Originally Posted by
USMCFLYR
I just went through recurrent and we of course did the stall series, wind shear, and CFIT avoidance drills. Our instructor, sim partner, and I were discussing the advantages of an AOA gauge and its' usefulness in such situations during a break. My sim partner use to fly the Falcon 10/100 and we walked by the briefing room for it and stopped inside to have a look at the panel. Right there in the upper left hand corner was an AOA gauge!
USMCFLYR
All modern airliners have an AOA system(usually two), but the output is usually integrated into the FCC, the pilot gets no direct AOA readout.
AF 447 was a case of three pilots flying a perfectly(or at least fully functional) good aircraft into the water.
High altitude stalls in a heavy are an entirely different animal than the low level stalls used in type ratings, much lower available thrust and if the A/P disconnects at a relatively high speed you might be left with limited control authority that requires trimming. It seems that this is finally being addressed in training.