Originally Posted by
DC8DRIVER
From the report:
"According to Airbus, the RETARD alert is designed to occur at 20 ft radio altitude on landing and advise the pilot to reduce the thrust levers to idle. "
Now, I don't fly a bus and never have ... but is this REALLY the level of automated assistance that we, as professional pilots, are required to have these days to simply fly a plane??? Being told to "Retard" the thrust levers on landing??
In an Airbus autoland, the thrust will automatically come back to idle while the thrust levers themselves will still be in the climb detent (they dont move themselves, only the pilot flying can move them). The RETARD callout is a reminder to physically bring the levers to idle as the auto spoiler logic requires the levers to be in the physical idle position before the spoilers deploy. It's basically an aural input in place of a disagree light--they don't want you to override spoiler deployment and invalidate your landing data.