777 cockpit vs Airbus cockpit

jsstevens said:
Didn't the Collin's Radio Nav-Comm units use those? We had an Arrow with those radios in it. It had a frequency save lever. Not a true flip flop (in my mind, anyway) because you tuned the active freq and couldn't see the saved one until you switched.

John
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Nope, still 7 segment plasmas as near as I know.
 
docmirror said:
This reinforces my opinion. The right seat didn't know what the left was doing and the left didn't know what the right was doing. With unitary controls, it would have been much more clear.

Contributing factor, not exclusive.
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Due to the amount of data modern flight recorders are able to tabulate it is tragically clear what happened. I don't think that it warrants modification of the aircraft systems or the addition of another warning annunciator. This was clearly a failure of training, experience level and command procedure - and it's not confined to Air France alone - it boils down to complacency. Circumstances should never have come to the point where an airliner full of passengers found itself smack in the middle of severe tropical weather of this magnitude with two rookies at the wheel.
 
Silvaire said:
Due to the amount of data modern flight recorders are able to tabulate it is tragically clear what happened. I don't think that it warrants modification of the aircraft systems or the addition of another warning annunciator. This was clearly a failure of training, experience level and command procedure - and it's not confined to Air France alone - it boils down to complacency. Circumstances should never have come to the point where an airliner full of passengers found itself smack in the middle of severe tropical weather of this magnitude with two rookies at the wheel.
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:thumbsup:
 
Wasn't there a subliminal belief among (some) that Airbus virtually can't be stalled?. So I could hold the stick fully aft and the aircraft will just glide nicely, etc. Since there are some Airbus pilots around I wonder if they ever went through a simulator exercise where deliberate holding stick aft was practiced with consequences examined.
 
olasek said:
Wasn't there a subliminal belief among (some) that Airbus virtually can't be stalled?. So I could hold the stick fully aft and the aircraft will just glide nicely, etc. Since there are some Airbus pilots around I wonder if they ever went through a simulator exercise where deliberate holding stick aft was practiced with consequences examined.
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I don't fly an Airbus, but what you are describing is correct. In normal law, the plane can't be stalled and pulling the stick back would guide the plane into a climb. The problem was that they lost airspeed indications and the plane's computers reverted to alternative law. In alternative law, the plane can stall. This is where there was a loss of SA by the right seat pilot.
 
By both pilots. The only one who seemed to "get it" was the guy who joined the party late. I bet it sucks to walk onto a flight deck and realize your co-aviators have killed all of you and they don't even know it yet.
 
Despite the disturbing truth that it reveals, there may be some consolation in the release of those last minutes of cockpit voice recording.

For those who lost someone on that flight. It's most likely they they were either asleep or completely unaware that they were in any danger.
 
denverpilot said:
By both pilots. The only one who seemed to "get it" was the guy who joined the party late. I bet it sucks to walk onto a flight deck and realize your co-aviators have killed all of you and they don't even know it yet.
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I am not sure the Captain even "got" it.
 
Silvaire said:
Despite the disturbing truth that it reveals, there may be some consolation in the release of those last minutes of cockpit voice recording.

For those who lost someone on that flight. It's most likely they they were either asleep or completely unaware that they were in any danger.
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How could anybody that wasn't passed out drunk be unaware of the drastic altitude and attitude oscillations?
 
Henning said:
Captain never got it, none of them did.
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I think he figured it out at the last minute...literally....

Captain: "No, no, no... Don't climb... no, no."

But maybe a minute too late. That was said 46.4 seconds before impact. I think they were descending 10,000' per minute, so they had about 7,500' to recover, but he didn't have the controls.

The guy in the right who had the most control the longest definitely never got it.
 
LDJones said:
I think he figured it out at the last minute...literally....

Captain: "No, no, no... Don't climb... no, no."

But maybe a minute too late. That was said 46.4 seconds before impact. I think they were descending 10,000' per minute, so they had about 7,500' to recover, but he didn't have the controls.

The guy in the right who had the most control the longest definitely never got it.
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He never got that they were stalled, but at 12,000' he did 'get' they were dying.
 
Sac Arrow said:
How could anybody that wasn't passed out drunk be unaware of the drastic altitude and attitude oscillations?
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If the pilots weren't aware of them, other than what later showed up on their screens, what makes you think the passengers were? Of course we are in complete speculation mode here, something I'd rather bow out of.
 
Henning said:
He never got that they were stalled, but at 12,000' he did 'get' they were dying.
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I think his words indicate otherwise...but we're both speculating, and I know you'll go back and forth a 1,000 times to get the last word, so post your "No, he didn't" and we'll call it a day.
 
Silvaire said:
If the pilots weren't aware of them, other than what later showed up on their screens, what makes you think the passengers were? Of course we are in complete speculation mode here, something I'd rather bow out of.
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Pretty sure everybody on the plane noticed, that's what brought the captain forward IIRC.
 
Henning said:
Pretty sure everybody on the plane noticed, that's what brought the captain forward IIRC.
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You recall incorrectly:

"Yet, still, Bonin does not lower the nose. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, Robert pushes a button to summon the captain."
 
LDJones said:
You recall incorrectly:

"Yet, still, Bonin does not lower the nose. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, Robert pushes a button to summon the captain."
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I figured that the changes in cruise flight power and the the vertical acceleration in the stall would be noticed throughout the whole plane.
 
Henning said:
I figured that the changes in cruise flight power and the the vertical acceleration in the stall would be noticed throughout the whole plane.
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I would think everyone's ears would of been popping like mad too.
 
Henning said:
I figured that the changes in cruise flight power and the the vertical acceleration in the stall would be noticed throughout the whole plane.
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Once they were in a stall there was actually very little vertical acceleration. There was a good 1.5-2g (that did not last too long) in the beginning when they started this mad climb but this was before the stall. The final report has the plot of the acceleration forces.
 
Roll inputs also went stop to stop. I don't think there's any way the passengers would not have noticed.
 
Everskyward said:
Roll inputs also went stop to stop. I don't think there's any way the passengers would not have noticed.
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Roll inputs went stop to stop but the actual roll attitude (bank) of the aircraft was quite benign - within 10 deg. from horizontal, only at the very end gently keeps increasing to 32 deg. bank angle. This could have been easily missed by passengers, specially in complete darkness.

LDJones said:
Pressurization system would have handled that, I would think.
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Yeah, pressurization would keep increasing inside pressure, considering that cabin altitude went from 8000 ft to sea level within just a few minutes while they were plunging that must have been felt by a few ears... Actually that could have been the chief indication for many that something was not right.
 
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LDJones said:
If they were in a deep stall, would that have much affect?
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They weren't in a deep stall at the beginning which is when some of these inputs occurred.

At 2 h 10 min 05, the autopilot then the auto-thrust disconnected and the PF said “I have the controls”. The aeroplane began to roll to the right and the PF made a nose-up and left input. The stall warning triggered briefly twice in a row. The recorded parameters showed a sharp fall from about 275 kt to 60 kt in the speed displayed on the left primary flight display (PFD), then a few moments later in the speed displayed on the integrated standby instrument system (ISIS). The flight control law reconfigured from normal to alternate. The Flight Directors (FD) were not disconnected by the crew, but the crossbars disappeared.

Note: Only the speeds displayed on the left side and on the ISIS are recorded on the FDR; the speed displayed on the right side is not recorded.

At 2 h 10 min 16, the PNF said “we’ve lost the speeds ” then “alternate law protections”. The PF made rapid and high amplitude roll control inputs, more or less from stop to stop. He also made a nose-up input that increased the aeroplane’s pitch attitude up to 11° in ten seconds.

Between 2 h 10 min 18 and 2 h 10 min 25, the PNF read out the ECAM messages in a disorganized manner. He mentioned the loss of autothrust and the reconfiguration to alternate law. The thrust lock function was de-activated. The PNF called out and turned on the wing anti-icing.

The PNF said that the aeroplane was climbing and asked the PF several times to descend. The latter then made several nose-down inputs that resulted in a reduction in the pitch attitude and the vertical speed. The aeroplane was then at about 37,000 ft and continued to climb.

At about 2 h 10 min 36, the speed displayed on the left side became valid again and was then 223 kt; the ISIS speed was still erroneous. The aeroplane had lost about 50 kt since the autopilot disconnection and the beginning of the climb. The speed displayed on the left side was incorrect for 29 seconds.
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With no outside visual references those in the cabin would only notice accelerations (G-forces) and possibly engine and slip stream sounds. I haven't looked at the charts but even in a 7,000 fpm descent, if it is stable, there will be no accelerations.

As I said, this is all pure conjecture, we don't actually know, but I maintain that there is a distinct possibility that the passengers were not aware of what was happening and in fact may not have been alarmed.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
What is your favorite cockpit?
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Just a friendly reminder of the original topic. :yeahthat:


BOEING
pilot.gif
 
While I have long been a Boeing fan, in all fairness to Airbus, for those that say that the accident would not have happened in a Boeing, it is worth mentioning that a very similar crash occurred in a 757 a few years back in South America. Loss of airspeed indication and the Captain held the airplane in a full stall all the way down to impact.

Edit....it was Birgenair 301:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgenair_Flight_301

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
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Fearless Tower said:
While I have long been a Boeing fan, in all fairness to Airbus, for those that say that the accident would not have happened in a Boeing, it is worth mentioning that a very similar crash occurred in a 757 a few years back in South America. Loss of airspeed indication and the Captain held the airplane in a full stall all the way down to impact.

Edit....it was Birgenair 301:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgenair_Flight_301

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
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Not exactly analogous; the AeroPeru 757 had duct tape over its static ports, rendering airspeed and altitude instruments unusable.

Comparison valid to extent that we note pilots failing to exercise reasonable trouble shooting and partial-panel flight practices; in particular, not using appropriate pitch & power in lieu of airspeed indication. No indication that one pilot was making control inputs of which the other was unaware.

Still left with one certain reality: training and procedure should - would - have saved AF447 with minimal disruption.
 
SCCutler said:
Not exactly analogous; the AeroPeru 757 had duct tape over its static ports, rendering airspeed and altitude instruments unusable.

Comparison valid to extent that we note pilots failing to exercise reasonable trouble shooting and partial-panel flight practices; in particular, not using appropriate pitch & power in lieu of airspeed indication. No indication that one pilot was making control inputs of which the other was unaware.

Still left with one certain reality: training and procedure should - would - have saved AF447 with minimal disruption.
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The accident quoted and the Aeroperu are two different accidents, but both involve crashing perfectly good 757s. There was a NWA 727 that was on a ferry flight several decades ago that had the same fate. Blocked pitot tubes, wound up stalling.
 
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