> Well, Jim, try reading the report into the Air France crash; the pilot in
> control might just as well have been for all he seemed to know about
> controlling the Airbus -- and avoiding the stall. That's how it looks from
> the reports and transcripts that I have read.
Wasn't there another air carrier crash in the last decade or so where
the flight crew kept to the instruments not recognizing that the plane
had entered a deep stall?
I've heard that one criticism of the Airbus aircraft is that they are
so fly-by-wire that the nuances of what is going on aerodynamically
are insulated from the pilots. If it wasn't for the stick-shaker,
there would be no indication of anything going wrong.
Fly-by-wire isn't the issue, though. The inadequate use of haptics is.
Gone are the days when using the door of a Piper Cub was good enough
to know when you were stalling.
So, in this case, we have the air-speed sensors thrown off for some
reason. No different than when a pitot tube gets plugged up with ice
or a bug. I was taught to never trust any one instrument--especially
the airspeed indicator. Always use other clues to verify airspeed.
Assume that any one guage is lying to you. Think about it. The nose is
pointed up, the airspeed is showing at cruise, but the VSI is showing
that you are going down at a high rate of speed and the altimeter is
unwinding like a broken clock. DUH! Wake up guys! What you are doing
ain't working. Stop pulling back on the stick!
I suspect that one part of the problem is that by the time you get to
the point of being PIC of a big airliner flying the big routes, you
are many years removed from flying little Cessnas. The only stalls
you've done in a decade has been in a simulator and the simulator just
isn't giving the realistic feel of a plane in deep stall. Not
everybody flies gliders for a hobby.
Ah, yes. I'm remembering one similar guage caused crash. Air Florida,
taking off from Washington National. Not long after the final report
came out, I was on a flight taking off from Washington National in
identical weather conditions and the PIC hadn't advanced the throttle
enough that time either. We barely cleared the end of the runway.
Sometimes, it really sucks that I read those accident reports.
AG
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
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