Re:A330 flight control laws saved Voyager, inquiry finds
by duskwuff on Tuesday February 07, 2017 @08:27PM
(#13594860)
> If you get too careless it will even run the engines up to full takeoff thrust and microblog it to you.
What does "microblog" mean in this context? I assume it doesn't mean that the A330 isn't posting about its engine thrust on Twitter. (Yet.)
Re:A330 flight control laws saved Voyager, inquiry finds
by huh333i on Tuesday February 07, 2017 @09:45PM
(#13595235)
The thrust FMA (flight mode annunciator) will show "A. FLOOR" alpha floor or "TOGA LK" (takeoff/go-around thrust lock). The former means Fifi just took over and is applying full thrust for an immediate high AoA situation. The latter means the emergency is over but Fifi is so white knuckled and panting that she's ignoring lever position and keeping full thrust. I say microblog because you have to make a conscious effort to read these things. I just got curious and did some googling and it I'm not the only one who can be confused... The aural warning for low speed is the last thing you hear and unless you actually see TOGA LK and turn off autothrust you'll be overspeeding soon. With flaps down (lower max speed) this happens pretty fast. https://news.aviation-safety.net/2013/12/21/loss-of-airspeed...
Re:A330 flight control laws saved Voyager, inquiry finds
by digler999 on Wednesday February 08, 2017 @12:05PM
(#13599871)
When thrust is applied by the computer, do the throttle levers move on their own or stay in their original positions ?
Re:A330 flight control laws saved Voyager, inquiry finds
by cypherpunks01 on Wednesday February 08, 2017 @01:09AM
(#13596194)
Your 2 comments above are very insightful! Thanks :)
Re:A330 flight control laws saved Voyager, inquiry finds
by crooked-v on Tuesday February 07, 2017 @08:20PM
(#13594818)
Sounds like the engineering moral of the story here is "don't make joystick mounts placed in relation the armrest such that small objects can easily get jammed between them".
Re:A330 flight control laws saved Voyager, inquiry finds
by brohee on Wednesday February 08, 2017 @04:57AM
(#13597112)
It was a Nikon DSLR, hardly hard to see...
Now to the story at hand, the captain probably didn't realize his camera was wedged between the seat's armrest and the control stick as he moved the seat forward. I can only guess that he assumed the strange attitude was the result of a computer malfunction because he considered turning off the computers that provide many of the protections I mentioned. Good thing he didn't. Now the first officer gets into the cockpit and probably tosses a wtf glance at the captain but upon getting one right back he decides to use his own stick. The sticks in the bus aren't mechanically connected but, just like with mechanically connected sticks in antique Boeing aircraft, their force inputs are mathematically summed. Yet unlike mechanically connected sticks, displacement isn't transmitted across the cockpit so the first officer wouldn't be wise to the fact that the captain's stick was full forward. Luckily the bus engineers thought of this. When the first officer pulled his stick back the computer would have noticed both sticks moving and it would have announced "dual input". This isn't a microblog or a gentle woman's voice. It's a pissed off dude trying to talk some sense into you. At that point the captain probably looked at the palms of his hands to make sure they weren't on the stick. He probably showed his palms to the first officer too. At that point they had two heads working on the problem and it wouldn't have taken them too long to find the camera.