Originally Posted by
TQ Nola
Listen up: *at the airspeed they were flying*. As the speed increases, rudder travel for full deflection lessens, and (on the A300) less than 2 inches of rudder travel was required for FULL rudder deflection. So not only am I trying to tell you that, I am telling you that.
BTW, I know what the NTSB ruled. You do understand that that ruling is/was controversial?
FO Molin reacted to the turbulence in a way that I feel any AA A300 pilot could have done, given the training we received and the information we had to go on. To denigrate FO Molin in the off-handed manner you did seems rude at best. Perhaps that was not your intention.
Up front, I meant no disrespect to FO Molin.
My intention is to remind people that official finding is that the airplane didn't fail... the same would have happened had this been a 757, 767, or 777 according to Boeings own reports on the issue, and rudder travel ratio's aren't an Airbus idea... Boeings do the same, as do Douglas (at least the MD11)..... those loads were outside of any of any of their limits. The 2" issue would imply that they were likely going fast, however I don't have the report or the facts handy, my memory is that this happened very shortly after take off while cleaning up and climbing thru V2+factor, so therefore, not in the high speed climb.
As to why he opted to use rudder in his recovery and why AA taught it... that's not for me to get into here, and I don't intend any disrespect to the deceased pilot... I don't know him, and I wish well for his family. Sorry if you took it as an attack on him... I was simply re-stating the public record on the accident; I was more defending the design.. After all, in millions of flight hours, this had never before happened.