Originally Posted by
thetimesreader84
Does your company permit manual thrust landings?
I find that all Airbus (Airbii?) Have a tendancy to sometimes give you a wallop of thrust right when you dont want it approaching the flare if using the auto thrust. On the rest of the single aisle types it's not a big deal as the FBW magic takes care of most of it, but on the 321n you're in (effectively) Direct Law for landing. This gives you a pitch - power couple and can destabilise the approach in the last 100' or so.
Other than being alive to the possibility & keeping the engine instruments in your scan, I don't know a good way around it (my company won't allow manual thrust landings in normal operations).
Not saying you are doing this, but what I see a lot of newer FOs do:
Keep AT ON, IAW SOP.
Start flare a little early.
Don't start to retard until (well) after starting flare.
What
invariably will happen:
AT is in speed mode, flare is started, speed drops, AT adds thrust (speed mode), long landing and/or hot brakes follows.
When I ask why they added power in the flare they always answer they didn't.....
When I land with AT on, I will normally bring the PLA back to around 1.05EPR/50%N1 as soon as I hear "50". This will prevent the AT from adding more power than I need. But you still have the AT on, and this low you will not get a warning that the levers aren't in the detent. From there on fly it like it is an airplane....
Even if your company does not allow manual thrust landings, according to AB you have to retards LATEST with the retard call, not EARLIEST. So you should definitely start reducing PLA as soon as you start the flare (and IMO before that).