On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Carl Denk <cdenk@windstream.net> wrote:

> And then there was an
> Airbus not long ago, the Pitot tube (air speed sensor) that iced over,
> even our little home built had a heater on it. Gave incorrect airspeed
> to all systems, pilot flew too slow, no warning, just wing stalled and
> went straight down, quickly.
>

You're talking about AF447? Not entirely accurate - yes the pitot iced over
and gave incorrect airspeed, which is why it tripped out of autopilot, but
the pitot cleared fairly quickly and the plane was fully functional for the
majority of the incident. The co-pilot pulled back on the stick increasing
the angle of attack, which is what slowed the plane down - throttles were
on full power when it crashed. Plenty of warning - the stall alarm was
sounding most of the time, and all instruments apart from the airspeed
indicator were fully functional at all times, hence it was clear that the
plane was climbing (until it stalled and started dropping) and that the
ground speed (based on GPS, fully functional at all times) was decreasing.
It should have been obvious to anybody with even basic flight training what
was happening and what the solution was, but the co-pilot kept the stick
back regardless and flew it into the sea. Totally incomprehensible from a
trained professional pilot flying for a major airline - the suggestion is
that pilots of modern planes have learned to rely on the autopilot and
automatic systems which usually prevent stalling (when the pitot iced it
tripped out of that protection and clearly the co-pilot wasn't prepared for
that).

As for MH370, lots of speculation about what happened and a lot of
misinformation (some of which has been repeated here), very little real
information. See
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-=
lost.htmlfor
some well informed comments (amongst a lot of rubbish!)

Chris
--=20
http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
.