Prior to the arrival of the A321, the use of manual thrust lever use on the Airbus Fleet was encouraged, when appropriate. There was a concern that with the longer body of the A321 a low speed event on approach would lead to a higher chance of a tail scrape on landing - a view borne out by the history of tail scrapes on the A321 of other operators. There was a heated debate with most of the trainers and line crew on one side and a few key managers on the other as to the future and how to should proceed with the introduction of the A321. The managers, with the typical "I've made my mind up now I will pretend to consult experts" approach decided they knew best, ignored all advice and went ahead with the ban on the use of A/T on the bus fleet.
A few years later the official line had changed and the management could now "prove" it was safer as they had had significantly fewer low speed events across the bus fleet since the introduction of this policy. It could be proven statistically. A poor argument at best as the stats will also conclusively prove that if you never fly there are zero low speed events and that is much safer. What the managers have actually done is mis-employ a little bit of NUTA; they noticed a problem, they understood the problem may lead to an increased likelihood of a tail scrape and they thought ahead and put in place a way to avoid the problem. All the time failing to understand that the use of manual thrust is not an inherently dangerous practice, but deliberately deskilling your pilot work force is.
Put another way, the managers identified a potential weakness in the skill set of their pilots and then decided to train IN that weakness. To deliberately re-enforce the potential failure, to strengthen the likelihood, following a failure of the system of a dangerously low speed event. A sim requirement for triennial currency? No substitute for daily competence. Surely by this flawed logic pilots should be banned from any form of manual flying.
Last edited by Juan Tugoh; 18th Aug 2015 at 08:22.