Hot: Air France Jet Missing (AF 447)

GolfChuck said:
This is what I was thinking as well, it's good they train for it now, but it seems like basic airmanship to me.
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Yes, but.

The Airbus has some some really... interesting design decisions with how you interface with the flight control system.

If one pilot has one stick full forward and the other one has their stick full aft, you get neutral elevator. Since the sticks aren't mechanically linked, Airbus had to solve the problem somehow, but summing the flight control inputs was certainly an interesting one.

Dual input played a roll in this crash, though it certainly wasn't the only cause. There are some shockingly creative ways to kill yourself in an Airbus that don't exist in other aircraft, and this is one of them.

Since this crash, and after Lufthansa had their pitot tubes ice up, there have been some changes to procedures and training. Frankly, I wish there was a button (besides turning off two ADR's) that turned the Airbus back into a normal airplane when these non standard things happen, but if Airbus did create that button you'd have pilots selecting it because they don't like Airbus.
 
jtrain609 said:
Yes, but.

The Airbus has some some really... interesting design decisions with how you interface with the flight control system.

If one pilot has one stick full forward and the other one has their stick full aft, you get neutral elevator. Since the sticks aren't mechanically linked, Airbus had to solve the problem somehow, but summing the flight control inputs was certainly an interesting one.

Dual input played a roll in this crash, though it certainly wasn't the only cause. There are some shockingly creative ways to kill yourself in an Airbus that don't exist in other aircraft, and this is one of them.

Since this crash, and after Lufthansa had their pitot tubes ice up, there have been some changes to procedures and training. Frankly, I wish there was a button (besides turning off two ADR's) that turned the Airbus back into a normal airplane when these non standard things happen, but if Airbus did create that button you'd have pilots selecting it because they don't like Airbus.
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This event happened right about the time I started getting into aviation, so forgive me if I am wrong. I assumed the quirks of flying an airbus like the cross controlled inputs and procedures for the loss of basic and secondary flight instruments would be covered in a type rating even before this crash. That still goes back to AF and not airbus. It's not equivalent to Boeing covering up and not training on the full extent of the MCAS.

And let me tell you about AFR pilots some time from my perspective...
 
GolfChuck said:
This event happened right about the time I started getting into aviation, so forgive me if I am wrong. I assumed the quirks of flying an airbus like the cross controlled inputs and procedures for the loss of basic and secondary flight instruments would be covered in a type rating even before this crash. That still goes back to AF and not airbus. It's not equivalent to Boeing covering up and not training on the full extent of the MCAS.

And let me tell you about AFR pilots some time from my perspective...
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Initial training covers a lot of ground, and then recurrent every year starts to dial in on specific problem areas year to year. There's been a big emphasis on dual input and high altitude stalls lately, which is a good thing.

Also, unrelated, but what in the actual • happened at New York Center on Tuesday? It took them over 2 hours to clear us for a departure gate that was open. Y'all sounded PISSED, and rightfully so.
 
jtrain609 said:
Initial training covers a lot of ground, and then recurrent every year starts to dial in on specific problem areas year to year. There's been a big emphasis on dual input and high altitude stalls lately, which is a good thing.

Also, unrelated, but what in the actual • happened at New York Center on Tuesday? It took them over 2 hours to clear us for a departure gate that was open. Y'all sounded PISSED, and rightfully so.
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I didn't work on Tuesday, @NovemberEcho might have a better idea. It's been a WX crap show the days I have been here though.
 
jtrain609 said:
Since this crash, and after Lufthansa had their pitot tubes ice up, there have been some changes to procedures and training.
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It was a (slightly) known issue at the time. USAir had a 330's pitot tubes momentarily ice up about 6 months prior. The crew applied the appropriate memory items for unreliable speed, and the tubes deiced themselves about 20 seconds later.

Like you said, there is SO much to cover during initial, especially in a fleet that goes multiple kinds of places, a lot of focus gets put on operational issues and the ability to just fly the airplane is somewhat assumed. That doesn't always work out when you are going from a conventional aircraft to a FBW aircraft that has all kinds of "rules" in addition to aerodynamics.
 
Does Air France use Second officers? From my understanding they never actually fly the plane. So stick time is only in the sim.
 
jtrain609 said:
Also, unrelated, but what in the actual • happened at New York Center on Tuesday? It took them over 2 hours to clear us for a departure gate that was open. Y'all sounded PISSED, and rightfully so.
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Wx I assume. It was a • show. We had to go in a hold for EWR arrivals at some point because ground was in gridlock and couldn’t accept any arrivals because of how many departures were stuck on the ground. I’ve seen that happen at TEB plenty of times but first time for EWR.
 
Tbh, the manufacturer has pretty much one job when it comes to designing the pitot heaters and if they don’t do that one job and that kicks off the chain of events for a crash, seems to me they bear a little responsibility…
 
NovemberEcho said:
Wx I assume. It was a • show. We had to go in a hold for EWR arrivals at some point because ground was in gridlock and couldn’t accept any arrivals because of how many departures were stuck on the ground. I’ve seen that happen at TEB plenty of times but first time for EWR.
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Just start parking the United 767s on the NJ Turnpike. They'll know what to do.
 
Did this plane actually go into alternate law? I was under the assumption it stayed in normal law with unreliable airspeed for only a short period.
 
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