1. The speed excursion you speak about is excess energy. You reduce thrust to manage that excess energy.
The speed excursion itself is caused by a combination of pitch and mass inertia. But you should realise that the vertical speed also has to increase as the speed increases to maintain that 3 degree path. After all if you would fly twice as fast down the glide your ROD would need to be twice as fast as well.
ie. if I normally fly to the runway in 4 minutes at 700 ft/min I would need to descent at 1400ft/min if I fly the same distance over the ground in 2 minutes. This is also true on a smaller scale.
So clearly then thrust manages both speed and vertical speed.
I like to think the thrust manages the total energy and the pitch manages the path (which is both speed and vertical speed).
The increase in speed and vertical speed is just a symptom of excess energy.
Oh and offcourse as soon as you are at minimum or maximum power (running out of additional energy so to speak) , pitch still controls the path (airspeed and vertical speed).
2. The flare is a pitch AND energy management maneuvre.
The ground effect tends to add energy to the aircraft, which without thrust reduction would lead to either an increase in speed or t0o much reduced vertical speed. Which we don't want for landing distance reasons.
Again I'm not contradicting anything that is said in the FCTM. It just explains what is happening.
Last edited by 737Jock; 31st Mar 2014 at 01:18.