> And I think that the captain was away from the flight deck, or am I
thinking of another instance?
Most likely, but not an issue. On the long trans-atlantic flights like that,
it is not unusual to have two crews, with the primary captain taking the
final shift. Doesn't matter, since everybody on the flight deck is fully
capable of flying the airplane blindfolded from either seat.
I'm with Chris on this. There had to be some very very incorrect or
confusing information on the flightdeck that prevented them from going back
to their "stick and rudder" training. Also, the Airbus is an aircraft
distinctly designed from the beginning to be "fly by wire" which isolates a
lot of stuff from the cockpit. It's an airplane intended to be pointed to
where you want it to go and it kind of does its own thing to maintain that
attitude. I don't believe the stick-shaker is mechanically triggered with a
dedicated sensor, but is controlled by the computer which gets its
information from..... The pitot tubes.
One of my brothers used to work for a company that made aircraft simulators.
They built the first ones for a particular Airbus model. This similator was
unique because it utilized the exact same flight control systems and
computers as was in the real airliner and the simulator computer was kept
separate. An interface box was built to provide the facts and control inputs
to the flight control computer. This modular approach allowed them to
quickly adapt simulators to anything. This was done before the first
airframe even took to the air.
In the simulator, they kept running into some bug with the simulator which
would cause the throttle to go full-throttle regardless of control position.
Airbus blamed the similator company and that's where it ended. One of the
similator test pilots decided out of entertainment to see if it was possible
to land the airplane with full-throttle (it happened under the narrowest of
circumstances, but only when in landing configuration). They had to shut the
hydros off to keep from busting stuff up, but he did and managed to do a
fuel cutoff to kill the engines while on the runway. Wasn't pretty, but it
worked. He figured out how to repeat the error and got it where he could
kill the engines on approach.
So, a few months later, the test airframe was in the air and while at
altitude the test pilots put the airplane in landing configuration. Yup, you
guessed it--the throttles went full-throttle and wouldn't correct at all.
Exact same bug as seen in the simulator months before. The only way they
were able to bring the plane down was to do a fuel cutoff and they ended up
doing a deadstick landing.
Bug was found in the Airbus control system and fixed right away. Simulator
company wasn't at fault.
BTW, in the simulator, they managed to do a loop (again, with hydrolics off)
pretty easily, but a roll was almost impossible because the roll rate was
too stinking slow. They determined in the simulator that if the plane ever
rolled to inverted during a storm that they could never recover it without
blowing past the never-exceed-speed. One major issue was the rudder. Those
in NY are keenly aware of what happened when too much rudder is used.
AG
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