Originally Posted by
EI_DVM
All that being said, despite the extra margin being provided by G/S Mini and the VAPP increments in strong headwinds, I've always found the Auto-Thrust, both on the A330 and A320 to let you down at the worst possible moment. It can often get itself out of sync with the gusts and the speed and result in an automatic form of PIO......
Personally I've always found manual thrust the best option on both the A320 and A330 when landing in blustery conditions, it allows better anticipation of speed drops and gains and allows for local knowledge to be applied, as is often known about different airports, such as passing a certain hangar or passing by a certain ditch. It allows you to maintain current thrust setting in areas where you know a gain in airspeed will be short lived and soon die off (whereas auto-thrust would reduce thrust and then whack it back on as the speed bleeds off) or in the case of Schipol, manual thrust allows you to anticipate the drop in speed you often get in the last 40-80 feet as you descend below the tree line.
You sound like you know what you're doing and I certainly agree about local conditions caused by hangars etc, but you have misquoted the Airbus G/S mini as reducing thrust with a sudden headwind. I always get slightly nervous when people talk of overriding or preventing G/S mini, which of course will
increase thrust if the headwind and therefore the IAS increases, to maintain the ground speed and the energy. i.e., It reacts the opposite way round to the Boeing system.
A320 Auto-Thrust performs reasonably well 90% of the time but the A330 auto-thrust in particular can often let you down for whatever reason, be it the larger engines and inertia, or just a different software gain/adjustment for counteracting airspeed reductions.
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Yes, I believe the older A330s do not increase the auto-thrust gains below 3,000' ? Hence you need to be ready to intervene - on hot convective days for example. I have only ever had to do that twice though in years of flying it.