Beg to differ, but he wasn't flying the plane. He knew he was on manual control, but he apparently did not understand or did not appreciate the implications of the fact that the plane was flying on "alternate law".
With the normal flight laws, the pilot cannot stall the airplane because the flight laws prevent it. On "alternate law", that protection is removed and the aircraft can be stalled. When flying "normal law", pulling full back on the stick is arguably a reasonable approach to stabilize the flight of the aircraft because the flight control system will fly the plane in a stable, just above stall, attitude and speed.[1]
On "alternate law", pulling full back on the stick resulted in the plane no longer flying, but stalling and falling. I would contend the copilot was not flying the plane, he was relying on the flight control computer to key off his "nonsensical" input and take over flying the plane.
Trivia: the report indicates the flight speed sensors de-iced and the flight system recovered full correct data input quite soon after the incident started. I'm rather surprised that the flight control system did not go back to "normal law" mode, but rather stayed in "alternate law" mode. I don't know what it takes to revert the flight mode - if it is a manual reversion or if the plane simply has to get back into normal flight, which never occurred for AF447.
[1] AF296 crashed at an airshow while the pilot was flying with full aft stick. It crashed not because it stalled, but because the pilot ran out of energy (altitude) and the engines could not spool up fast enough to stop the plane's descent before it hit the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296
Reset from alternate law to normal law is - afaik - a pilot induced operation. The airbus computers will never initiate such a change by themselves. I.e.: They will drop down into a lower mode automatically; but they will not up the amount of support 'by themselves'.
This is the heart of the problem. He wasn't actually 'flying the plane' (properly), but from what we can see, he believed he was, and the plane wasn't responding (properly).
So a checklist entry which might help needs the property "changes his view on the world".
I suggest "fly the plane" will make him reply "I AM!", and continue behaving the same, whereas "everyone in the cockpit states aloud the major sensor readings, and what the next control change should be and why until majority agreement" sidesteps the semantics of whether they are or aren't "flying" and might help.
With the normal flight laws, the pilot cannot stall the airplane because the flight laws prevent it. On "alternate law", that protection is removed and the aircraft can be stalled. When flying "normal law", pulling full back on the stick is arguably a reasonable approach to stabilize the flight of the aircraft because the flight control system will fly the plane in a stable, just above stall, attitude and speed.[1]
On "alternate law", pulling full back on the stick resulted in the plane no longer flying, but stalling and falling. I would contend the copilot was not flying the plane, he was relying on the flight control computer to key off his "nonsensical" input and take over flying the plane.
Trivia: the report indicates the flight speed sensors de-iced and the flight system recovered full correct data input quite soon after the incident started. I'm rather surprised that the flight control system did not go back to "normal law" mode, but rather stayed in "alternate law" mode. I don't know what it takes to revert the flight mode - if it is a manual reversion or if the plane simply has to get back into normal flight, which never occurred for AF447.
[1] AF296 crashed at an airshow while the pilot was flying with full aft stick. It crashed not because it stalled, but because the pilot ran out of energy (altitude) and the engines could not spool up fast enough to stop the plane's descent before it hit the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296