"Michael Zaharis" wrote...

The autothrottle was not the issue on the Airbus "tree harvesting"
accident at Mulhouse. High-bypass engines take a finite amount of time
to spool up, autothrottle or not. If you get too low, too slow, then
decide to goose the throttle too late, you won't get the thrust you need
in time, regardless of the throttle mapping.

It's not only a function of high-bypass engines! The J-65 engines in the older
model A-4s had about a 13-second spool-up time, and the centrifugal-flow engines
in the old F-9s were even worse!

Some people were spoiled by the J-85, J-79 and other later-generation turbojets
that had great spool-up times. The J-52 was not as good, but a far cry better
than the J-65! The high-bypass turbofan just took ONE engine performance factor
back to the "stone age" of jet propulsion...