Whilst I read the Airbus will auto stow the speedbrakes with thrust above MCT.
I believe the B767 will not...
Because of the potential danger of reduced climb performance caused by this design feature in an attempted goard or pull up manouver requireing full power... the Gf SOPs for the 767 in my day required the handling pilot to always keep his hand attached to the speedbrake lever if he was useing speedbrake until he restowed the speedbrake lever totally... then he could let go of it. Partial speed brake was not to be used...smoothly use the lot or not at all..was also GF SOP.
The general idea was I believe to avoid the full application of thrust ever being used with the speedbrakes deployed fully or even partially with a steep climb being wanted...i.e. You were never to forget speedbrakes were deployed and would not auto restow.
I think the AA pilots B767 at Cali unfortunately ended up in this undesireable configuration...after being offered and deciding to accept the ATC option to change their minds to a shortend track miles to touchdown straight in approach...they had previously planned and briefed for a more gentle overhead procedure as published on the approach plate.
Probably they thought they had a valid reason to brief for one approach and then attempt another at short notice....they fully deployed the speedbrakes to increase the aircraft rate of descent at night into a high terrain area to try and achieve this new approach descent profile and it appears they left the speedbrakes deployed until they crashed... they were also not really sure of their exact position when asked by ATC... later attempting an escape manouvre they hit the hills I believe with power fully on..nose pitched up...speedbrakes fully deployed..then their luck ran out.
Regarding L1011 DLC....I was told DLC had to be fitted because it was desireable the aircraft retained the Glideslope with a constant pitch attitude and provided a consistant pilot runway picture on a visual approach and a constant point of reference when looking for the runway in LVP.
If I remember correctly there was a required pilots seat back angle and position on landings and also a pilot eye locater devise to ensure a consistant view to both pilots...it also helped them to reach nearly all of the knobs and switches they might need.
DLC was also required to ensure the L1011 would land within the limits require for auto land certification at the correct autoland runway touchdown point.
Monitoring and ensuring the correct ADI pitch attitude on the glidescope was important to L1011 pilots.
On an autoland approach an Auto throttle drive failure was not announced as a failure to the pilots or flight engineer... and had to be picked up by crew monitoring.
With an Auto throttle drive failure the glide slope was retained by the coupled auto pilot and the pitch attitude would slowly and silently increase and the IAS would slowly then not so slowly bleed off...if this situation was not noticed and immediatly corrected with positive manual power application and the correct pitch attitude and speed regained or a goard performed you would next see an alpha flag and next a stall warning which might wake you up...if not Gf SOP was... the flight engineer gave you full power... the f/o pressed toga and manually flew the aircraft to a safe MSA..
In this situation GF SOPS (as ammended) required the flight service supervisor (female if you were lucky) to immediately enter the cockpit useing her axcess key... and bite the end off the Captains cock...and to inform the Captain that this service was on behalf of GF ops. management for being such a piss poor Captain..... National Captains as you would expect got a blow job... and a promotion for handling the situation so well.
A L1011 manual or autoland landing attempt with a pitch up attitude of I believe more than 11degrees was likely to result in an expensive tail strike
and a revisit from the flight service supervisor.
Last edited by 40&80; 25th Jul 2008 at 21:42.