For md80 pilots

[Spanglish]

Just wondering

Is it your company SOP to leave the autothrottle on or off for landing ?

Spanglish

[Hung start]

That is left up to us except for autoland, and 99% will disconnect them on a normal landing. The MD80 is in my opinion a wonderful plane, with a shi**y autothrottle.

[brokepilot]

As per AFM you must have it off by 50ft.
if not using autoland.

[StressFree]

I flew an MD-87 for 6 years - you dont have to disconnect the throttles at all, they go into auto retard at 50'.
Theres a lot of old bolloc*s talked about MD-80's by poeple who know nothing at all.....
Its a great ship. :cool:

[Spanglish]

We are allowed to land with A/T engaged. But sometimes with a heavy aeroplane it retards the throttle a little bit too early for my likeing, so now I always disengage for the landing.

Nice aeroplane but who on earth designed the thing.

[Hung start]

I´m sure you know this Spanglish :), just trying to clarify for those not flying the MD80: When autothrottle is left on for landing it will always start to retard at 50 feet. Problem is, with a noseheavy MD80 (typical on short flights without much fuel in the tanks, and a full load of pax, most of them in front of the wings), the trim is waaaayy back. That means that there´s not much elevator effectiveness left to flare with, because the stabilizer is already trimmed up a lot. And many of the hard landings in the MD80´s have come on that account.
But I do as you. Allways A/T off, except on CATIII landings of course. Some pilots always leave them on, and make good landings too, I´ve just gotten used to doing it myself, that way I decide.

But hey, great airplane. Old..yes. But it works and I dread the day that the MD´s leave, and I have to fly with headsets again.

[StressFree]

Hung Start,
Good comments - the thought of using headsets.........
Its true that you usually get a far better landing with the A/T disengaged, I found that keeping a bit of power on until about 50' worked best. Great plane though, so reliable and easy.

:D