Think i'll stick to a proper boeing for now!
I didn't spend years learning to fly to allow autothrust to screw me over.

Whatever happened to one hand on the yoke and the other on the TL's, we're all pilots for goodness sake! Am sick of all these airlines, mine included trying to take the pilot out of flying.

I was going to add my thoughts but G SPOT's will do.

The Boeing boys are obviously all right, no Boeing has ever had a hard landing!

1 out of a bezillion Airbus approaches results in a hard landing and the design is all wrong. They walked away, no one hurt and the aircraft may need a gear change.

First, how do we know the Autothrust had anything to do with it? After all if it is gusty, you could always add a few knots on if it were required.

Second, I think the Autothrust response was a tad better than the BA777! I know, lets blame fuel iciing whilst we await to find out what happened.

Touched a nerve Ghostly?

If you care to read correctly, it was a AB guy (jshg) who brought up the AT theory. Sure enough this hardy must not necessarily be of a AT origin, but I stepped in to reconfirm my ever sceptical comments on the "fixed" design.
To compare with the LHR/777 incident just shows some incompetence, as such a thing (demand with no response) can happen in any design, no connection to fixed or moving levers.

Once again: Give me ONE situation where the fixed solution is superiour, or proves to be a advantage over the moving one, and we can start debating. I have not found one. On the other hand there are some examples that would have been picked up or corrected easier with the moving design. The argument that you can fly manual thrust, and many many more AB pilots do that compared to the other bunch, only proves that theres a issue.

Happy flying on any design, each one has it's flaws. The pros just recognize them and deal with them. The fans who deny them unconditionally scare me, just as the manufacturers who never admit and correct to a better design.

Gretch,

Nope, no nerves to touch. I cannot understand why you are wittering on about autothrust when it had nothing to do with the incident. I have no interest in the Bus / Boeing debate but I do have an interest in this particular incident.

If we go Bus/ Boeing lets follow the logic. Why not blame the table too. Because they can actually dine properly, Airbus pilots are better fed and therefore fatter. So maybe the jet had more inertia than a Boeing would have had and the pilot failed to take it into account and flared too little. On a 14hr flight, every bus pilot will tell you that the table is the best invention ever to come into aviation, right up there with the microwave and toaster.


Alternatively a good guy could just have made a mistake in quite challenging conditions flying into a relatively short field for the 330. Maybe he was trying to land it in the right place to avoid a float with heavy braking and flared a tad late. Maybe there was a bit of windshear across the hangars or maybe he was new to the jet or the seat.

After all, if there was such an extreme loss of energy at low altitude, maybe the fix isn't to rescue a now unstable approach, it is to go around. If he'd known about it before hand, he could have changed the flap setting, added some knots or maybe even gone manual thrust if the autothrust couldn't cope.


But, you are right, none of those factors could possibly have affected a Boeing pilot. New pilots instantly slip into the seat and make faultless landings in the most extreme conditions just because the throttles move!

Ghost

This problem mainly seems to happen on calm days,but you cannot predict that it will happen every time.Wind across the hangars or any other phenomena that will give a wind shift seem to be part of the cause.The A330 athr is very lax at low altitude and it will quite happily bring the power back to idle,and ignore a decay in speed.It just means that you need to be ready for a go around below 100ft.Something that you would not expect to do on a nice calm day when you have been cleared to land.

:}
Gretchenfrage
Another little inconvenient: Try doing your little trick below 100 feet, and that's where most of us would be likely to do it to save the landing, and with the fantastic AB logic ..... you end up with GA thrust!!!! Definitely not what you intended methinks.

In fact it is limited to climb power to be correct... a little knowledge is as dangerous....:ugh:

Flappy, you don't get the point, maybe just don't want to, so be it and rest.

Silky.
I might be wrong, but i seem to recall that if you select above CL detent below 100ft, you engage GA mode. No books no more, so i take it you're right. Sorry.

Silky
 

Actually, below 100' AGL if you move the thrust levers forward of the CLB detent the A/THR disconnects. To select TOGA or GA thrust as you call it, the thrust levers must be moved into the TOGA detent (except in the case of alpha floor protection of course).

Let us file this one away until it happens to another 330 or Airbus finally do something about the athr logic!

Quite right. All aircraft have good and bad points - I can think of several of both on the 737!
I enjoy flying the 330 - I've even surprised myself by not missing the moving TLs - but the autothrust logic below 400 ft remains its Achilles Heel in my mind.

One all!
 

I have flown the 744 and the 330/340.

I reckon Boeing wins in the A/thr category (even though I now like the AB A/Thr system, it certainly can get you into trouble).

AB though wins hands down with the sidestick and table VS the conventional Boeing yoke!

744 feels and is more solid in most departments but it is noisy as hell on the flightdeck when compared to the AB family.

It's a draw. 2-2

:}

I believe there was quite a heavy landing at Manchester last night with a
B747 which has managed to drag 3 engines on the ground, mind you that weather last night was not very friendly and was glad I only had to get out of the car ,even then elected to leave the shopping in the boot until later

Respect to anybody flying last night in those winds which from on the ground seemed some of the worst I have seen due to the gusts and direction across the runway

Ian

I landed a 321 last night with the wind 34 kt gusting 48 kt, fortunately with little cross wind. The autothrust and mini groundspeed worked a treat.

I've been flying airbus 340/330 now for 10 years and i have always been amazed at how the French logic seems to be one of "whats it doing now"!!!

I have found that flying into a strong headwind for landing that although the airbus gives us ground speed mini, which protects us in case of a large loss of airspeed, that it doesnt help much when we get down below 200' and getting ready for the landing. After a number of occasions when coming into land with strong headwinds and running out of backstick as the plane sinks rapidly during the last 100', that i now either fly with manual thrust or I bug up Vapp by at least another 5kts, which seems to work really well.

I am sure that there are lots of ways to skin this cat, these are just what i prefer to use, however, if below 100' the airbus sinks quite rapidly and you start feeling your pucker squeezing, why not push the thrust levers into the GA detent, which is right up there near the firewall, go around, sit in the hold while you calm yourself and then give it another go!!!

Tally Hoo

An info about the ATHR logic below 400ft.
The GS mini caries extra speed for gusts and wind change (basically it sustain the same total energy during the approach).
Those extra knots (Actual headwind - tower headwind (the one inserted in the FMGS)) are reduced for about 2/3 below 400 ft (this is done in 25 seconds) in order to land with reasonable Ground speed.
This is why you feel a change in the ATHR reaction below 400. It becomes a little bit sluggish and slow.
An Air France 340 undershoot a runway few years ago in Cayenne (french guyanne) because of a shear on very short final (around 100ft) while in managed ATHR. The low SPEED warning was not even triggered. The aircraft suffered minor gear damages.

Found if I add 2-3kts to the vapp on the perf page, its normally enough to keep the managed speed bug off the Vls hook, since you do not get into the Vls area you do not get the autothrust surging back and forth.

Dear Industry

Give me a T7 with its systems, no RRs please but GEs, with a MD11 cockpit-logic, replace the yoke with a side-stick, but one with feedback, add the table and make it all for the heavily discounted price of a 340.

Voila, i'm going!

Would that be a Boeing MD-40? :)

Che Guevara
To a point I agree except that the implication was that any movement engaged TOGA in fact it is limited by the TLA and of course Alfa floor is no longer available in the above mentioned case as we are below 100ft...:}