Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Tupac on September 11, 2011, 02:49:41 PM

Title: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: Tupac on September 11, 2011, 02:49:41 PM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2034685/Air-France-jet-autopilot-fails-drama-echoing-Brazil-crash.html

If it aint Boeing I'm not going.
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: jocko- on September 11, 2011, 11:54:12 PM
If I could rename your post to "Air France is at it again"... seems flying through thunderstorms (which will most definitely toss a Boeing around just as violently) hasn't been identified as as a bad thing yet at AF.
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: Pigslilspaz on September 11, 2011, 11:59:15 PM
I never trust Airbus personally, Boeing has been in the game for nearly a century.
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: Tupac on September 12, 2011, 12:01:49 AM
If I could rename your post to "Air France is at it again"... seems flying through thunderstorms (which will most definitely toss a Boeing around just as violently) hasn't been identified as as a bad thing yet at AF.

The autopilot has nothing to do with air france......just the lemons that are Airbuses.
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: Tupac on September 12, 2011, 12:05:14 AM
High Speed Protection

High speed protection prevents aircraft damage due to excessive speed. High speed
protection activates slightly above VMO/MMO, at the speed depicted by a green equal
sign.

When high speed protection activates:

• The autopilot(s) disconnect.

• Nose down pitch trim is inhibited.

• The flight control computers attempt to limit further acceleration by commanding a gentle pitch up. This protection limits maximum airspeed by automatically increasing the aircraft’s pitch attitude even if the sidestick is held full forward.

• The bank angle limit is reduced from 67° to 45° (limit marks do not move).

"Positive spiral stability becomes active at all bank angles (instead of the usual 33° in normal law). Therefore, the sidestick must be held to maintain any bank angle. If the sidestick is released the aircraft returns to a bank angle of 0°.

The CRC and MASTER WARN lights activate and an O/SPEED (overspeed) warning is displayed on the E/WD. The CRC can only be silenced by slowing down or pushing the EMER CANC pb. Holding the sidestick full forward will allow some exceedance of the limit speed (this permits limited maneuvering if necessary). The amount of forward sidestick held and
the rate at which the sidestick was moved forward affects how far the aircraft’s speed will increase above VMO/MMO. If the pilot holds the sidestick full forward, the speed will stabilize above VMO/MMO. When the sidestick is returned to neutral, the speed will return to VMO/MMO. High speed protection is deactivated when the aircraft decreases below VMO/MMO."

I wouldn't want to fly an airplane that thinks for itself, especially one that will override the pilot.
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: MachFly on September 12, 2011, 12:45:12 AM
The autopilot has nothing to do with air france......just the lemons that are Airbuses.

Not just Airbus. The DA42 wont let me me use full motion of controls when the power is bellow 20%. I'm not a big fan of that feature but it's not that bad.
As far as I know F-22 actually has the same thing but when the gear is down.
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: Tupac on September 12, 2011, 12:47:07 AM
Not just Airbus. The DA42 wont let me me use full motion of controls when the power is bellow 20%. I'm not a big fan of that feature but it's not that bad.

So how the heck do you do a power off stall?

edit: I wasnt thinking. I guess you just do a power off stall without full range of motion?
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: MachFly on September 12, 2011, 12:56:45 AM
So how the heck do you do a power off stall?

edit: I wasnt thinking. I guess you just do a power off stall without full range of motion?

It can be done. It just ends up being a very flat stall which does not last very long.
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: cpxxx on September 12, 2011, 03:55:31 AM
Ignoring the typical over the top newpaper story. The Daily Mail is a rag at best. The reason it didn't follow the AF447 disaster is because the crew didn't attempt to recover from a stall by holding the stick fully back all the way to the ocean. Basic flying skills come into play here. It resemble the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo, the pilot of that flight trying to fly out of a stall by adding full power and pulling back on the stick.

Boeing or Airbus or anything else short of a jet fighter, add full power and pull back on the stick and you're going down.

There is a debate now on a lot of pilot forums that basic flying skills have been eroded with so much automation. As a result when the automatics drop out, pilots lack the training to recover and fly the old fashioned way. An obvious exception would be one Captain Sullenberger, whose idea of fun on his days off was gliding. Not much more basic than that.
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: MachFly on September 12, 2011, 04:01:06 AM
Ignoring the typical over the top newpaper story. The Daily Mail is a rag at best.

Yeah I always wait for the official report, news does not tell you anything useful and half the time they are wrong.
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: -tronski- on September 12, 2011, 06:42:08 AM
I never trust Airbus personally, Boeing has been in the game for nearly a century.

The autopilot has nothing to do with air france......just the lemons that are Airbuses.

In 2005 a MH B772 had an autopilot failure which caused the aircraft to an uncommanded climb and exhibit stall warnings on route to PER from KUL.

3rd party companies provide the software for the ADIRU - Honeywell provide them for Airbus and a number of different Boeing aircraft. QF72, an A332, had a major incident using a Northrup Grumman supplied unit.

 Tronsky
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: deSelys on September 12, 2011, 07:16:14 AM
About AF 447:

While the logic of some protections or alerts of the AB raise some questions (i.e. elevator autotrim allowed to go fully up in alternate law while the AOA is way above max - stall warning inhibited below 60 kts IAS without WOW or even with gear up), AF training is much more debatable due to the counter-intuitive (for a pilot) actions of the crew. The 'bus ended in the water because it did wat the crew asked it to do IMO (initial climb after AP disconnect up to the coffin corner, then hold a nose-up attitude)

That being said, you can't fault Airbus for the aerodynamic design of their planes: the AF447 didn't enter a spin while it was in a full stall and while the PF (and the PNF in the last moments) were making mayonnaise with the side-stick(s)....
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: deSelys on September 12, 2011, 07:34:00 AM
About Boeings supposedly being logic-fault free:

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/06/26/343738/ba-747-crew-commended-for-escaping-near-stall-on-take-off.html (http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/06/26/343738/ba-747-crew-commended-for-escaping-near-stall-on-take-off.html)

Only difference with AF447: a crew fully alert (take-off vs 'boring' phase of flight in the worst hours of the night, attention-wise) and a FO with aerobatic experience.
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: MachFly on September 12, 2011, 02:27:46 PM
Not just Airbus. The DA42 wont let me me use full motion of controls when the power is above 20%. I'm not a big fan of that feature but it's not that bad.
As far as I know F-22 actually has the same thing but when the gear is down.

I think I was half asleep when I wrote that, fixed now.
Tupac, I automatically thought you were asking about power on, so the answer is the same.
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: flight17 on September 12, 2011, 06:58:06 PM
Basic flying skills come into play here. It resemble the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo, the pilot of that flight trying to fly out of a stall by adding full power and pulling back on the stick.
You sure you want to stick to that post as is without adding anything else?
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: Tupac on September 12, 2011, 07:00:13 PM
I think I was half asleep when I wrote that, fixed now.
Tupac, I automatically thought you were asking about power on, so the answer is the same.

Yeah, I was thinking most power-off stalls are pretty flat.........
Title: Re: The scarebus is at it again!
Post by: Babalonian on September 12, 2011, 07:04:44 PM
I wouldn't say I don't trust AirBus, maybe their PR and sales teams as they make claims at times from their posterior or claims they blatantly know are false but will appease investors, but as a company producing a product that I might someday find myself traveling on I wouldn't refuse to board their aircraft.  Boeing, personally to me though, is the best of the best, and I feel the aircraft they have flying are some of the best of the best.  I wouldn't think twice about boarding a Boeing aircraft, and while I would also willingly fly aboard an airbus, if I had the pure preference then it would be a Boeing.  If there's one thing though more than any that I am indebt to Airbus though, finally there's someone out there to compete with Boeing and help push them along.

Mostly though because I'm such a huge Boeing fan, one thing more than any other that gets me to defend them and curse at airbus, and that's when people mistake the best for anything less or proclaim one company as the king or leader of the industry while itself is so pale, fragile and meek because it has spent its entire life shading itself comfortably in the great shadow that's cast from the proverbial rock that is Boeing.