"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote in message
...
On 2/25/04 7:23 AM, in article , "Keith
Willshaw" wrote:


"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote in message
...
On 2/25/04 3:32 AM, in article , "Keith
Willshaw" wrote:



Nope, and admittedly I'm telling tales out of school because I haven't
flown
one nor studied up on it, but it does have some funky engine failure
throttle automation (which I don't understand).


So you are criticising a system without knowing anything about it.
Autothrottles are scarcely a rarity and the installation on the A-300
can be turned off so the crew has full authority, just as on Boeing
aircraft.


I've got time in lots of jets with autothrottles, so spare me the
preaching
to the choir. I bring up the autothrottle issue on the Airbus because of
their famous mishap with a jet that turned out to be the "world's most
expensive chainsaw" a few years back.

Which was an A-320 not A-300 and happened because the pilot
was flying in manual mode , THE AUTOTHROTTLE WAS OFF


That same throttle automation was
responsible for a Russian Airbus doing a wingover about 10 years ago too.


No that was due to the Russian pilot having his son sitting in the left
hand seat and allowing the kid to turn the control wheel while the autopilot
was engaged. The conflict ended up with the autopilot disengaging
when control forces reached more than 12 kg

Not only was a kid in the left hand seat but the co-pilot was distracted
and had his seat pushed right back and the aircraft went into 90 deg
bank, pitched up stalled and spun in. No autothrottle was involved

To me, the no-greater-than-60-degrees-AOB feature on the A320 is
disturbing.
The pre-supposition by the folks at Airbus seems to be that the pilot
needs
to be kept in a box because he's incapable of staying there on his own.


Given that both accidents you mention were the result of pilot error
and large numbers of people died they may have a point.

Keith