[cpdiii]

Dont’ know about the big airliners, but when I was an undergrad pilot training instructor pilot, I’d have my students memorize power settings for a given airspeed, both in level flight, and during landing maneuvers. That way, a failure of the pitot/static system would not prove disastrous. Sounds like that pilot had the same training.

As for the Airbus - if it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going. Do any heavy metal drivers out there know if the aircraft had mechanical backup insturmentation for an artificial horizon? Or is the whole damn thing computer generated?

[safisoft]

Do any heavy metal drivers out there know if the aircraft had mechanical backup insturmentation for an artificial horizon? Or is the whole damn thing computer generated?

There is ALWAYS a mechanical backup, even in instrumentation. Ever Airbus even has a "whiskey compass" - what is at issue is reliance on flight computers. If the flight crew does not respond correctly to a failure of autoflight systems, then the redundancy of mechanical backups is lost. The A330, has a standby instrument gauge which displays horizon (roll and pitch), altitude, vertical speed, and airspeed. It is independent - but most importantly, the autoflight computers do NOT use it, so the crew must take over manually and transition to the standby instrument for some failures... there is the rub - knowing what to do, and doing it.