Air France jet missing

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PurduePilot
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby PurduePilot » Fri Jul 06, 2012 7:55 pm

Nice idea, but it didn't help the Colgan Air guys.
I guess you can't fix stupid...

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3WE
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby 3WE » Fri Jul 06, 2012 9:14 pm

Somewhat disingenous of them not to mention the aircraft type on which Sullenberger became "One of the most famous pilots in aviation history".
Nothing disingenous about using a reknowned expert and focusing on the fact that two big-ass linked steering wheels might have conveyed some information between the pilots that two independent tiny, cheap-composite gaming controls would not.

That factor was not really relevant to Sully's ditching.

I would agree; however, that they failed to point out the ironing.
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J
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby J » Sun Jul 08, 2012 11:37 am

Here is an amusing characterization:

An airplane flies for the same reason a toilet bowl doesn’t: shape. When an object of a certain shape meets the air at a certain angle and at a certain speed it generates lift, and when the lift it generates exceeds its weight, it starts flying. It’s aerodynamics. That’s how little planes fly around the cabbage patch and big planes fly from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
* * *
Why did the Pitot tube freeze? Because it was a poor design. Air France had started replacing it, but hadn’t yet got around to changing it on all its planes. Losing airspeed information, though an emergency, shouldn’t result in a pilot losing a plane.

Why did Bonin? [Pilot Flying] Possibly because he panicked and became disoriented, and because Airbus’s design philosophy is to protect the plane from its pilot, and therefore has a “law” or flight regime in which the airplane rejects all dangerous control inputs. In this mode no one can stall an Airbus or turn it into a bathroom fixture. But when the computer quits, as the autopilot did, the flight regime changes and begins to operate under an alternate “law” in which the plane always obeys the pilot. If you pull up its nose, eventually it will stall — that is, quit flying.

Rival design philosophies are different. Boeing’s assumes the pilot may be frail but is a friend. The Airbus philosophy tries to protect the plane from the pilot, as if he or she were the enemy. Sometimes, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it did on a stormy night three years ago over the South Atlantic.


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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby Not_Karl » Sun Jul 08, 2012 12:00 pm

a toilet bowl doesn’t (fly)
Is that scientifically proven?
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3WE
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby 3WE » Sun Jul 08, 2012 1:29 pm

a toilet bowl doesn’t (fly)
Is that scientifically proven?
I was going to say something about gliders, glide ratios, and just what the definition of flying is? (could a toilet bowl 'propel' itself forward as it moves downward, which is, sort of my definition) etc, but then I remembered those guys who make "flying lawnmowers"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26PpA1kFIWw

A flying toilet bowl doesn't seem that hard...though government regulations will limit it's range with the new 1.6 gpf models.
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby OldSowBreath » Mon Jul 09, 2012 3:49 pm

My toilet has that same, hard to reach, joystick device, especially when I'm taking an alternate law.

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Verbal
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby Verbal » Mon Jul 09, 2012 5:15 pm

Maybe a toilet bowl would fly if you launched it from a conveyor belt?
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby ZilogMan » Mon Jul 09, 2012 5:17 pm

Maybe a toilet bowl would fly if you launched it from a conveyor belt?
For this to work, said toilet bowl must be mounted on wheels rolling backward...
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby Dummy Pilot » Mon Jul 09, 2012 5:25 pm

Image

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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby ZilogMan » Mon Jul 09, 2012 7:31 pm

Blue... no, brown ice on its way :mrgreen:
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby 3WE » Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:16 pm

...Pic...
Cheap composites?
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby ocelot » Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:56 am

Cheap composites?
Looks like high-temperature ceramics to me. Must be intended for suborbital work.

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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby monchavo » Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:50 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpZzwcDyaDY

I wanted to remember precisely how chilling this video is.
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby 3WE » Wed Jan 24, 2018 12:11 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpZzwcDyaDY

I wanted to remember precisely how chilling this video is.
Here is where I worry about being a parlour talking idiot. He was at a healthy attitude and healthy power setting for the majority of the descent - things that generally prevent stalls.

Still, the Religion of Airspeed Watching, Worship and Management and the best in cheap composite electronic stall warnings (and the fundamental that you can stall at any airspeed and attitude (with pulling up relentlessly being a good procedure to stall))...
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby J » Wed Jan 24, 2018 12:35 pm

Image
Of possible interest, note that US-designed toilets drain through the floor. Dummy Pilot's image appears to be a EU design. Coincidence? You decide.


Original Source: https://buffetoblog.wordpress.com/2012/ ... nto-space/

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monchavo
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby monchavo » Wed Jan 24, 2018 3:56 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpZzwcDyaDY

I wanted to remember precisely how chilling this video is.
Here is where I worry about being a parlour talking idiot. He was at a healthy attitude and healthy power setting for the majority of the descent - things that generally prevent stalls.

Still, the Religion of Airspeed Watching, Worship and Management and the best in cheap composite electronic stall warnings (and the fundamental that you can stall at any airspeed and attitude (with pulling up relentlessly being a good procedure to stall))...
Yep. I noted that too. "why isn't it responding to everything he seems to be doing". Very, very odd indeed.
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3WE
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby 3WE » Wed Jan 24, 2018 10:03 pm

*** "why isn't it responding to everything he seems to be doing". ***
1 (and most important) - I don't know. (I also wondered why he was flapping the sidestick all over creation while the plane at least LOOKED halfway stable.

Parlour specuation:

2 - Because it's a really big airplane and responds like a wet sponge / huge boat?

3 - Because a stalled plane is less responsive?

Gabby has said, that the pilots first pull up was a very significant, significant-G pull up (didn't look that spectacular from the simulation, but then again 10 degrees at cruise speed...

PS: I could not hear sound during the actual 'recreation' you posted. This video has supposedly representative sound and CVR transcription...no clue how accurate it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR5kFOHVnUU

I guess the dude might not have known that he stalled the plane at first- I guess that's when the computer was going Y2K with no airspeed read out....I ALSO NOTE THAT THERE WERE NUMEROUS WARNINGS- AND THEN OUT OF NOWHERE, "STALL" possibly interrupted by yet ANOTHER warning. Might be tough to analyze what's wrong (although fundamental rule 1- fly the damn plane)

And maybe they eased into the stall gently (as dummy and flyboy taught us)...

Still, a fairly long time later with the Bitching Brit saying "Stall Stall"...the airspeed being bad (and am I right that the plane has AOA indications???)

It's still rather in conscionable.

PS/Edit/Addendum: I could not hear sound during the actual 'recreation' you posted. This video has supposedly representative sound and CVR transcription...no clue how accurate it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR5kFOHVnUU

I also note the first stall warning at an even MORE reasonable attitude...and wonder how much 'coffin corner stall margins' had to do with this?

...and dang, it's even more creepy with the simulated sounds!
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby Not_Karl » Tue May 22, 2018 12:22 am

International Ban ALL Aeroplanies Association, founder and president.

"I think, based on the types of aircraft listed, you're pretty much guaranteed a fiery death."
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AF - New Documentary

Postby monchavo » Sat Jun 01, 2019 9:56 am

A documentary about the search for AF 477 has been released.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... fter-crash

I watched it yesterday, it's less than an hour (appears made for TV). Not sure if the director has sold it to any networks yet, other than making it available on Amazon Prime.

- It's light on the causes of the accident and the issues it raises and focuses on the story of the search
- It pulls its punches on criticism in every regard (it's milquetoast)
- The most interesting bits of the documentary are here :-) The five photographs of the wreckage on the sea floor.
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby 3WE » Mon Jun 03, 2019 2:52 am

A good post should be acknowledged.
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby Not_Karl » Mon Jun 03, 2019 3:59 am

A good post should be acknowledged.
Concur.
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby KPryor » Tue Jun 04, 2019 4:33 pm

Very good post indeed. I like seeing pics and video of shipwrecks and such, the pictures are very interesting to me.
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby elaw » Mon Dec 12, 2022 1:21 pm

Bringing this back from the dead, no pun intended...

One of our favorite aviation speakists just posted a lengthy video about this accident: https://youtu.be/e5AGHEUxLME

It got me to thinking about something... and apologies if this has already been discussed as I don't remember. There is much criticism here and elsewhere of the pilots for pulling up relentlessly (where have I heard that before?) and in alternate law, that does indeed sound like a good strategy for stalling the airplane which could cause a "non-nominal flight outcome". So while the a/c was in alternate law, that was clearly the wrong thing to do.

But here's the thing... the video mentions that partway through the accident sequence, the pitot tubes unfreeze and the ADIRUs start once again getting valid data. It seems like when that happened, the computers would have recognized that and gone back into normal law, in which case firewalling the throttles and pulling back relentlessly would have been the right thing to do. Okay not exactly... it would be the right thing to do if you were trying to escape windshear or terrain. But still... it would not cause the stall_crash_did_diedness that actually happened.

What am I missing here?
Last edited by elaw on Mon Dec 12, 2022 1:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby elaw » Mon Dec 12, 2022 1:21 pm

Mispost
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Re: Air France jet missing

Postby Gabriel » Mon Dec 12, 2022 11:01 pm

I think you misunderstood, I don't remember having heard that. Can you provide the time in the video where he talks about that?

I don't think that the plane ever recovered normal law.

In fact, and Flyboy my confirm or correct this (or other), I seem to remember that once an Airbus goes into alternate law it remains in alternate law for the remainder of the flight.


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