My book "Angle of Attack" is out!

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

On the stall warning, the airspeed indication has nothing to do with the stall warning system. However, if you think it does, you are more likely to assume it is a false indication. Have you ever had a stall warning on a transport airplane that was false? I have.

On the rest, true, but you really appear to be discounting the human factors aspects. Humans are not robots that react the same way each time (and a good thing too, as there would be far more accidents if we were!). Sensations, previous experience, training, and confirmation bias all play into it. As we saw recently with Air Canada, once confirmation bias sets in, it is very hard to break out of it. We do not see reality, we see a filtered illusion of it, or at least that is what reaches our brain.

Let me give you an analogy. Let's say you have never driven a car without antilock brakes (very possible today). Of course, you have read that if you are on ice without antilock brakes you need to "pump the brakes" to stop. Now you are on ice and the antilock brakes fail. How do you think this will turn out?

You are just giving far too much credit to a 2900 hr ab initio pilot who gained the overwhelming majority of his flight time by baby sitting the autopilot on 10 hr flights.

I've had a false stall warning, back at my reigonal on the CRJ2 we had just leveled off at a normal cruise mach number and in smooth conditions. The stall warning red light and warbler went off for about 2 seconds. We had no clue why, but we knew from all other indications that we were just fine, perfectly level, normal AOA, at a good cruise speed in smooth conditions. So when it happened neither of us grabbed the yoke. It was flying just fine, so we let it do its thing. The warbler went away and we continued our flight without any further warnings.

And yes, Air France has had a very checkered record, especially for the 2000 decade (2000 to 2009).

Someone mentioned earlier (I think @seagull) that stalling takes you to direct law, which is patently false on all Airbus aircraft. We normally practice stalls in alternate law, and there is even a procedure to put the aircraft into alternate law if low speed protection (alpha prot) kicks in when it should not.

Stalling won't take the plane into direct law. Maybe you are thinking of the XL Airways / New Zealand colors A320 functional check flight that crashed off France. They had ice freeze up in their AOA vanes and while they were doing their approach to stall and go into alpha protections, just by sheer unlucky factor, they went into direct law at that moment. The CA had full nose down on the side stick and full power. But they missed the amber "Use MAN PITCH TRIM" on the FMA which would have been an indication that they are in direct law and have to use the trim wheel to nose down the airplane. Unfortunately they were too low (4,000 feet I think) that they just didn't have the altitude (and therefore lack of time factor) in order to make sense of it. They crashed and everyone perished.

 

[seagull]

You are just giving far too much credit to a 2900 hr ab initio pilot who gained the overwhelming majority of his flight time by baby sitting the autopilot on 10 hr flights.

I've had a false stall warning, back at my reigonal on the CRJ2 we had just leveled off at a normal cruise mach number and in smooth conditions. The stall warning red light and warbler went off for about 2 seconds. We had no clue why, but we knew from all other indications that we were just fine, perfectly level, normal AOA, at a good cruise speed in smooth conditions. So when it happened neither of us grabbed the yoke. It was flying just fine, so we let it do its thing. The warbler went away and we continued our flight without any further warnings.

And yes, Air France has had a very checkered record, especially for the 2000 decade (2000 to 2009).

Yes, but that was not at night, in a thunderstorm, while at 1/2g. You are really set on denigrating these pilots. Do you have any idea what their training program is like, or what experience these guys had prior to being selected for it? What makes you think you had better training? Seriously? When you are talking about extremely rare events, there is nothing indicating that you would handle some future rare event better. This is part of the problem of teaching and training being almost entirely limited to well defined problems.

As for the Air France record, again, this really just looks like statistical variation and regression to the mean. The numbers are too low to make any assessment based on them.

Stalling won't take the plane into direct law. Maybe you are thinking of the XL Airways / New Zealand colors A320 functional check flight that crashed off France. They had ice freeze up in their AOA vanes and while they were doing their approach to stall and go into alpha protections, just by sheer unlucky factor, they went into direct law at that moment. The CA had full nose down on the side stick and full power. But they missed the amber "Use MAN PITCH TRIM" on the FMA which would have been an indication that they are in direct law and have to use the trim wheel to nose down the airplane. Unfortunately they were too low (4,000 feet I think) that they just didn't have the altitude (and therefore lack of time factor) in order to make sense of it. They crashed and everyone perished.

I searched this thread, NOBODY said (wrote) that a stall would take a plane into direct law at any point. This has already been addressed, so nobody is "thinking of" anything!

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Yes, but that was not at night, in a thunderstorm, while at 1/2g. You are really set on denigrating these pilots. Do you have any idea what their training program is like, or what experience these guys had prior to being selected for it? What makes you think you had better training? Seriously? When you are talking about extremely rare events, there is nothing indicating that you would handle some future rare event better. This is part of the problem of teaching and training being almost entirely limited to well defined problems.

As for the Air France record, again, this really just looks like statistical variation and regression to the mean. The numbers are too low to make any assessment based on them.

I've never made this about me, or what I would do in AF447 that night. I don't know why you refuse to admit that crew experience (and in this case, the lack of) played a huge role in the outcome. He pulled full back and held that. That has nothing to do with a storm, 0.5g, or whatever else you're listing here. It's poor airmanship but even if that's put aside, how do you answer for the fact they both correctly identified that they had no good speed indications (the correct diagnosis!) yet did not take the proper action to correct for this anomaly. As stated, NWA crews had the same situation, and assumingly in thunderstorm/cloudly/icy clouds that froze their pitot probes and they had different, safer outcomes. It is a rare event, but this wasn't the first time all 3 pitots froze up on a crew of an A330.

AF has had far too many accidents and incidents for a carrier its size in comparison to other European airlines, especially from 2000 to 2009. Aim for a specific timeframe and you will see that they definitely stand out compared to others.

I searched this thread, NOBODY said (wrote) that a stall would take a plane into direct law at any point. This has already been addressed, so nobody is "thinking of" anything!

I read it like that:

On the stall, it turns out the lateral motion is quite a challenge to handle. It goes into direct law and, as you wrote, lateral motion is induced by the aero effects (as Pinker outlined in his paper in the 1963, calling it a "Lanchester" oscillation) and with little damping it is easy to overshoot corrections. This significantly adds to the cognitive workload.

 

[milleR]

I've never made this about me, or what I would do in AF447 that night. I don't know why you refuse to admit that crew experience (and in this case, the lack of) played a huge role in the outcome. He pulled full back and held that. That has nothing to do with a storm, 0.5g, or whatever else you're listing here. It's poor airmanship but even if that's put aside, how do you answer for the fact they both correctly identified that they had no good speed indications (the correct diagnosis!) yet did not take the proper action to correct for this anomaly. As stated, NWA crews had the same situation, and assumingly in thunderstorm/cloudly/icy clouds that froze their pitot probes and they had different, safer outcomes. It is a rare event, but this wasn't the first time all 3 pitots froze up on a crew of an A330.

AF has had far too many accidents and incidents for a carrier its size in comparison to other European airlines, especially from 2000 to 2009. Aim for a specific timeframe and you will see that they definitely stand out compared to others.




I read it like that:

You know what would be really fun?

Reading the book before coming back to question the conclusions.

 

[seagull]

I've never made this about me, or what I would do in AF447 that night. I don't know why you refuse to admit that crew experience (and in this case, the lack of) played a huge role in the outcome. He pulled full back and held that. That has nothing to do with a storm, 0.5g, or whatever else you're listing here. It's poor airmanship but even if that's put aside, how do you answer for the fact they both correctly identified that they had no good speed indications (the correct diagnosis!) yet did not take the proper action to correct for this anomaly. As stated, NWA crews had the same situation, and assumingly in thunderstorm/cloudly/icy clouds that froze their pitot probes and they had different, safer outcomes. It is a rare event, but this wasn't the first time all 3 pitots froze up on a crew of an A330.

AF has had far too many accidents and incidents for a carrier its size in comparison to other European airlines, especially from 2000 to 2009. Aim for a specific timeframe and you will see that they definitely stand out compared to others.

I read it like that:

I think you perhaps are, then, missing how humans react to stimulus. If a normal human reaction that was not trained out or addressed happens, that is not "poor airmanship". that is simply a human doing what they do based on the training and experience. Their training and experience was actually more than a lot of carrriers do, and higher than many U.S. pilots. If you think that a storm, being at 0.5g and various cognitive biases would not influence human response you are ignoring the facts of how humans think and respond. I have repeatedly stated that our current training regimens do not account for issues that are outside of a well defined set of problems. The NWA events were, first, not the exact same, and second, as I previously wrote, in each of those cases (to my knowledge) you had at least one person up front who had previous experience hand-flying in RVSM airspace. Also, it sounds like NWA was doing training that most other operators were not doing, i.e. reversion to ALT2 at cruise. If true, THAT would have a profound effect!

Again, on the AF rate, it is like a cancer cluster. I understand people believe they are real and represent some local health event, but again and again it has been shown to only be normal statistical variation. Same here. Just happens, that is how statistics work.

On the "goes into direct law", the statement was specifically referring to the roll axis and that is actually important, as it can distract a pilot from other aspects (and all evidence points to exactly that for AF447).

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Their training and experience was actually more than a lot of carrriers do, and higher than many U.S. pilots.

Ya can't be serious? In 2009, do you know the experience of the average A330 pilot in America? That would be Northwest and US Airways at that time. Due to stagnation, 9/11, bankruptcies, Age 65, the A330 crews at NW and US were some of the highest seniority and most experienced of flight crews at the legacy airlines - and probably the world.

If you think that a storm, being at 0.5g and various cognitive biases would not influence human response you are ignoring the facts of how humans think and respond. I have repeatedly stated that our current training regimens do not account for issues that are outside of a well defined set of problems.

They flew into the storm in the first place. From the CVR, the FO made numerous references to the storm ahead and offered solutions. He even asked the CA if they should ask for a wrong way cruise altitude to climb 1,000 feet higher (because REC MAX prevented them from going 2000 feet up to the next correct altitude). The CA sounded dead tired and offered no real solution, advice, and just a simple "we'll be ok." The FO pushed this subject more than once, and the CVR shows he clearly was alarmed enough of the situation, but the CA was seemingly checked out.

AF accident and incident numbers weren't just an anomaly for this decade. They had a horrible safety and incident record for 2000-2009.

This is gonna be my last post in this thread. I feel like this is becoming an argument back/forth and stealing your thunder from what is a great accomplishment for any author, getting a book published and on sale. Congrats to you, and I mean it I'll put it on my list of books to read.

 

[seagull]

Ya can't be serious? In 2009, do you know the experience of the average A330 pilot in America? That would be Northwest and US Airways at that time. Due to stagnation, 9/11, bankruptcies, Age 65, the A330 crews at NW and US were some of the highest seniority and most experienced of flight crews at the legacy airlines - and probably the world.

Thank you for making my point of how the NWA crews were different. That does not change the INDEPENDENT point that I was making that the AF447 crew was better trained and more experienced than many U.S. pilots who began their careers at around the same time. The fact that they might not have been (at the time) flying an A330 is not relevant, although today I would not at all be surprised to see a couple of F/Os at a major on similar equipment with less experience, would you?

They flew into the storm in the first place. From the CVR, the FO made numerous references to the storm ahead and offered solutions. He even asked the CA if they should ask for a wrong way cruise altitude to climb 1,000 feet higher (because REC MAX prevented them from going 2000 feet up to the next correct altitude). The CA sounded dead tired and offered no real solution, advice, and just a simple "we'll be ok." The FO pushed this subject more than once, and the CVR shows he clearly was alarmed enough of the situation, but the CA was seemingly checked out.

AF accident and incident numbers weren't just an anomaly for this decade. They had a horrible safety and incident record for 2000-2009.

This is gonna be my last post in this thread. I feel like this is becoming an argument back/forth and stealing your thunder from what is a great accomplishment for any author, getting a book published and on sale. Congrats to you, and I mean it I'll put it on my list of books to read.

This is greatly overstated. The issue with flying in the storm in the first place is one of lack of radar training. VERY few (like maybe a dozen, seriously) pilots would know where to tilt their radar to avoid the system. That includes, obviously, the highly experienced NWA crews that encountered similar conditions. The issue of climbing was more whimsical. To state that the F/O was nervous about it is really reading something into it that was not there. It is always nicer on top. He was not trying to get on top during the event either. My years of experience coupled with accident investigation and analysis tell me that is a lot of nonsense. The CVR never showed he was "alarmed", it was very casual conversation, that is all. The captain was just not concerned, as most captains would not be.

The AF record, again, just appears to be normal statistical variation. Nothing jumps out as anything else when viewing the rates and events.

On the last, thank you for that. It is all good, as a large part of this appears to be miscommunication and some lack of clarity on posts. As just pointed out, my reference to the AF447 pilot experience was not as a comparison against U.S. A330 pilot experience at the time, although I can see how you inferred that. Same with the "direct law" comment. These discussions also serve as teaching moments. I have learned a couple of things, even if not necessarily new, the way things were described was very good (thank you Peanuckle and Mike!). Hopefully people have learned something from this thread on the sorts of knowledge that they might want to increase to save themselves. That is the real point, to prevent future accidents, right?

 

[Kingairer]

Interesting discussion, although a little more in the weeds than needs to be. If I'm at cruise altitude and we have lost 15000 all while trying to fix it by doing the same thing, you can bet I'm gonna ask the other guy if he wants to give it a shot to see if he can get better results.

 

[seagull]

Interesting discussion, although a little more in the weeds than needs to be..

Sorry. We might be nerds.

 

[RDoug]

Click here: "Angle of Attack" by Captain Shem Malmquist, FRAeS

Will this be available on Kindle?

 

[seagull]

Will this be available on Kindle?

I am sure it will, but I cannot say when. All of that is out of my control, I have learned.

 

[MikeD]

Fantastic post, Mike. You also got to feel that free fall effect, which I do believe really messed up the AF447 crew (among other factors). In my surveys I have found most pilots surprisingly lacking any foundation. Peanuckle here has been quite refreshing. If more pilots had his knowledge base we'd have a lot safer industry.

It will definitely take you with an uncomfortable surprise if one has never felt a full stall in a jet, where the pitch attitude looks normal, yet you're literally falling out of the sky with your velocity vector going straight down; sensations that as you've alluded, cannot be accurately replicated in a simulator. Of course its likely not practical to take a transport category aircraft and train guys in this, but in an ideal world it would be good training and experience if airline guys with no prior experience with this from the military or elsewhere, could get the opportunity to experience this in an applicable corporate/business jet (a Sabreliner 40 / T-39 comes to mind...nice sturdy, swept wing jet) with an appropriate instructor pilot and a controlled training environment, if only to have seen the real thing for once beyond just a first-indication recovery in a sim. Its something they may never see or experience again in their career, but its an addition to the situational awareness bag of tricks that I think would be a useful one. Just one more piece of knowledge that adds to the overall airmanship and experience. But, that would be MikeDs ideal safety world, and not necessarily anything a company would necessarily want to do.

@Mike, was the seat in the -38 different than the one in the F-5? Because I know my bros in that hog have a safe window that begins at or above 10k ft

Same seat. The older one that had the back parachute that you wore to the jet. 0/50 seat, and didn't handle downward vectors particularly well, especially down low near the ground, such as in the landing pattern. The new T-38C when it came out, was fitted with a much improved seat.