Thank you all for your responses. I think I get the idea. As an aside, if we were to fly the same FLCH / open descent at 250 knots, but this time the autoPILOT was still on, but the autoTHRUST was off (A/P engaged while manually moving the throttles), would the autopilot / FD still adjust pitch to maintain airspeed as I adjust the power? In other words, it sounds like while hand-flying with everything OFF, if you let everything go the airplane is basically always in a "speed-on-thrust" kind of CWS-ish mode. So while flying with the autopilot ON but using MANUAL thrust, does it behave basically like a Boeing or McD would and pitch up and down to maintain the selected speed as I move the throttles around? I know most people do not typically go flying around with A/THR off and A/P on, this is just for educational purposes (although we do it in the 717 quite a bit, but that is just because the autothrottles are slow, and tend to get somewhat "out of phase" and can fairly dramatically overcompensate in the typically very gusty conditions of our area of the world. On final it seems to work much better and give a much more stable and comfortable approach and landing just to leave the power set around 1.09-ish EPR and accept the minor speed variations, manually doing what needs to be done when the changes start to get large).
Again, thank you in advance. And TyroPicard, take it easy, buddy
! Please understand that I mean "stupid thing" as an affectionate, sarcastic American-style term of endearment. I'm sure the Airbus is much smarter than me!
