stilton
Idle reverse is a bad habit. It builds a 'muscle memory' and a mentality that has led flight crews to not use full reverse even when it is needed.
Valid point, but if you do a hands on drill and actually simulate what you are intending to do, then you retrain yourself. I always do it, before lining up a touch drill for your unlikely RTO and inflight for your landing
More than one runway overrun has been attributed to this.
exactly it was a contributing factor, but usually they did not fully deploy them after they were either hot&high and overflared
Certainly the autobrakes will 'back off' to provide the requested deceleration rate when full reverse is used.
That is fine, unless you get the reverse in at higher speeds it is far less effective anyway. Once you have selected max rev you can brake as necessary.
This allows maximum use of all braking / deceleration devices as they are most effective.
Remember when this was standard ?
I have flown with more than one FO who was afraid to use max reverse even when required, concerned he would 'break something' or use an extra 100 pounds of fuel.
Well that is a training issue as far as I am concerned. During their line training the trainers will surely have covered an important topic like that. Breaking something and fuel saving are most certainly not mentioned in a training curriculum as reasons for not using a thrust reverser. If your FO mentions those reasons on the day why not talk about it and let him have a go
I use max reverse on every landing and brake as necessary, I know you will go on about carbon brake heating, so what, who cares about the brakes when you are off the end of the runway ?
I calculate my landing distance that gives me a feel for how much extra distance is available and also what exit point is possible (sometimes ATC throws a vacate via....at you with the landing clearnce). If there is a lot of extra runway available I follow my company"s SOP, if not I use full reverse. But I mentioned it before there are many ways to accomplish the task safely. The same principles are valid for reduced thrust take offs, we don't do full rated thrust TO all the time do we?