Originally Posted by Whysotough
Line training captain today told me he personally never uses V/S to increase ROD generally because it disregards speed
Training captain? Not a very good one. I do not like using Level Change/FLCH/Open Desc (I think it is called on the Airbus), when close to configuring and close to the ground. Unless you're a rocket scientist, it is hard to predict what sink rate the aircraft will develop. The beauty of VS (or FPA for the backward Jungle Jet) is that you can directly control your sink rate. If the speed starts increasing beyond desired, pull out the speedbrakes! If the workload is too high and the autothrottle then starts powering up, who cares?
The classic use of speedbrake is Intruder's scenario: capturing GS from on high. Set a controlled ROD (~1500ft) and wait for GS capture. Of course, you keep configuring as per normal - if speed reduction doesn't occur, pull out the speedbrakes. Selecting Level Change/FLCH/Open Desc is asking for very high, unknown rates of descent, which, if for some reason you miss the GS could be very scary. This also applies when high on a NPA. VS directly controls the ROD=good.
Another scenario I frequently encounter is ATC holding you up inside 20nm and then clearing you down. VS will
make the aircraft descend; the other modes do not if you are reducing speed whilst configuring. If not in VS/FPA, the aircraft only descends only when it gets to the target speed. Pulling out the SB then just makes the nose bury.
Finally, as mentioned previously, VS is
the nose-position mode. I want immediate nose response
now eg bumpy cloud approaching (or TCAS traffic): VS is the way to do it (unless you have a direct pitch mode, of course).