Air France 447 - On topic only!

[Evan]

And this is because you have such extensive experience in the cockpit of a heavy jet correct?

Exactly. BoeingBobby, please don't trash up this thread with your personal attacks and scarebus mythology again. Trash up any other thread, just not this one. Ok?

[guamainiac]

There was a disturbance and a storm that they expected to enter and made an announcement about regarding seat belts. I guess it was anticipated that things would be moving around a bit.

[BoeingBobby]

Exactly. BoeingBobby, please don't trash up this thread with your personal attacks and scarebus mythology again. Trash up any other thread, just not this one. Ok?

I will be glad to grant your request when you have answered my previous question to you.

What licenses do you hold? PPL, CPL, Instrument, ME, ATP

How many hours PIC or SIC or even FE in a Jet aircraft of any type?

I have admitted that my knowledge of the Airbus technology is non-existent. I do however have over 6000 hours in the 747 and 707 of which 3000 + are PIC. I do get recurrent simulator and ground school training every six months at the Part 121 airline that I fly for. So I think that I do have a right to my opinion. I have to lean on those I know or meet for the knowledge I lack on the Airbus aircraft and systems.

[BoeingBobby]

http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp...90601e3.en.pdf

Just in case some of you have not seen the latest.

[Highkeas]

I will be glad to grant your request when you have answered my previous question to you.

What licenses do you hold? PPL, CPL, Instrument, ME, ATP

How many hours PIC or SIC or even FE in a Jet aircraft of any type?

.......................................................

I recall that Evan described his background in an earlier post.

[Highkeas]

........ but my point is that as the captain walked from the crew rest area to the flight deck door, .............

Does anyone know where the crew rest area is/was on this aircraft?

Another question after looking at the data charts: what is the recording frequency for the pitch angle and the AOA?

[BoeingBobby]

I recall that Evan described his background in an earlier post.

Sorry I am getting old and forget sometimes, please refresh my memory!

[Evan]

I have admitted that my knowledge of the Airbus technology is non-existent. I do however have over 6000 hours in the 747 and 707 of which 3000 + are PIC. I do get recurrent simulator and ground school training every six months at the Part 121 airline that I fly for. So I think that I do have a right to my opinion. I have to lean on those I know or meet for the knowledge I lack on the Airbus aircraft and systems.

By all means, we are ALL entitled to our opinions here as long as they're on topic. If we were discussing systems issues on a 747 or 707, we would even see you as an authority. What your Airbus pilot friend told you is false, although you might have misunderstood him. It is true that there is no mechanical link to the sidestick (of course), and there is no mechanical back-up for ailerons (unlike the 777). However the pilots CAN take manual command via mechanical links alone (this will never happen) until systems can be restored. But you're clearly biased against FBW and intent on outing Airbus FBW as a dangerous evil and it's just not true. If a pilot is skilled and knows the machine, he can take control of it at any time and safely fly it down. That is a fact. The crash of AF447 was entirely the result of pilot errors. The larger problem that is being revealed in the post-crash dialog is that some Airbus pilots don't know their machine very well, unlike the pilots of the older clocks and bellcranks machines.

I'm not a pilot BoeingBobby, I have no certification, and yet I have corrected several (alleged) Airbus pilot statements using readily available info found right there in the FCOM. That is what I find very disturbing. Do you know what the first two letters of FCOM stand for?

[BoeingBobby]

Evan, We have an FCOM for both the 747-400 and the 767 as well as the new 747-8's that we will be getting in the next few months. On the old Classics 747-200 & 747-300 we still use the QRH. So yes to answer your question I do know what the FLIGHT CREW OPERATIONS MANUAL stands for v/s a QUICK REFERENCE HANDBOOK. I just put in a call to an old friend of my fathers that is an ex Eastern Airlines pilot and has been working at AirBus Industries in Miami as an instructor for the last 20 years or so to discuss this. He was with some students and told me he would call me back this evening. I will post what his opinions are tomorrow.

[Evan]

I just put in a call to an old friend of my fathers that is an ex Eastern Airlines pilot and has been working at AirBus Industries in Miami as an instructor for the last 20 years or so to discuss this. He was with some students and told me he would call me back this evening. I will post what his opinions are tomorrow.

Looking forward to reading that.

[Fear_of_Flying]

Looking forward to reading that.

I doubt I'll be able to get to sleep tonight.

[Theoddkiwi]

As suspected:

If the CAS measurements for the three ADR are lower than 60 kt, the angle of attack values of the three ADR are invalid (NCD status) and the stall warning is then inoperative. This results from a logic stating that the airflow must be sufficient to ensure a valid measurement by the angle of attack sensors, especially to prevent spurious warnings on the ground.

Which contradicts the statement made by Yves Deshayes, president of the Air France Pilot's union:



False. It wasn't that they thought it wasn't necessary under 60kts, it's that they knew it wasn't accurate under 60kts.

Quite correct there Evan. The AOA vanes have some weight to them so to provide smooth operation which also means they need reasonable airflow to get them to fly accurately int he airstream.
If i read the FDR correctly the airspeed dropped to something like 34 kts. There is no way the airflow would be strong enough to get an accurate reading.

On saying all this Embraer use Smart probes which are like pitot probes but detect, Pitot, Static and AOA all from the one probe and have four fitted so might not have this limitation.

Perhaps they need a EICAS message saying AOA INVALID - AIR SPEED TOO LOW (when airspeed is below 60kts and Aircraft is not of the ground)

[3WE]

Quite correct there Evan. The AOA vanes have some weight to them so to provide smooth operation which also means they need reasonable airflow to get them to fly accurately int he airstream.
If i read the FDR correctly the airspeed dropped to something like 34 kts. There is no way the airflow would be strong enough to get an accurate reading.

On saying all this Embraer use Smart probes which are like pitot probes but detect, Pitot, Static and AOA all from the one probe and have four fitted so might not have this limitation.

Perhaps they need a EICAS message saying AOA INVALID - AIR SPEED TOO LOW (when airspeed is below 60kts and Aircraft is not of the ground)

Time out...Are we not talking indicated airspeed of 34 knots? I do believe that their airspeed was a good bit more, just not parallel to the earth nor the fuselage.

I'm betting that the AOA vane was working quite well in the fast slipstream of a fast "flat pancake" descent, even though we're only moving forward at 34 kts or only shoving 34 kts worth of pressure into the pitot tubes.

[TeeVee]

I tend to agree with Evan's point that an additional message alerting the crew to the fact that they were fully stalled might have made a difference here. (And by the way, this doesn't mean I believe the interface is inadequate, but it was inadequate for these particular pilots.)

right, cuz the 11 times the damn plane screamed STALL STALL at them in two minutes or so wasn't enough of a clue. (apologies to the person that stated quite the same thing several pages ago for not quoting you).

since there are only a handful of real professional pilots here and i'm pretty sure none of them are airbus drivers, i have to say that i side with the two friends of mine, both of whom are not qualified in airbuses either but have 10's of thousands of hours as PIC's on various boeing and other aircraft, as well as those of you here that have spoken your minds. plain and simple my friends' unqualified opinions are that the crew onboard 447 were incompetent. it is absolutely inexplicable that a pilot with over 11,000 hours of flying couldn't figure out his aircraft was in deep shit and was stalled. it is absolutely inexcusable that he stood there in the cockpt and never once said to one of the juniors, "get out of that seat boy, i'm taking over." not to mention the gross ineptitude of the FO with over 6000 hours of flying time, who witnessed the entire chain of events, yet never thought for one minute that his nose up attitude + rapid loss of altitude meant his aircraft was stalled. shit, i'm not even a pilot and i couldda figured that out from my childhood experiences flying RC pieces of crap...pull up too steeply? lose your model to gravity and concrete. (oh, i was never good enough at RC flying to ever recover from a stall).

Evan can go on writing for the next 400 years on what he would like to see in the way of even more automation and warnings and doodads. but at the end of the day an incompetent crew will crash Evan's plane as well, cuz i doubt there will ever be a pilot-proof commercial jet...well, not in our lifetimes anyway.

[EconomyClass]

Not sure if someone posted these links:

http://www.france24.com/en/20100929-...ir-crash-af447

http://www.ainonline.com/news/single...igation-30790/