Air France AF447 data recorders

[cowpatz]

After 2 years lying on the ocean floor BEA investigators have confirmed that thay have extracted all the data from the CVR and FDR.
Hopefully this will offer a major incite into what went wrong.

[Ian Warren]

No disrespect to the dead , did they not have FSUIPC installed on there flight computers , it don,t figure , why do they insist on side joystick controllers .. yuppie European logic i guess .. Boeing is just as bad chasing the modern wave .. bean counters (accountants) and 'yes' men cause the cook-ups , did the plane crashed due to human error , best solution is put in manual control again , wont save it from the idiots ( airlines boy racers) from causing a crash , but gives the real pilots a chance , seem we have a larger knowledge base here at NZFF , sure could have been server weather , maybe the pilot s should spend six months in Flightsim .

It will be interesting to read this report , after going to cruise flick a switch and wait the Hostess .. Sorry Air Studwardess come and sit on your lap because they removed the yoke for a joystick i didnt say that ... > he did whoops now there is a tourist on the plane

[cowpatz]

There are many theories as to what brought down AF447. There have been some interesting considerations as a result of this incident.
Airline pilots have been trained that anti ice is not required when the temperature is below -40 degrees C as the only moisture able to be present is ice particles and that these don't "stick". However there have been significant icing issues experienced by airliners in temps well below -40 and AF447 is probably one of them. What is happening is that these ice particles melt on contact with heated surfaces (like pitot and TAT probes) and then quickly refreeze eventually forming an "igloo" structure over the probes rendering them unreliable.
When you couple this with a sophisticated fly by wire aircraft (with numerous control laws) then there is the chance of an untoward event occurring.
If the prognosis is correct the crew of AF447 were faced with unreliable flight instruments and left in the most basic of Airbus flight laws. Apparently it is very difficult to fly the aircraft in this mode and practically impossible at altitude. There is no auto pitch trim function for example. Sounds very basic but if you have flown for years never needing to operate pitch trim and then all of a sudden, in the heat of the moment, with lots failing and warnings blaring, you have to remember to trim the elevator manually....well you can see the dilemma.
If they had encountered severe turbulence, significant icing and had a flight law degradation then the dice were well and truly loaded....any of these in isolation is a major.
As for flying into icing or severe weather I have my theories on this and one centres heavily on the weather radar. The radar as fitted to Airbus, and the 777 as well, is different to the norm and has an unusual predictive weather feature. I don't know a lot about it but basically it compares radar returns with forecast weather severity and displays it according to these sources. There have been a lot of reports on this type of unit not displaying known weather....it has been put down to technique by the vendors but criticised by the pilots.
Hopefully these data recorders will help to determine the cause.
Can you imagine having to listen to the CVR? It must be a most distressing task.