A320 how to save this landing

[Chris Scott]

Hello PA,

Presume that was a typo: do you mean “PIO”? Any chance of a link to John Farley’s post? Am currently on a dial-up connection at 20kb/s, so searching difficult.

A couple of years ago, when we were discussing a Lufthansa cross-wind incident at Hamburg, you may remember the subject of sidestick technique came up? My thoughts on the avoidance of “sidestick abuse”, refined in the light of comments from others, were posted here.


Back to the main topic, and Tipsy Barossa’s post. Haven’t flown the A330, unfortunately, but don’t remember ever experiencing inadequate pitch authority in the flare on the A320 in 14 years line flying, despite the features of flare law described by Wingswinger and rudderrudderrat. On an average day, if landing is assured and the speed on target, you can even retard the throttles at 50 feet, before starting the flare (as is done for certification).

Tipsy Barossa’s other point refers to the difficulty of adding a burst of extra thrust to what the A/THR is providing, but which the throttle levers − parked in the CLB detent − are not reflecting. This facility was not available in the early days, and I’m not keen on it.

By advancing the levers the slightest amount from the CLB detent, you are effectively calling for more than climb thrust. If you actually needed and achieved that much power in the late stages of an approach, you would be going around. So it’s only the relatively slow acceleration of the big fans that enables the approach to be continued, provided you quickly return to the CLB detent. On the other hand, if you return too quickly, the energy deficit may not have been corrected. It is a very crude tool, which is one of the reasons I prefer manual thrust for manual landings.

Chris