Originally Posted by
Texasbound
So, if a Fire Warning goes off when taking off at 120 knots and there are any other lights or alarms go off you are just going to hack the clock and wait for more than 10 seconds to do anything? No, you will immediately react, because that is what you were trained to do. Pilots should be trained to deal with emergencies. Even complicated ones, 10 seconds is an eternity. Even after 10 seconds with the MCAS trim runaways the main electric pitch trim switches still worked and would override MCAS. Yeah, then it would run again, but trim it back out... that is what the Captain in the Lion Air crash did, several times. If the FO had done the same the crash would not have happened. In the Ethiopian crash if either pilot had used the main electric trim for more than 2 seconds they would have been fine as well. The whole reason pilots ALPA want 2 trained pilots sitting in the front, is to fly the plane when it is broken. That is our job.
A fire warning is pretty unambiguous
The problem with MCAS was the *intermittent* presentation... trim spins for a while then stops. Spins again, then stops, and so on. The PF is fixated on flying and doesn't notice the wheel. The PM assumes the PF is trimming intermittently, if he even notices. There was nothing in the manual about an intermittent run-away, and that's somewhat counter-intuitive.
I think the union guy is right... it would be a poop-show. I do think most US crews would have focused, as a team, on getting the nose up and limiting AS, so would have taken thrust to idle, used the cutout switches, and cranked the wheel manually. Would they have done it fast enough? Don't know, although IIRC there were a couple of MCAS events here in the US before the grounding.
Originally Posted by
Texasbound
Love how people praise AB for devaluing our job as pilots. We will just build an airplane that does everything for you and will give you a tray table so you have something to do. However, last I checked, pilots have still figured out how to crash AB aircraft.
Technology is de-valuing our pilot jobs, natural course of progress... we used to have 4-5 crew, now only two.
AB designed the 320 later, so they had the advantage of more tech available. They also appear to have correctly assessed who would be flying their airplanes in the second and third world... not the ex-mil pilots of the post WW-II era which the 73 was designed for.