writes:

It is a poor design. It is a dangerous design. It adds a barrier to
the pilot. Moving the throttle handles should always result in a
direct control of the engines. Pushing the autothrottle disconnect
button should not be necessary to accomplish this. The backdriven
handles on the Boeing airplanes is far safer than the A320
implementation.

I'm surprised anyone would argue otherwise. Clearly, it makes more
sense to have the handles move when the autothrottle adjusts them, so
that the pilot always knows where they are. It also makes sense that
the pilot should be able to control the throttles directly at all
times. He might sense resistance from the autothrottle actuator, but
he could still override it.

An Airbus is worse than Microsoft Flight Simulator. When I engage
autothrottle on the sim, the throttles don't move, but at least if I
grab them and move them, the sim responds. In an Airbus I could only
watch the terrain approach in the window, and I wouldn't be able to
restart the flight after the crash.

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