Quick question: when were the Su-34s fitted with wing fences? Were they suffering from uncommanded roll in certain part of the flight regime (most likely transonic?)

Any clue will be appreciated.

have u looked at the tail of plane. It looks bigger than the plane. I can predict the plane will end up to be overweight/draggrier/low operational speed & altitude with short life span and will unable to fullfill most of mission requirements.

A large tail usually indicates a short fuselage. IL-76 has a narrow but slender fuselage, which means larger moment arm for the tail and hence smaller tail. OTOH the blurry images seem to suggest a relatively short but wide fuselage, which could be for transporting oversized items considering China has been operating a substantial fleet of IL-76s.

My favorite looking Russian bird, ever.

That’s BS.

Flanker forever, baby!

Modern planes do not apparently have this problem. So my question is what engineering fixes do modern planes have that make them directionally stable that a 1960s planes didnt have? I know of course that many have dual verticle stabilizers. Is there anything else?

better understanding of supersonic aerodynamics? Like you said, a lot of fighter designs post 1960s make use of some combination of twin stabilisers, ventral fins, and LERX. Plus they have been extensively tested in wind-tunnel to make sure the stabilisers are not placed where the shock wave can cause separation layer, etc.

I believe that the FBW system on F-16 and Su-27 are longitudinal only. Not so sure about F-22 and F-35…

Maybe an R22 or something?

Most definitely not an R22.

This book is premature considering that the final report is not yet out.
There are also some errors in their translation.

Of course, anything that is not in the official report has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Nonetheless, it is still relevant especially for us who are curious enough but don’t have access to all the data.

I can see why BEA condemns this kind of disclosure. I felt pretty upset reading the conversation. Truth or not, it’ll bring trauma to those who lost their loved ones.

Alleged cockpit conversation

I posted the same story in a separate thread out of confusion. I think it’s appropriate to re-post in the main thread so everyone can share.

According to multiple sources, a recently published book, Rio-Paris Crash: A Collection of Pilot Errors, by Jean-Pierre Otelli, discloses what is allegedly a disturbing conversation between the pilot and the copilot during the last minute of the tragic flight. The conversation had previously been withheld by the investigator for obvious reasons.

Here is the transcript:

”So is he coming?” Mr Robert asked after Mr Dubois left the cockpit for a break.

”Hey what are you …” Mr Dubois said when he returned.
Mr Robert: ”What’s happening? I don’t know, I don’t know what’s happening.”
Mr Bonin: ”I’ve got a problem. I don’t have vertical speed. I don’t have any indication.”
Mr Dubois: ”I don’t know, but right now we’re descending.”
Mr Robert: ”What do you think? What do you think? What should we do?”
Mr Bonin: ”I don’t have control of the plane. I don’t have control of the plane at all.”
In the final exchange, Mr Dubois says: ”Ten degrees pitch.”
Mr Robert: ”Go back up! … Go back up! … Go back up! … Go back up!”
Mr Bonin: ”But I’ve been going down at maximum level for a while.”
Mr Dubois: ”No, no, no! … Don’t go up! … No, no!”
Mr Bonin: ”Go down, then!”
Mr Robert: ”Damn it! We’re going to crash. It can’t be true!”
Mr Bonin: ”But what’s happening?”
The audio ended.

The official FDR/CVR data can be found in Appendix 1 of the BEA Report.

The conversation, if factual, would reveal for the first time that the flight crew of AF 447 were absolutely clueless about the flight situation.