Some in this discussion may not be aware that the BA Airbus operation had its roots in BCAL, which ordered the first ten (CFM-powered) A320s as joint launch-customer with Air France. BA had always demurred from acquiring Airbus types.
The first BCAL pilots' course started at Blagnac a few days after the sudden announcement of the BA takeover, and we fully expected it and the aircraft order to be cancelled by Boeing (sorry, British) Airways once the penny had dropped at Heathrow. In fact, following delays due to the necessity to reconfigure the type's electrical system prior to certification, the first a/c was delivered to LGW on the day that the BA AOC supplanted BCAL's (1/4/88).
The BCAL SOPs for the A320, as had been the case on our short-lived A310 operation, were in line with Airbus's as far as a/c handling was concerned, so the PF handled reverse for landings and rejected take-offs. With notable exceptions, very few BA pilots joined the fleet in the first year, although we successfully standardised a modernised version of the monitored-approach procedure.
The practice of the PNF selecting the reverse came, IIRC, sometime in the 1990s, in the interests of cross-fleet commonality. The throttles and thrust-reverse levers on the A320 are possibly the easiest to use of any jet - particularly nice compared with older, 4-engined types like the B707, on which the Boeing SOP was for the PF to select his own spoilers and reverse (the latter consecutively in symmetric pairs). No doubt BOAC had a different policy.
But, to pick up the point made by
RAT 5 above, the worst aspect of the new SOP was that the PNF selected reverse at his/her discretion, without any command from the PF. This was a policy discredited - to cite an example close to my own experience - by the accident to
G-ARTA at LGW in 1972. The a/c had been completing an empty ferry from LHR in the early hours of the morning with a very aft CG in a gusty crosswind. In compliance with the current BCAL VC10 SOP, the PNF had selected reverse as the a/c touched down - albeit heavily - and bounced. This presented the PF-captain with a
fait-accompli, and the a/c broke its back during the series of bounces that followed.
Assuming that most landings in limiting, gusty crosswinds on short runways are performed by captains, can an inexperienced co-pilot be trusted instantly to remove his/her hand from the throttles in the event of a G/A call at or immediately after touchdown?
Long in retirement, I'd nevertheless be interested to hear the story of the evolution of A380 SOPs in BA, and to what extent they may be non-common with its other fleets, including the B787.