Thanks Dan - glad to be of assistance.
Desi - you make a good point. My own experience is that the situation you describe does not happen in practice. I have had to think about this one and the conclusion I have come to is that the main problem occurs when inside 4 miles to run to the airport. At that point you can fly your own speed anyway as all previous ATC constraints are always removed. Let us say your approach speed is now 150kt instead of 125kts for the last 4nm. The chances are that in these gusty conditions the other aircraft will have put on a speed increment as well so approach speeds may be nearer. In the time it takes for the first aircraft to land (115 secs) the first aircraft will travel 4.8nm. Therefore there is less than a mile to be concerned about. The min recommended spacing is 3nm for medium to medium so you need to start at 4 miles apart to be sure. Ultimately there is nothing wrong with going around if you get too close. My basic thoughts are that this is an airmanship issue - the same problem can arise due to ATC spacing and so forth. You have to use best judgement on the day, but as I say, experience suggests this is rarely a problem. Hope that helps.
Alexban - I am not a Boeing pilot so cannot speak for the logic of their design. I can, however, say that the logic of the Airbus design is to provide the lowest safe approach speed. All it is doing is removing the thinking that the conventional pilot has. The way the conventional pilot overcomes the big gust problem is to add a 'sensible' increment onto the approach speed, which is taken to be up to 15ts generally. That increment is added automatically by the Airbus and in theory means it is one less thing to think about. As I have tried to explain, it is important to understand how the Airbus calculates its approach speed or you start to think it is some wierd and bizarre facility which takes the pilot out the loop. It is completely logical and is only doing what most other pilots do anyway. Regarding your statement that other aircraft are not unsafe so it cannot be strictly correct what I am saying, I would disagree slightly. If on a conventional aircraft the pilot does not add a safe increment to his approach speed, he is indeed in danger of stalling in extreme conditions. Any commercial pilot worth his salt would always make some sort of adjustment so Boeings are not dropping out the sky around the world! Nonetheless, like all aircraft they are capable of gross mishandling with potentially catastrophic results. The key thing is that the adding of increments is done automatically on the Airbus but on other aircraft it is left to the judgement of the individual pilot to decide on the appropriate approach speed. Both types are still aircraft and still require air over the wings to keep airborne - it is just the method of achieving that which varies. On balance, I prefer the Airbus way, but it has taken some time to get used to its strange ways!
Last edited by Norman Stanley Fletcher; 10th Mar 2008 at 11:21.