Question for any heavy metal pilots out there:
1. Does this aircraft have backup mechanical Artificial Horizon.
2. In case of the “glass cockpit” giving conflicting readouts, are the Air France Pilots trained to go back to a mechanical artificial horizon for attitude control? (Note: if airspeed depicted on the glass cockpit is wrong the only way to control speed is by attitude)
3. It sounds like the aircraft was in a flat spin?????
Can the A340 recover from a flat spin with input only from flight controls? What is the training for Air France Pilots in relationship to a flat spin in an A340.
4. How close would the center of gravity be to the max aft portion of the flight envelope for the aircraft with the fuel load and passenger distribution and also with 2 hours of fuel burned?
5. The old British Trident could get in “deep stall” and be
unrecoverable. This was a result of turbulence off the stalled wing hitting the horizontal stabilizer. However, the trident was a T Tail and the A340 is not.
ATP pilots please respond with your analysis.
I’m not a ATP pilot, but I can categorically state:
1) yes
2) yes
3) the aircraft was NOT in a flat spin
4) per the BEA note to the 2nd Interim report, CG was at 29%. While this was far aft, it was within normal design limits and NOT at extreme design limit.
5) That’s correct, only T-type tailplanes can exhibit ‘deep’ stalls.