Hard landings on A330
Years ago in another life with a South East Asian air carrier, I was an eff oh on an A330 landing in DEL. It was a hot gusty afternoon and being new, I was fighting the ever changing pitch and roll movements with the sidestick.......the skipper told me to " go easy ", easier said than done! At flare altitude, with side stick flare input, nothing happened and we were still sinking like a rock. Now more sidestick pitch command to full up with nary a decrease in rate of sink! The skipper slammed the thrust levers to TOGA and away we went for a wave off........even then we touched the runway fairly hard as he took over control. He took us around for another approach with a fairly decent landing.
He then explained to me what he called " scarebus or screwbus traps "....if one fights the updrafts and abrupt pitch ups on short finals close to 100 ft RA with full side stick down inputs, the THS will trim down and when the ' flare law ' ( the THS stops trimming ) engages below 100 ft RA, there may be insufficient pitch up authority left to flare sufficiently.
It has not happened again later in my short time on the A330, but I wonder if anybody else ever experienced such lack of pitch authority on landing!