Quite frankly, I don't know - I only fly behind steam gauges, and only day VFR, however the 'attitude' won't change, but your 'altitude' will. Even with a 'fixed' or uncorrected articfical horizon, you're only going to (logically) climb, as the earth falls away underneath you.

I would imagine that the avionics in an Airbus are pretty damn smart, and would get GPS position fixes and recalibrate the artificial horizon. In the case of flight 447, calibration of the artificial horizon would be of secondary or tertiary corcern - the emergency (the storm and frozen pitot tubes) would have been over quickly (assume a 50 mile storm system at 300 knots means it's 10 minutes before you're out of the storm).

Having said that, I wasn't suddenly thrown into a very high stress situation, with multiple alarms sounding, and the strange aircraft attitudes that are almost certain to occur when you fly into a powerful storm, so as mentioned earlier, it's easy for me to sit here at home to say that!. Aviation has the possibility of getting very exciting very quickly, and I can't help but think that, maybe, there were too many warnings presented to the pilots of flight 447, which distracted them from the task of flying the plane, which after all, is the primary purpose of the pilot.

When I was learning to fly, the instructor would quite regularly cover the flight instruments, and I'd have to fly circuits without knowing how fast I was going, or how high I was. While it is easy to estimate speed & climb from your attitude (nose above the horizon & lots of throttle usually means you're going up, nose above the horizon and no throttle you're slowing down, and will soon stall and descend (quickly too!)), I would hate to have to do that without outside visual references like the pilots of flight 447. However, I would imagine that a blocked pitot tube would not disable the artificial horizon (and if it does, then why?). The pilots should have been able to keep the aircraft flying using a cruise throttle setting (already set) and the artificial horizon. Having said that, it is easy for me sitting here to say that, without multiple alarms going off in a rapidly deteriorating situation. It could be that flight 447 was a unique set of circumstances, and these guys were test pilots.

Two girls update their facebook page to say they are trapped in a stormwater drain, rather than calling emergency services - full story at http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/07/2678945.htm?section=justin

Its already been built smaller - actually that was done first as a proof of concept. Have a look at http://solar-flight.com/sunseekerII/index.html - built by Eric Raymond. From the magazine article that I have (Pacific Flyer - June 2009), with an empty weight of 120Kg and a gross weight of 230Kg, this should fit nicely into the US Ultralight regulations, but probably not the Part 103(?) that doesn't require licenses.

The only nervous things in New Zealand are the sheep!

I keeed, I keeed

I have done a bit of work in Thailand, and a girl I worked with was named Supaporn Sukdol. Talk about perpetuating stereotypes.....

But at least he can't beat himself very effectively!

I have one of the best commutes - 5 minute walk to an elevated railway, 2 stops on the train, then 20 minutes on a boat on the Chao-Praya river (I live in Bangkok). The boat ride is really relaxing, and a great to start and finish my working day!