Is it worth buy FSLabs a320

[Chock 17,769]

The problem with AF447 and any analysis of it is that, like many aeroplane accidents, it wasn't just one problem which caused the crash, but a cascade of problems and issues which had a domino effect...

The Captain was resting and two less experienced crew were 'flying' the aeroplane. This part of an airline flight i.e. in the cruise where they're largely just monitoring, not actually doing any flying, is an issue with all automated aeroplanes; the crew logs a lot of 'hours', but none of that is stick time or real flying, so their logbook becomes impressive, but it doesn't tell the truth. There are probably a lot of Cessna PPLs out there with more actual genuine stick and rudder time than some airline pilots.

The crew used the weather radar poorly, and indeed other systems which were available to them. They mistook a very large thunderstorm cell for one which they could just push through quickly, when all other flights on the same track as them that night observed it for what it was and steered around it. As a result, they found their static ports and pitots icing up and their autopilot disconnected because it had no airspeed input. Anyone who has ever piloted an aeroplane through a thunderstorm will recall that as far as flying is concerned and getting the aeroplane where you want it to go is tricky owing to the large amount of up/downdrafts, but this point they could have simply throttled back a bit and descended out of the weather, or maintained the present throttle and pitch settings and flown by attitude and pushed on through the thing instead of freaking out when the autopilot disengaged. The aeroplane itself was no less flyable for not having an airspeed indicator.

When the cockpit audio started giving off all sorts of warnings because of a lack of data, the pilots thought the thing was overspeeding, why they thought this is a bit nebulous, but it led Bonin (the guy in the right seat and in my opinion the one largely at fault) to climb the aircraft very steeply, which considering they were at cruise altitude in thin air, probably with wing icing too, does not seem like a particularly intelligent choice. Needless to say, the aircraft stalled, and the stall warning began sounding (it sounded over eighty times before the aeroplane crashed), but Bonin kept the stick back. The crew did call the resting Captain to the cockpit, but he could not see Bonin's sidestick, and could not see that he was holding it back, because the sidesticks are not mechanically linked (this is what most pilots, and especially pilots who are used to a pair of mechanically linked traditional yokes are most critical of, and I have to say I agree with them, it is not a helpful feature of the aeroplane and certainly was not in this instance). Personally, I am more critical of the fact that someone in the pilot seat of an aeroplane carrying more than 300 people did not fundamentally respond to a repeated stall warning by pushing forward on the stick, and especially when the result of him holding the stick back caused no recovery, but rather a massive descent rate as the aeroplane mushed down from 38,000 feet to eventually impact with the ocean. This is basic piloting and it's appalling to think a professional airline pilot did not know this.

It was only when they were pretty much doomed and they knew it that Bonin decided to say, 'I don't understand why this is happening, I've had the stick back all the time.' At which point the other two crew members, upon hearing him say that, must have been a bit like: 'what are you playing at dude?!!', but by the time this occurred, it was too late for them to affect a recovery by getting the stick forward.

So yeah, the sidestick functionality was a contributing factor to the accident, but the idiotic control inputs, and lack of basic stick and rudder skills and weather avoidance knowledge were far greater factors in causing the crash of AF447, because AF447 was not the only A330 flying that route that night, there were many others, and none of those crashed.

To much confidence and trust in the 'magical' unstallable FBW properties of the Airbus was probably also a factor, and it's not the first time this has been an issue with Air France and the flight envelope of an Airbus either, as anyone who has seen the footage of that A320 mushing into the trees at the airshow at Habsheim in 1988 will know.

 

 

Edited October 17, 2018 by Chock

[Bob Scott 7,720]

2 hours ago, Murmur said:

Boeings work in a similar way:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990#Flight_recorders

No, actually they don't.  In a B767, the two yokes are physically linked to each other, so one pilot can feel the inputs of the other.  There is a shear pin that can be broken to separate the controls if the differential force between the two yokes/columns is great enough--this is designed intentionally for the case where one control becomes jammed, so the link between them is broken and one half of the flight controls is still available to the unjammed yoke.  But the huge difference between the Scarebus and the Boeing here is that there is no way on the Boeing that either pilot would be unaware of the other's flight control input short of fighting each other with enough force to break that shear pin.  In a 'bus, there is no force feedback, so each pilot can be making stick inputs undetected by the other.  That's where training and crew discipline come in...adherence to "positive transfer of acft control" procedures and such.  And when in doubt, put the acft in a known pitch and power configuration and trust that the physics work.  Again, basic piloting skills. 

Hopefully Airbus has added the "DUAL INPUT" advisory warning to all their FBW acft (IIRC, it was originally only installed as an option on some A320 and A340 jets to begin with) as this is a pretty clear problematic condition that's easily detectable by the computers that fly the jet. 

Regards

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Yeah, but as Alan says.....if you continue to pull the joystick back when you are getting repeated stall warnings.......all bets are off.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Christopher Low

[Murmur 3,941]

2 hours ago, w6kd said:

No, actually they don't.  In a B767, the two yokes are physically linked to each other, so one pilot can feel the inputs of the other.  There is a shear pin that can be broken to separate the controls if the differential force between the two yokes/columns is great enough--this is designed intentionally for the case where one control becomes jammed, so the link between them is broken and one half of the flight controls is still available to the unjammed yoke.  But the huge difference between the Scarebus and the Boeing here is that there is no way on the Boeing that either pilot would be unaware of the other's flight control input short of fighting each other with enough force to break that shear pin.  In a 'bus, there is no force feedback, so each pilot can be making stick inputs undetected by the other.  That's where training and crew discipline come in...adherence to "positive transfer of acft control" procedures and such.  And when in doubt, put the acft in a known pitch and power configuration and trust that the physics work.  Again, basic piloting skills. 

Hopefully Airbus has added the "DUAL INPUT" advisory warning to all their FBW acft (IIRC, it was originally only installed as an option on some A320 and A340 jets to begin with) as this is a pretty clear problematic condition that's easily detectable by the computers that fly the jet. 

Regards

I am in agreement with all you said, never denied that, just pointing out that even in a Boeing the final input is the average of the two yokes deflections, with all the essential differences that you pointed out (hence the word "similar").

[fluffyflops 1,858]

What's had killed many air France pilots and passengers over the years is terrible CRM and the french mentality of 'doing whatever they want' against simple eu ops rules.

The crew on that brazil flight had bad weather all over the flight plan and all over the high sig charts which they didn't arrogantly didn't bother looking at.  There was 5 other operators that night saw the high sig charts, saw the mach shear on the plogs and said stuff that and took 5 and 10 degrees of the airway respectively. They had no problems. 

The captain was known in the company to be an arrogant fool and to take crew rest at the point when the weather was noted to be word not allowed again is pure arrogance, the French way of thinking.  Its not the first time they have lost a hull due to being idiots. 

As much as its a great loss,  air France still have awful CRM and that crash was 100 percent down to their failings (as with previous incidents), and as harsh as it sounds, they deserved it. 

You can't pin that on airbus. Bad CRM from the get go. 

 

Edited October 17, 2018 by tooting

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, tooting said:

french mentality of 'doing whatever they want'

This is racial profiling and or stereotyping … there are 65,177,970 citizens of France and I'm pretty certain you've not encountered every single person of France to make such a sweeping statement.  I suggest you take individuals on context and stop stereotyping and entire population because you have an opinion or exposure to less than <0.0000001% of that population.  I can provide cases of arrogant Americans, British, Russians, etc. etc. … it does NOT mean the entire population of Americans, British, Russians etc. are arrogant.  I recommend you take individuals at face value and stop the association of Race, Religion, Nationality on your unfounded and BIAS perception.

Read AVSIM terms: https://www.avsim.com/AVSIM Pages/terms_of_use.html/

Quote

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Cheers, Rob.

 

[DrumsArt 270]

19 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

This is racial profiling and or stereotyping … there are 65,177,970 citizens of France and I'm pretty certain you've not encountered every single person of France to make such a sweeping statement.  I suggest you take individuals on context and stop stereotyping and entire population because you have an opinion or exposure to less than <0.0000001% of that population.  I can provide cases of arrogant Americans, British, Russians, etc. etc. … it does NOT mean the entire population of Americans, British, Russians etc. are arrogant.  I recommend you take individuals at face value and stop the association of Race, Religion, Nationality on your unfounded and BIAS perception.

Read AVSIM terms: https://www.avsim.com/AVSIM Pages/terms_of_use.html/

Cheers, Rob.

 

Thank you Rob! I was about to say something like that.

Regards,

Richard

[Raging Bull 23]

19 hours ago, Rafal said:

Honestly, I often wonder what people mean by that. Are you just the particular company (Boeing) fan?
Or maybe you mean you prefer yokes than sticks for controlling the aircraft.
In the first (and recently also the latter) case there are other non-boeing airliners which are yoke (stick) flown.
Just asking, as I would never think of myself as any particular A or B guy. I love aircraft almost equally. 😊

 

I guess we just mean we’d prefer the simplier operation of the Boeing doing exactly the same thing as the overly complicated Airbus.

And the joy of flying 2-4000 feet higher in cruise in the Boeing due to the Airbus’s seemingly not as good performance. 🙂

 

 

[DEHowie 269]

13 hours ago, w6kd said:

 

Hopefully Airbus has added the "DUAL INPUT" advisory warning to all their FBW acft (IIRC, it was originally only installed as an option on some A320 and A340 jets to begin with) as this is a pretty clear problematic condition that's easily detectable by the computers that fly the jet. 

Regards

Airbus have had dual input warning functionality on ALL aircraft since the near disaster at Sydney back in the early 90's. The incident took place in 91 not long after the A320's entry into service.

Airbus responded quite quickly i believe after a dual input in an attempted non cross confirmed go around lead to an A320 flying close to the ground for an extended period just missing a Thai MD-11 that failed to hold short of a runway.

Thats the thing with new technology you just dont know what you dont know...

[Chock 17,769]

Whilst I agree that one shouldn't stereotype an entire nation, I suspect what Tooting is referring to is the fact that a very large number of Air France pilots insist on talking to French ATC in their native tongue, despite the fact that English is the language they should be using. Whilst I can understand that it might rub some other nationalities the wrong way to have to speak in what is not their native tongue, this is nevertheless the rule when flying about and talking to ATC, and it is a rule which is very often flaunted by Air France pilots.

There can be little doubt this is a dangerous practice; anyone else on frequency who is not fluent in French might possibly miss comments which may be pertinent to them, for example, in maintaining separation, or knowing when an aircraft has been perhaps cleared to cross a runway or whatever.

When I talk to airline pilots when on the headset during a pushback, sometimes their English is not that great, and I do strive to make allowances for this since it is after all not their native tongue, so I am careful in always ensuring that I speak slowly, not using anything other than understandable aviation phraseology and always making sure that things are clearly understood. For example, I might say to a pilot whom I know is clearly English and who understands colloquialisms, that he's 'clear to crank number two', but I would be careful to say he was 'clear to start the number two engine' if speaking to someone who is not English.

Sometimes it takes a couple of goes to ensure we're all on the same page as far as the procedure we are doing is concerned, and this is something which would normally be avoided in such communication, since brevity is the order of the day with communications. But if I say we're pushing back past Delta Seven instead of to the regular TRP because of some temporary situation or whatever, not every pilot will be so familiar with the taxiways and TRPs to instantly know what I'm referring to, but I'd rather a pushback took thirty seconds longer as I explain it and it is clearly understood, than to have some kind of mishap. And this is whilst the aeroplanes are still on the ground, when most mishaps, whilst obviously one would prefer to avoid them, are unlikely to result in something as horrific as a mid air collision or whatever, but this is something which, as noted, is a practice that quite a few Air France pilots don't seem to take into account when reverting to their native tongue for ATC communications.

Take a flight over France and I can assure you it will not be too long before you hear this sort of thing going on.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Chock

[jon b 2,047]

23 minutes ago, Chock said:

 

Take a flight over France and I can assure you it will not be too long before you hear this sort of thing going on.

Or on Montreal center’s Frequencies in Canada

Cant say it bothers me too much though.

[FDEdev 955]

15 minutes ago, Chock said:

Whilst I agree that one shouldn't stereotype an entire nation, I suspect what Tooting is referring to is the fact that a very large number of Air France pilots insist on talking to French ATC in their native tongue, despite the fact that English is the language they should be using. Whilst I can understand that it might rub some other nationalities the wrong way to have to speak in what is not their native tongue, this is nevertheless the rule when flying about and talking to ATC, and it is a rule which is very often flaunted by Air France pilots.

French is an official ICAO language, so there's nothing wrong if Air France pilots are speaking French. Flying into and out of CDG I never experienced any communication, separation etc. problem, although I don't understand French. 

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Quote

As much as its a great loss,  air France still have awful CRM and that crash was 100 percent down to their failings (as with previous incidents), and as harsh as it sounds, they deserved it.

....but the passengers certainly did not.

[DEHowie 269]

1 hour ago, Chock said:

Whilst I agree that one shouldn't stereotype an entire nation, I suspect what Tooting is referring to is the fact that a very large number of Air France pilots insist on talking to French ATC in their native tongue, despite the fact that English is the language they should be using.

Well Tooting better not fly in Indonesia,Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Russia, cChina etc etc etc.

Use of native language is common and widespread by pilots, ATC, ground movements,cars trucks,tugs you name it and almost anyone who doesnt speak English.

So its drawing a pretty long bow to say an A330 crash is related to speaking French...

BTW an American Airlines crew crashed a 757 into a mountain being off course because of ill disciplined FMC usage and then a go around with speedbrakes deployed....would that imply all English speaking crews are as bad??

Racial profiling has been covered i think....

Edited October 18, 2018 by DEHowie

[Poppet 703]

The OP's question has been answered with many opinions 

We might just leave it here