takata, have you ever flown an Airbus ? Have you ever trained for type rating on either 320, 330, 340 or 380 ? I will tell you a ghastly secret : using manual pitch trim is one of the very first things one has to
unlearn in order to be accepted as a candidate for type rating. After which, during all operational flight hours, and during every simulator training and check, it is
verboten to touch that wheel.
CPT : A330/340 experience -> 1700hrs (plus all hours on A320 not mentioned)
F/O 1 : A320/330/340 experience -> 6500hrs
F/O 2 : A320/330/340 experience -> 2900hrs
It would seem obvious that touching that verboten wheel would have perhaps been useful. But the pilots here had
never touched it, even in benign conditions, for a total of more than 10000 hours...
Svarin, I have no idea which airline trained you, but during my initial A330 training, I clearly recall using the manual pitch trim in direct law. This is to expose the pilot in manual pitch trim and allow us to get a sense of how sensitive the pitch trim really is (and it is bloody sensitive). We fly an approach in direct law with manual pitch trim only, as part of the initial type training / exposure to the airbus flight control law, although this is not part of the regulatory requirements, it is still good to see and very good exposure.
Also on many occasion during our simulator training,our simulator instructor had told us on many occasion that when we are in the coffin corner, and if we had a approach to stall situation, with TOGA thrust being auto apply at Alpha Floor, and with THS being full trim, we might not have enough elevator authority to counter the pitch up by TOGA thrust. Therefore a small amount of forward push of the THS might be required to help with the nose pitch down for the stall recovery, 99% of the time we do not need this, but we were told it is available and do use the THS if needed.
Just my two cents!