Originally Posted by
reddog25
Yes...the same is true for the 320s...especially at lighter weights. The approach speeds at lighter weights are so slow that if you are not agressive with the speed brakes and gear (THE BIG SPEED BRAKE) you will not be stable at 1000' and will be doing a go-around.
That wastes a lot more fuel than configuring early
Was giving OE to a F/O who came off the -88 and was used to configuring later. After our go-around at CVG he realized that a G/A was more work than configuring early
Reddog,
Just to make sure no one misunderstands what I was saying earlier...
I am not saying you should delay configuring and put meeting the stabilized approach criteria in jeopardy. I'm simply saying that you should configure no earlier than necessary to meet this criteria. Otherwise, you are wasting fuel for no reason. Of course, experience with the aircraft makes a big difference here too. If someone is new on an aircraft, they will need to configure earlier than someone who has more experience. I think it would be really helpful if LCA's would demonstrate this so that a new guy can see exactly where that zone is between configuring too early and too late. Might not be a bad idea to do it in the sim during training as well. A short demo of this probably wouldn't take 10 minutes of sim time.