Bloomberg on AF447

[LJ45]

Just recently had upset recovery training on the 74 as part of initial qual. With 15 degrees of nose down and full power, just pulling a bit too much would induce a stall at high altitude, how's that for proper pitch and power, try that at night with no valid airspeed indication!!!

You just proved you know the proper way to recover from a high altitude stall and the pitch and power needed for your aircraft. So now that you had this training, if you stall you will not stay pitched up? You are making our point even clearer.

 

[LJ45]

I dunno know, but to maintain proper pitch and power setting during severe turbulence is pretty difficult!!!QUOTE]


Hold pitch and power for turb penatration and don't chase airspeed and altitude.

 

[CesnaCaptn]

Airbus pilots-will a blocked pitot tube result in the airspeed tapes disappearing or Xed out, or would the tapes act like the airspeed indicator would on a C-172 with a blocked pitot tube, i.e. like an altimeter? Maybe the pilots were trying to get their airspeed "under control" by pitching back.

 

[landlover]

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/learmount/2011/05/air_france_447_the_facts_and_w.html

great break down of the last few minutes.

 

[Wesb737fo]

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/learmount/2011/05/air_france_447_the_facts_and_w.html

great break down of the last few minutes.

Wow.....perplexing...makes me wonder if they weren't trusting their instrumentation. They stayed in that high of an AOA and eventually pulled the power to idle. To say they were confused is an understatement.

 

[chqflyer]

I'm not too up to speed on Airbus FBW control laws, but will the airplane still have some sort of AOA protection with loss of speed indication? Was the airplane just hanging on the edge of a stall or in a true aerodynamic stall? I would think a full stall from altitude would have been a much different mode of descent.

 

[Wesb737fo]

Im not a bus guy either, but the article from the above link states that at speeds below 60kts the AOA inputs are rejected. Also states that the A/S came back (along with the stall warning). The V/S was 10k fpm and the pilot continued to pull back on the stick. Pilot states he had no valid flight instrumentation. I don't know. Something seems screwy here. Not going to pass judgement here until more info comes out, then I still won't judge, I'll just learn.

 

[RJLoser]

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/learmount/2011/05/air_france_447_the_facts_and_w.html


3. A few minutes later the PF makes a sidestick control input which raises the nose and causes the aircraft to climb rapidly to 38,000ft. There was no reason to climb, the PF did not announce an intention to do it,and the aircraft was not cleared by ATC to do so. The natural result of climbing without an increase in power is a loss of speed. But we'll deal with that shortly.


Am I misreading (3)? What was the reason for the PF pitch up?

 

[BrickTop]

The report says nothing about entering a thunderstorm. After the loss of airspeed indication, they did not maintain proper pitch and power setting, and the aircraft stalled. They applied 'pitch up' control in response to the stall and maintained 'pitch up' control throughout most of the descent.

This investigation is pissing me off. They have completely overlooked or at least publicly ignored the fact they drove their aircraft directly into a thunderstorm. How about the investigating committee stop critiquing thier piloting techniques on stall recovery once they entered the thunder storms and determine why the hell they did in the first place. Any aircraft would ice over and stall in thunderstorms of that magnitude. It's time we start investigating basic piloting and thunderstorm avoidance.

 

[mrnolmts]

Just gotta love all this monday morning quarterbacking...

 

[LJ45]

Just gotta love all this monday morning quarterbacking...

So we shouldn't learn and educate our self and have discussions about this so it doesn't happen again?

 

[mrnolmts]

So we shouldn't learn and educate our self and have discussions about this so it doesn't happen again?

Didn't say nothing of the sort. How about you wait until all the facts and analysis have been released before you draw your own conclusions?
I also find it very interesting how you know for sure you would have just acted perfectly in the scenario even though you weren't there. Who knows exactly what was going on? You, so far at least, have very little known facts about this crash, yet have no qualms about assuring us that this accident was simply about some FO not having basic aerodynamic knowledge and skills.
While you might have made a good point given your view of what happened, it's people like you, who think they are God's gift to aviation, that scare me the most.

 

[jonjuan]

This investigation is pissing me off. They have completely overlooked or at least publicly ignored the fact they drove their aircraft directly into a thunderstorm. How about the investigating committee stop critiquing thier piloting techniques on stall recovery once they entered the thunder storms and determine why the hell they did in the first place. Any aircraft would ice over and stall in thunderstorms of that magnitude. It's time we start investigating basic piloting and thunderstorm avoidance.

Watch the AF447 Nova episode. It gives an idea as to why they may have not seen the Tstorm.

 

[waveflyer]

Didn't say nothing of the sort. How about you wait until all the facts and analysis have been released before you draw your own conclusions?
I also find it very interesting how you know for sure you would have just acted perfectly in the scenario even though you weren't there. Who knows exactly what was going on? You, so far at least, have very little known facts about this crash, yet have no qualms about assuring us that this accident was simply about some FO not having basic aerodynamic knowledge and skills.
While you might have made a good point given your view of what happened, it's people like you, who think they are God's gift to aviation, that scare me the most.

+1 -
But I'll moderate it out- and say that some actions of pilots are worthy of our contempt or critique- but let's wait a bit longer on this one until we can get a real handle on it-
I have very little time in Airbii relatively- but know enough that their designs can very much change a pilot's assumptions on correct action. Never before has the manual been more important to understand

 

[dojetdriver]

11,000 hours for CA? 3,000 hours for the "copilot" at the controls? Wow. The average FO at a major likely has more than 11,000 hours. Quality time is good, but quantity also has it's place.

It's not like it's a secret, but it's not uncommon for int'l pilots (US or foreign) to NOT fly that much.

Also, often the structure of the seniority vs. fleet type vs. pay at some European legacies can be different than the U.S. In other words, the "junior pilots" (in all seats) being on the int'l stuff because the schedules can flat out suck.

So even though the CA may have had "only" 11,000 hrs, who knows how much he may have had in the right seat that was probably heavy/int'l at some point before getting his first "command"?