The tail plane exerts an enourmous DOWNWARD vector of lift on the aircraft (on an A320 somewhere around 40,000 lbs of force are applied DOWN on the tail to keep the nose in a steady state) That 40,000 lbs of downward force is required to be overcome by the wings as lift in addition to the weight of the aircraft inorder to lift the whole kit and kaboodle off the ground.
When you "push over" you instantly lighten the aircraft by some percentage (rather large) of that 40,000lbs. That will have a momentary lifting effect on the aircraft before the reducing angle of attack overcomes it and the aircraft starts down hill. It is quite noticable.
I don't have any figures to hand but a downforce of 40,000lbs on the tail sounds rather a lot for an aircraft of only 93,000lbs empty weight? Is the aircraft so out of balance on the final approach it needs this huge corrective input?
Also, if these figures are true and you are reducing this amount by
a rather large percentage the pitch-down couple is going to be huge
Help! We need some aerodynamicists!
I like
safetypee's response best:
The nearest generic procedure that I have seen is a combination of sharp pull, check, and immediately remove what you put in (push), with a touch of thrust. Then for a co-pilots landing, a firm hand preventing further rearward stick movement with a thrust increase.
I wonder what would happen if you omitted the 'push' from that sequence of events? Probably not much in terms of the firmness of the landing but maybe you are lessening the chances of a tailstrike by reducing/holding the attitude just prior to touchdown. Maybe
that is what this was all about to begin with?