Originally Posted by Avionista
My question is: under what circumstances would a pilot put one (or more) of his aircraft's engines into MAX REVERSE if his intention was not to make a full stop landing?
Yes, Avionista, you're quite right to ask that in my view - it is a question Airbus will eventually have to address very seriously. Indeed, I hope that it is ALREADY being addressed. There is a real hole in their control logic.
As I mentioned earlier, the 'logic' - or, in this case, 'lack of logic' - of the flight control system appears to be:-
1. On the one hand, it appears to 'assume' that the pilot intends to land to the extent of allowing the deployment of reverse thrust.
2. On the OTHER hand it appears to 'assume' that the pilot does NOT intend to land in a much more serious way, by preventing the deployment of ground spoilers and the operation of autobraking.
And there is no manual override available to the pilots, especially in the vital area of spoilers.
One remedial measure - the panel warning that one T/L is above idle - has already been put forward by Airbus, and adopted by TAM. But plenty of people on here seem to feel that 'extra warnings' may not work. And the basic anomaly - that once the wheels are down, the pilots can select reverse thrust even though some forward power has been left on, but NOT ground spoilers - will remain.
Personally, I'd favour returning manual control of the ground spoilers to the pilot once the aeroplane is on the ground. Selection of reverse thrust clearly implies an intention to land/pull up.
As a matter of interest, is the A320 the only Airbus design where extension of the ground spoilers cannot be carried out manually, and even auto-deployment is dependent on both throttles being at 'idle'?
Or are all their types designed that way?