"Orval Fairbairn" wrote in message
news
In article ,
James Robinson wrote:

"vaughn" wrote:

"The pilots of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean
two years ago apparently became distracted with faulty airspeed
indicators and failed to properly deal with other vital systems,
including adjusting engine thrust, according to people familiar with
preliminary findings from the plane's recorders."

An unfortunate rush to judgement on the part of the media. The aircraft
appears to have had major systems fail, and the pilot is blamed for not
being able to deal with it. There is even some question that Air France
trains the pilots on how to handle such problems.

Maybe system failure or inadequate training is more to blame, and the
pilots were simply the victims?

Scuttlebutt is that a Northwest crew faced a similar problem (in an
Airbus) but reverted to basics and flew the airplane, rather than try to
figure out the automated stuff. A good friend used to fly Airbusses for
American, but he did not LIKE them! He would rather fly Boeings.

Automation has some opportunity to make things better or worse. Take
auto-throttles. Most commercial jets have some sort of automatic
throttling - change a setting and the throttles adjust. In a Boeing, you
adjust the setting and the throttle levers actually move. It makes it easy
for the pilot to do a quick scan or feel for verification or in unusual ops.
In an Airbus, on the other hand, the engineers seem to think that the pilot
is a redundant component in the cockpit and doesn't need any feedback -
auto-throttle DOES NOT move the throttle levers when they're adjusted. The
Airbus thinking seems to be that the computer is always right so don't argue
with it. There's a LOT more that makes Airbus less than a treat to fly.

If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going.