KTT's
I'm only a simpleton, and not an Airbus driver, but:
I'm confused. How does putting the gear down early before landing reduce the brake temperature? I'm assuming that the temperature rose due to braking and taxi-ing after landing, and would continue to rise if locked away in the belly.
You then said that "high temp's did not effect the takeoff performance, only when you could put the gear up. Delaying gear retraction would cool the brakes."
Delaying the gear retraction will surely cool the brakes, (I had to do it on a quick turn-round from a short runway in B767), but it will also effect the takeoff performance calculation if the gear is left dangling longer than expected.
Moving on quickly to the 'tongue in cheek phase'; I heard, many years ago from an old sage, that he had flown with a miss-guided youth who believed that fast taxing, and via all the puddles, would cool the tyres and brakes. While this might be true for racing cars and bikes, when on dry tyres, it sure ain't true for lumbering non earth bound machines.
tara.