to come up with). There were times when one or all pilots did not know more than one person was flying at the same time.

 

[tomgoodman]

We've abandoned basic stick and rudder flying and basic attitude instrument flying in favor of CRM, systems management and scenario based training.

Forgetting to concentrate on basic flying is not a new problem. One of the saddest accident briefings I heard in the military concerned a multiengine aircraft that had an emergency but was completely flyable. "They were talking to the Command Post when they hit the ground."

 

[Flyer1015]

How about an EFIS symbol somewhere that shows which contol stick is being activated. Green "L" for left, green "R" for right, and both turn red if both are activated at the same time (or whatever the engineers want to come up with). There were times when one or all pilots did not know more than one person was flying at the same time.

On the ground, there is a side stick control indicator, a white cross that moves across the PFD. That is in ground mode only, and visible during the flight control check. Airbus had it designed that during rotation, you could see that side stick control indicator. Only problem is, an Emirates Captain in an A340 (in Africa I believe) was told a "technique" he claims from someone in the training department. He put the side stick control indicator at exactly 9 degrees for takeoff and held it there, his goal was to get that first, and then continue pulling up. Well that technique backfired as the Airbus rotated VERY slowly off the ground and I believe they took out a few lights before coming back around for a landing. One of the recommendations from that incident were for Airbus to remove the side stick control indicator from the PFD at liftoff.

There actually are green arrows for FO and CA, those are during priority takeover of the sidestick. Or, if there is dual input, the green FO or CA light will flash, and an aural 'dual input' is heard. Twice on the Air France CVR, the synthetic voice "DUAL INPUT" went off. However, considering that the entire crew ignored or did not recognize the synthetic voice "STALL" going off 75 times, I don't think they would have recognized (and probably ignored) the 'dual input' aural that went off twice. Whatever happened to authority? Announce 'my controls!" push the takeover button to gain priority, renders the other guys sidestick useless, while you recover out of the predicament?