Re: A380 Aerial shots
I vaguely remember reading that flare mode varies between types. The A320 does this (see e.g.
http://www.ntsb.gov/Dockets/Aviation/DCA09MA026/419190.pdf) but have a vague memory of reading somewhere that the A330 does not.
The whole point of the Airbus philosophy is that the aircraft all do the same thing. Otherwise conversions between type will take longer.
The extract you're looking at is not the aircraft flight manual, but rather the 'flight crew training manual'. Normally the flight manual tells you all about the nuts and bolts, whilst the flight crew training manual will tell you the practical application.
One issue that I have with them is their manuals. They are easily the worst that I have ever seen. And I'm not just talking Boeing here. The USN Natops was vastly superior. I suspect that the CT4 manual was better. They are full of blurb, almost marketing. Misspelling, grammar errors, and just plain piss poor writing. I'm told it was written in French, translated to German, and then translated again to English. In any event, the ultimate result is less than wonderful. From what I'm told by people who've flown the A330/340, the A380 flight manual is simply the A330 one, with the aircraft name changed.
Anyway, that's just been a long winded way of saying that I don't really believe that the content of of the paragraph on Flare Mode in your reference is what actually happens.
The flight mode changes to flare mode when the aircraft passes 50 feet RA as it descents to land.
Ok, no problem with that.
The system memorises the attitude at 50 feet, and that attitude becomes the initial reference for pitch attitude control.
That's a bit of a bugger if I've just made a pitch correction, and happen to be slightly above, or below the normal attitude.
As the aircraft descends through 30 feet, the system begins to reduce the pitch attitude, reducing it to 2° nose down over a period of 8 seconds. This means that it takes gentle nose-up action by the pilot to flare the aircraft.
It isn't reducing the pitch
attitude at all. What it is doing is giving the aircraft a gradually increasing
tendency to pitch down. The timing of this starts basically at the flare/thrust lever closure, and emulates the pitch down effect that non FBW aircraft have as their speed reduces. At this point the aircraft will be in direct law in pitch, so it no longer attitude holds. If it actually REDUCED the pitch attitude, then you'd only get one landing out of each aircraft. It's trying to emulate the speed stability of normal aircraft (i.e. go slower, nose pitches down, go faster, it pitches up).
In pilot terms, this means that the aircraft is stable, and will stay where you put it, until you get really close to the ground, at which point the rules change, and it then requires a quite different technique to actually do the flare.
