Missing Air France jet 'hit by electric fault'

[The Troll]

Yup. Same conclusions that the PM article I posted arrived at, basically. Pilot error.

Holy hell.  .  . I can just picture that idiot sitting there with the stick pulled back the entire time. . . 

  I know in a light plane and your at some altitude.  You pull back on the yoke and hold it, you will stall the plane and the plane will fall like a brick.  This is how you start a spin.  Pull the yoke back, hold it, then push full left or right rudder and you got yourself one fine spin.                 

[Locutus]

Yup. Same conclusions that the PM article I posted arrived at, basically. Pilot error.

Holy hell.  .  . I can just picture that idiot sitting there with the stick pulled back the entire time. . . 

That's a private pilot type of error too.  Shouldn't have happened.  A Pilot 101 class teaches nose down in a stall situation; all the time, and every time.

I was flying a Piper Seneca one time from Key West up to Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport.  There were some minor towering cumulus with embedded rain around and to the north of Key West.  But at about 15-20 miles out, the weather was clear.  I took off out of Key West and was in cloud cover less than 1,000 feet off the ground.  Climbing out, the updrafts of towering cumulus pegged the VSI in a climb and the airspeed started dropping, all while rain was pounding on the windshield.  I was concentrated on the instruments, and I did what comes naturally. I pushed the yoke forward and maintained a good airspeed.  20 miles or so out, we popped out and had an absolute wall of clouds behind us.  It was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen flying a plane.  Bottom line is, when airspeed is dropping, nose down. 

[The Troll]

  I was flying with a student pilot and he enters a small thunder storm cloud bank while I was taking a nap coming back from Florida.  My friend who was sitting in the back seat  woke me up.  The student pilot, a fellow owner of the plane had put the plane in a small dive.  That is some to wake up too in the rain and in a IFR situation of zero visibility.   

[Palehorse]

Interestingly enough, Airbus just announced a new manufacturing facility in the US, in Alabama.

The 600 million dollar facility will produce 40 to 50, A320 aircraft and is expected to bring 1,000 permanent jobs in the state.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/02/news/companies/airbus-factory-alabama/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2

[The Troll]

That's a private pilot type of error too.  Shouldn't have happened.  A Pilot 101 class teaches nose down in a stall situation; all the time, and every time.

I was flying a Piper Seneca one time from Key West up to Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport.  There were some minor towering cumulus with embedded rain around and to the north of Key West.  But at about 15-20 miles out, the weather was clear.  I took off out of Key West and was in cloud cover less than 1,000 feet off the ground.  Climbing out, the updrafts of towering cumulus pegged the VSI in a climb and the airspeed started dropping, all while rain was pounding on the windshield.  I was concentrated on the instruments, and I did what comes naturally. I pushed the yoke forward and maintained a good airspeed.  20 miles or so out, we popped out and had an absolute wall of clouds behind us.  It was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen flying a plane.  Bottom line is, when airspeed is dropping, nose down.

  Piper Seneca, one beautiful twin aircraft.  Never got to ride in one.  But one day up at our little grass strip airport.  We had a Seneca come in for a landing.  It sure was running rough.  The pilot got out and talked to us guys and said he wasn't going to fly any father until he got someone look at his plane.  He call Indianapolis airport and they sent two men out to Anderson where we were out.  They check it all over and said that he must have got some bad gas and fowled all of his his plugs.

  They replace 24 aircraft spark plugs, changed the fuel filters and put some gas in it and a can of something in the tank.  I wonder what they charge him for the labor, 24 plugs and the 70 mile round trip.  WOW!

  As he was leaving he told us he would give a good fly by.  WOW! again.,  He came down out of the sun wide open about 10ft or less down the strip.  Just a streak of blue and white and with a 45 degree pull out and the end of the strip disappearing to the East.   

[Palehorse]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/05/world/europe/france-air-crash-report/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

It's official

[Locutus]

Pilot error.  We knew that was coming.

[Palehorse]

Pilot error.  We knew that was coming.

[The Troll]

Pilot error.  We knew that was coming.

  Yup, a million parts in the plane.  Nothing could possible way any of the part going bad and causing the crash.  It's always the Human, the pilot.   

[Palehorse]

  Yup, a million parts in the plane.  Nothing could possible way any of the part going bad and causing the crash.  It's always the Human, the pilot.   

When the system is screaming "stall" (75 times during the 30k plus descent) and the "pilot" is pulling back on the stick, it's either human error or stupidity. . .

Yes, there are some engineering issues as well; but most of those surround the transition from the legacy engineering "feel" that pilots have come to rely upon and the elimination of it within the fly by wire system.

[Locutus]

  Yup, a million parts in the plane.  Nothing could possible way any of the part going bad and causing the crash.  It's always the Human, the pilot.   

Read the report Troll.  They flew the plane into the ground.  They could have basically done a "hands off" at some point and there's a good likelihood the plane would have corrected itself.  The plane could have flown itself better than they did even after the autopilot was disengaged. 

[The Troll]

Read the report Troll.  They flew the plane into the ground.  They could have basically done a "hands off" at some point and there's a good likelihood the plane would have corrected itself.  The plane could have flown itself better than they did even after the autopilot was disengaged.

  I built a Benson Gyrocopter with the aid of a friend.  In the building manual it said that if the copter developed P.I.O (pilot induced oscillations) let go of the stick. 

  One day I was flying along, had a gust of wind and the copter started going up in down violently, quite badly.  I just took my hands of the stick and the copter straightened right out.  If I hadn't stopped  the oscillations when I did the rotor could have cut off the copter's tail and my ass would have been grass.     

[Bo D]

This why I don't like to fly. Not because I'm afraid of flying ... I'm afraid of what idiot may be at the controls.  Remember the Air Florida crash into the Potomac River? Despite heavy icing, the idiot pilot decided to take off anyway. He made it as far as the 14th Street Bridge.

[The Troll]

This why I don't like to fly. Not because I'm afraid of flying ... I'm afraid of what idiot may be at the controls.  Remember the Air Florida crash into the Potomac River? Despite heavy icing, the idiot pilot decided to take off anyway. He made it as far as the 14th Street Bridge.

  You know what, that the same feeling I got the first time I got on an airliner after learning to fly.  I wonder what we would do if he decided to fly through the storm rather than going around it.  Wondered if his balls was bigger than mine.