Interesting show on Discovery today

writes:

The "real" problem is that the Autopilot in that particular airbus is
designed to disengage due to movements of the yoke (the pilots daughter
didn't, but the pilots son did manhandle the yoke to try to turn the
plane), what this did is turn off the heading function on the
autopilot, but not soudn the 3x3 dong alarm that sounds on airbuses
when the autopilot is disengaged ...

You don't need an alarm in that case, because it only happens when the
pilot moves the yoke in order to override the autopilot, and when he
is doing that he already knows that he's doing it and he doesn't have
to be told that the autopilot is giving him control ... that's the
whole idea.

The problem in this case was not the lack of an alarm, but the fact
that the pilot was not the person flying the plane. I imagine the
Airbus designers never imagined that their aircraft would be flown by
the little children of pilots, rather than the pilots themselves, so
there was never any need to have an alarm to alert Mommy or Daddy that
Junior was overriding the autopilot.

Under normal conditions, the only person who overrides the autopilot
with the yoke is also the only person who needs to know about it, and
so he doesn't need an alarm to tell him what he already knows.

It's different from an unsolicited disconnect of the autopilot, which
requires some sort of alarm. In this case, the pilot is forcing the
yoke--he wants the autopilot to step aside. And it will. He'll see
the confirmation indicator on his instruments.

I guess an alarm wouldn't hurt, but if the pilot is already putting
his kids in the driver's seat, it's a bit late to be worrying about
ding-dong alarms in the cockpit.

The G forces being generated prevented either the pilot or co-pilot from
reacting, as they could not reach the yoke against the forces acting on
them. When they finally reached the yoke it was way too late.

They are supposed to be seated in front of the yoke with their hands
on it in the first place.

The accident would not have occured if the pilot had not yielded his
seat to kids.

Exactly. Or, more specifically, to unqualified pilots (I think a kid
could be a qualified pilot ... but in this case they were not).

When I look at my seat I think of it as "my commander
chair", it's a privelege which has to be earned to sit in the left seat
of an aircraft and be "pilot in command" at the airline level, anyone
who hasn't earned that has no place sitting in that or the seat to the
right of it when a plane is in flight ...

That's a rather sentimental and romantic way of looking at it, and not
necessarily very realistic. The pilot's seat has to be occupied by a
qualified pilot. It's a role, not a privilege, even if some people
might enjoy it as if it were the latter.

... they are more than welcome in
the jumpseats (well... not in the US, but thats going to change also in
a few years ... Air Tahiti here I come).

You're saying that the US will lift the restriction? That would very
much surprise me; it's a country where people are afraid of their own
shadows these days.

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