The GS mini function is a great Airbus characteristic. As always, the pilot should not be slave to it and a little bit of common sense should always be allowed.
For instance when there's one of those autumn Atlantic storms passing over Western Europe. Strong winds around 45-50 kts at airport level and even 65-70 around 3000' agl are not uncommon.
Big and sudden wind shifts are not be expected, but below 3000' ft and increasing to airport level it will be turbulent and gusty due to the wind blowing over ground obstacles.
In such a case, if you fly managed speed with autothrust on, the GS mini speed will be very close to Vne and you risk exceeding the max flaps speed when selecting the next flaps setting and gusts do occur. (I don't fly NEO's) I have seen GS mini speeds of 185 kts in conf 2 and 170 in conf 3.
I'm not talking about tornado or microbust conditions here, but gusty, RELATIVELY stable storm wind. So what I do when I see extremely high Vapp's at a relatively high altitude is indeed go selected speed (Vfe next - 10 or 15 kts) for a short while and selecting next flaps setting when reducing through Vfe next, and then lower down go to managed speed again. You will not fall out of the sky in the conditions I described, but it will will keep you away from a flaps overspeed. And no, this is not aerobatics as Vilas suggested in
reply #42, but common sense. I read here that on the NEO Airbus reduced the Vapp increment due to wind at higher altitudes. If that's true, that's a good thing and it proves the logic of going selected speed temporarely to select flaps 3 or full with very high Vapp on the 'classic' A320 series.
Oh, and I will be using manual thrust with managed Vapp in stormy conditions. I have tried manual and A/THR in stormy conditions and I can do it better then Airbus autothrust. But then again, I use manual thrust in 98% percent of my landings. Don't try it in a storm when you never do it otherwise! Why am I better then A/THR? Because I'm not stupid enough to blindly chase the Vapp and go to idle at 300' ft when the speed increased to Vapp +10 kts with a long enough runway. Airbus automation is very good, but it has limits. Use it wisely but don't be a slave to it. If the automatics don't behave as they should, then take over and fly it manually. Sadly, not all crews are trained anymore to be able to do that.
But hey, don't listen to me. I only have 20 years experience and around 14000 hrs on the A320.
