Autoland limitation A320 - fail passive
 

Hi everybody!

The company I fly for operates A319, A320 & A321s.

Can anybody please explain me why the 319 & 321 have the certification to fly single engine AL approaches in config 3 & FULL, while the A320 has only the approval to fly the same in config FULL only?

Did Airbus simple forget to do the certification flights back in the 80's or is there a technical reason behind?

Thanks in advance,

W.

Aircraft manufacturers don't "forget" to spend large sums of money and a great deal of time in certifying something.


Your question can be answered thus: $

...and why spend these large sums for the 319 & 321 if there is no reason behind? Still wondering...

Normally it's because someone asked and paid for it.

Same reason the E170/175/190/195 are all certified to different levels of CAT ll CAT lll A/L HUD3A.

It just depends on customer request.

Wireflyer: Please note that twin A/P autolands ie. Fail Operational allow the use of both Conf3 and FULL for autolands on all the variants A319,A320,A321
My guess would be that since the 319 and 321 are much newer variants then Airbus simply decided to not `revisit` the certification process and leave this anomaly in place.
Remember the A320 was certificated in 1982!

The 767 was a few years before that with fail-operational autoland and three autopilots.

The L-1011 was certified with fail-operational autoland circa 1970.

...only about 6 years out!

Squatter - Thanks for the timeline correction. The only point that I was making was that the A320 predated the other variants by many years and thus Airbus`s view about Conf3 + FULL certification may have changed.

As to the other `colonial` poster - what has the L1011 or B767 got to do with this post!! If you insist on `willy waving` then I am sure you will remember that the DH121 aka Trident, Belfast, VC10 not to mention the B747 had similar capabilities!

Twin APs? I don't think so.

The 757, for example, has L R and C = three channels, the minimum reqd for Cat 3.

Airbus has AP1 and AP2; both twin channel = four APs.

True.

I always thought the A320 had two autopilots, each one with a command channel and a monitor channel. Monitor channels can't fly the aircraft - so still only 2 autopilots. But they do count towards the required number for fail operational.

Dunno. The 737 allways had only 2 autopilots and happily flew CAT 3a with that since the classics and nowadays CAT IIIb or single engine CAT IIIa.