FastCargo

Well, in theory, you shouldn't ever get that deep into a stall. Multiple protections are in place on modern airliners to prevent this sort of thing. Then again, it shouldn't be possible to lose all 3 hydraulic systems on an A300 or DC-10 with a single point failure either...oh wait.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 Aviation is a constantly evolving field, where what we think we've learned something, only for unexpected problems to cause revisions. We've seen problems where under-automation has caused crew fatigue and overload, but over-automation has caused complacency and overload at the wrong time. Thankfully, airlines (including mine) have started scenario training for unusual aircraft situations that you shouldn't normally get into, including full stall recovery, excessive aircraft attitudes, and flight with inoperative controls. Our airline has also started to encourage more 'hand flying' in certain regimes of flight to help keep the aircrews more involved in the process. FC

No. Airbus airliners do NOT fly this way. In normal operations with airliners (Boeing, Airbus, McDonnell, etc), when the autopilot is on, the aircraft is not flown with the stick, it is usually flown with the control panel. You dial in altitudes, headings, speeds, etc, either through the upfront panel or through the Flight Management System (FMS) and the aircraft goes there. You do not touch the stick or throttles. When you start moving the stick past a certain range, with the autopilot engaged, the autopilot will click off. The stick now controls the aircraft. The hard limits are still in place (various G, bank, rate limits, etc.) and alpha speed and floor are still in place (throttle up if you get too slow or too low without gear). You can still handle the aircraft way too roughly. You can slam people to the ground, break bones, or hit heads into the sides with excessive roll and pitch rates, all without exceeding the bank and G limits. You click off the auto throttle control, and you get rid of the alpha speed and floor safties too. You CANNOT handle the Airbus by going full deflection on the control stick and not start injuring or killing people doing it, even with the hardcoded limits. There was incident in fact where an A320 crew got the aircraft too fast in the descent and pulled right to 2.5Gs trying to prevent an overspeed. Just that one pull broke bones in the passenger compartment (admittedly, unexpected...folks were standing at the time)...all without exceeding the Normal Law limits. That is NOT how the aircraft is flown. As they say in Monty Python: 'No one expects to be less than 100 knots airborne in an airliner!' I've said before that I've qualified in a Boeing 737, McDonnell Douglas DC-10, an Airbus A300/A310, and the Rockwell B-1B. In absolutely NONE of those aircraft, was the idea that I could be something less than close to stall speed EVER addressed. Training consisted of stall avoidance, recognition and recovery...NOT in trying deal with a fully stalled aircraft (my term 'deep stall' is actually a misnomer...that applies to T-tails only). We didn't deal with that part of the envelope because you weren't ever expected to GET there. This is NOT an aircraft type specific problem. We deal with wind shear and GPWS (terrain) recoveries as well...but it's still assumed you're somewhat close or over minimum flying airspeed. I have friends on both sides of the fence on the Boeing/Airbus control command preference issue. Frankly, we are all scratching our heads on this part because training does tend to be universal...why the full back stick deflection the whole time? As I postulated before, my theory is that they were so overloaded, they didn't realize they were in a stall, and so never thought to lower the nose to gain airspeed to fly out of it. I hate to say this, but 95% of the time of a modern airliner's flight envelope, that's all the pilots are doing anyway is telling the aircraft where to go, and letting the autopilot take care of the getting there part. Doesn't matter if it's Boeing, Airbus, Embrarer, Canadair, etc...they ALL fly this way. In fact, above FL290 in most countries, the aircraft is required by law to fly with the autopilot working the system in normal operations (there are exceptions of course, but not for most civil airliners). What I'm trying to say is this: In my opinion, you are correct in that over reliance on automation and safety limits can result in making the wrong decisions when you lose all that protection. However, you are incorrect in assuming that this is somehow a problem unique to Airbus. It is not...there are tons of incidents across all brands of aircraft where over reliance on automation has resulted in accidents. Where automation gets pilots in trouble is when you use it as a crutch to get you to 100%. That is not the way it is to be used. Its true purpose is to keep you from getting fatigued, so that you are 100% when the time comes that you need to be. FC

Well, we don't really know at this point. Sometimes reflex can be a hell of a thing to let go of...our natural instincts if in a descent of not one's own making is to pull back on the stick, and if that doesn't seem to be making the aircraft respond when it feels like it should, well, maybe you aren't pulling enough... I'll be the first to say it sounds simplistic, but weirder things have happened under stress. Here's an example of a friend of mine almost becoming a statistic because he reacted the way you normally would. He's flying in a T-38, solo, when a large bird appears to be headed straight toward his forehead (by the way, if he had not reacted, he would have hit the bird dead on in the windscreen...there's HUD video). My friend, not wishing to have a turkey vulture lunch with a side salad of plexiglass, decides to push forward on the stick to avoid the bird. The problem is that he's only about 175 knots, gear and flaps down, in a 45 degree bank, about 400 feet, with a 2500 VVI in the final turn. His rapid push forward just about doubles the VVI with less than 400 feet left until ground impact...yep, slightly less than 8 seconds to kill that much VVI while fully configured. He got immediate ground rush, and so did a stall recovery...but pulled straight to 1.0 AOA verses the recommended .8-.85 AOA. The reason we normally don't teach to pull to 1.0 AOA is that any misstep means now you're on the wrong side of the lift curve...vs .8-.85 gives you some wiggle room. That decision to go to 1.0 AOA saved his life. There are some small telephone poles off the end of the runway about 1/2 of a mile. They aren't very tall (standard small ones like you see in residential areas) with wires strung across the top. His aircraft went under those wires, 'sabre dancing' and leaving a giant rooster tail of dirt and grass. He crossed a highway (thank god no cars were in the way...he wouldn't have seen them anyway because his nose was so high), roostered some more onto the field, took out a chain link fence with his left main gear, which then snapped off, and eventually got out of ground effect. He was able to eventually bring up what remained of the landing gear and do a belly landing (a T-38 is not considered landable with only one main gear). He received a lot of flak for pushing the stick down that got him into trouble. But think about what you would instinctively do if you saw a bird the size of a large house cat about to smash into your face at 175 knots... Sometimes, instinct can be real hard to overcome, even with dedicated training. FC

And folks, an addendum. I am not saying that one particular aircraft maker is better than another. Both large players in the airliner game do things and have faults that drive people crazy. Nor am I necessarily trying to change anyone's mind about their favorite manufacturer. What I am doing is trying to clear some misconceptions about how the companies do things, and why particular accidents have occurred. FC

That is a little puzzling. In stall recoveries, especially low altitude, the idea is to max perform the aircraft....get the AOA just a small margin below stall to get the most lift for your current airspeed. If I were theorizing, I would suspect that they thought they were not in an actual stall due to the unreliable airspeed indicator and the fact that their pitch hasn't dropped at all. They thought they could power out of the situation and stabilize their altitude and so were pulling to the G limit. This is not the first time a blocked pitot static system has killed an airliner. Here's another...a Boeing 757 in 1996. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroperú_Flight_603 Note some similar circumstances...night, low or no visual references, unreliable and contradictory airspeed (and altitude) indications. Basically, the aircrew flew an otherwise perfectly flying aircraft into the water because of lack of SA. Had they simply maintained a known pitch and power setting, they probably could have been okay. But with all the bells and whistles going off, they probably got overloaded, and simply missed the RALT giving them their true AGL.. FC

Nowhere in that transcript does it show the aircraft is overriding the pilot's commands. The aircraft followed the pilot's commands the entire time...which is in fact why they were killed. Let me clear something up right now. 99% of the the time, a Boeing and an Airbus are flown in the exact same manner. Yes, that's right, the same so called bad over-reliance on automation is done the exact same way by both types of aircrew. Your argument for what got this crew killed is based on a flawed premise. Now, at the limits, there are some fundamental differences. In a modern Airbus (as opposed to the older A300/A310 series), there is a hard G limiter and a hard bank limiter. That's it. In full manual mode, an Airbus won't let you put it on it's back or rip the wings off...while a Boeing will. Otherwise, in the common normal modes that both types have, there are similar protections in place that, yes Virginia, will override the pilot's commands to keep the aircraft from hitting the ground or getting too slow. In fact, there is a beautiful system on the Boeing 777 that if you lose an engine at V1 (the most dangerous time to lose an engine), it flies the aircraft so well, a few friends have remarked they didn't notice anything right away except for the actual warning signals. That's with a 100,000 lb thrust class engine going to zero in a few seconds, and the system compensating with flight controls so the aircraft doesn't go into a gigantic yaw (which normally takes an assload of pilot rudder to counteract on a modern airliner). Lets talk about the accident a bit more shall we? First, this was the middle of the night, with weather. Bells and horns are going off, the aircraft is shaking, and SA is already low. The aircrew is relying on that training I mentioned eariler...training that most airline aircrew had been receiving concerning stall recovery. They are expecting to power out of a stall that was so deep, they have never encountered it before...yep, not even in the simulator. They don't have a big sky to look at to see just how nose high they were (and at about 15 degree pitch, they aren't that nose high...typical rotation angle is 18 degrees, windshear recovery is 17.5 degrees, GPWS alert recovery is 20 degrees) or how fast they are dropping. In other words, the actual aircraft attitude is within their experience...it's just the flying speed and AOA that isn't. And because their airspeed is unreliable due to the icing, they don't have reason to trust it's giving them accurate readings. Which leaves the AOA...which most airliners, again of both types, don't show on the primary attitude display. Starting to get the picture now? This isn't some Cessna on a 'clear and a million' day...it's a multi-ton automated airliner in the middle of the night in a regime of flight the aircrew has never seen before...even in a simulator. Also, unlike the stall characteristics of a high asymmetric cambered, straight winged aircraft like a Cessna, where the stall is followed by an immediate nose drop and airspeed gain (a sort of self fixing situation), the supercritical swept wing of a modern airliner in a full stall acts more like some high performance aircraft, where there isn't a definite drop in pitch, but the sink rate continues to increase at a high rate. The T-38 has a similar characteristic, like the 'Century series' aircraft it was training you for. You could sit there in the stall, the nose above the horizon, with lots of buffet, in full afterburner, and think you were okay...until your saw your VVI pegged at 6000ft per minute...in the descent. And the T-38 killed plenty of folks this way early on (yep, even in 'clear and a million' weather) until an AOA gauge was installed and brought into the cross check, and training emphasized the 'gotchas' in the flight envelope. As far as side sticks go in modern airliners, that I can't speak to. After all, these are 'side sticks', like in an F-16, and so there isn't a whole lot of movement in the first place. They probably work similar...in that there is no direct feedback in the stick other than resistance reaching the limit and a 'stick shaker'. However, in the place of opposite inputs, one stick may be a 'master' and the other a 'slave' (probably Capt and F/O in that order). However, that may not make a difference...one only has to look at Egypt Air 990 to see that even with a conventional yoke setup, the F/O can override the Captain. Personally, I'd love to fly an airliner with a side stick. Having flown 'stick and throttle' jets (small and large) my whole military career, aircraft with yokes just don't feel right and are like driving a bus. And, having been lucky enough to fly an F-16D, I am convinced that if you're going to go FBW, go with the side stick...it just feels right. In conclusion, inadequate training killed this crew, not the Airbus philosophy. I personally like Boeing's more than Airbus, but I don't consider the Airbus philosophy to be any less safe. And I've been qualified in Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Airbus airliners, so I have a little bit of knowledge on the subject. FC

I could regale you with a few stories of Boeing software not behaving correctly either...at least one of which has caused a crash. So don't generalize a specific brand based on one crash incident. Now, what you can generalize is a training fault. Up until a little while ago, stall recovery was based on the idea of 'powering' out of the stall. The idea is that modern airliners have tons of power, and that typical stall situations were close to the ground. Therefore, the idea was to lose as little altitude as possible in a stall recovery. Most airlines were training to this standard...using the aircraft's power to gain airspeed back. This accident shows the fallacy of that recovery technique. The stall was so deep, that the engines would never power the aircraft out of the stall...it would simply fall like a leaf (a very heavy leaf) into the water. Part of the reason was the training in only lowering the nose enough to accelerate, not enough to fully break the stall. This accident (along with others) has finally started shifting the mentality back to what we all learned in basic flying...break the stall by lowering the AOA, get some flying airspeed back, then pull back up...especially if you have buttloads of altitude below you. FC

Ya know, I'll bet no one thought when they first designed the F-16 in the mid-70s as a LWF that they would STILL be coming out with new models almost 35+ years later... FC

Pete, where the heck ya been man??? FC

You and I need to have a chat... FC

I'm really hoping bomber AI gets improved in SF2:NA now that Backfires are included. FC

By the way, a big shout out to Sundowner and EricJ. Due to some smart archiving on their part, we were able to recover the MAX file and continue to upgrade the model from Oli's already high standard. FC

Awesome! Snuck this one in under the radar did ya? FC

Soon... FC

This is actually sort of already happening. Read this: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/19/143926857/report-high-levels-of-burnout-in-u-s-drone-pilots Note in the article that there are several drone pilots exhibiting the symptoms of PTSD even though they are not in the theatre themselves. A friend of mine was a Bone pilot who deployed into the sandbox after 9/11 and was flying missions every other day dropping JDAMs where needed in support of ground troops. He was almost as far removed from fire zones as you can be...yet, when he started seeing the results of his missions, he started exhibiting the symptoms of PTSD. Both situations, the combat had been reduced to dots on a screen, without the smells, sounds, and proximate danger being in the thick of it entails...yet, they were affected by it in a similar manner. Yes, they were still in the real world. But it brings up a legitimate point...when simulation becomes near impossible to separate from reality, will it start having similar problems as reality does? FC

Heh, no...but I think they actually painted a silhouette on the side after that... FC

Actually had a T-37 do that once (on a bird)...thing stuck on the pitot tube for the rest of the flight. FC

Someday my friend...someday... Actually, most of the modeling is complete for the aircraft...just need someone to make a kick ass skin (and resultant bump/spec maps) for it. PappyChkSix was working on one...but I haven't heard from him for a long time. Also, the FM needs work...it and the F-108 are getting some love in that regard, just need the time. FC

Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated since the Jan 2011 patch...so there may be some serious problems with it. FC

Not that I am aware of.. My understanding is that MP was totally removed. FC

Before your time young Silverbolt.... FC

Funny, I remember Buck Rogers being on TV a long time...but apparently it was just 2 seasons. I watched a few eps on Netflix and cringed...but Erin Grey was hot... Classic Duck Dodgers on the other hand is still funny....much better than the 'reboot' it had on Cartoon Network not too long ago. You know though, the original Buck Rogers story had some interesting concepts. A BSG style reboot could be a really good idea...just don't write yourself into a corner (hello, Hot Dog is the kid's father...really), and leave out the metaphysical stuff. FC

Hahaha! Thanks for the laugh guys! FC

There really isn't a 'bomb drop' sound. In real aircraft you might feel a 'thunk' as the bombs come off, but usually you didn't hear anything. FC

That's my question...what exactly will be LODs? We know the obvious...current ground objects. But what else...trees? Buildings? The terrain itself? I'll be curious to see how difficult new terrains will be to create. FC