Hi,I'm a little confused here. I do all my final approaches manually (its just more fun that way). Once I have the field in site, and I am less than 5NM away, I disconnect the autopilot and the autothrottle and fly her in nicely....However, I understand that some of you will leave the autothrottles on and just use the yoke to control the movement, while the autothrottles maintain your VREF speed. My question is this: If you leave the autothrottles on, I know that they are automatically disconnected when you touch down. But that means that you will be flying into the tunway with the engines spooled up to maintain airspeed during the flare. Aren't you supposed to bring the engines to idle about 30 - 50 FT above the runway for the beginning of the flare?Do you at some point during or just before the flare, disconnect the autothrottles? I would like to know how the resident experts here does it.Thank you.

Far from an expert, but I

Yes, you are correct. The autothrottle will try to maintain bug speed through the touchdown and probabaly entend (float) the landing.A airplane like the 737 should be smoothly flown onto the runway. A long drawn out flare eats up runway and increases the chance of a tailstrike.Initiate the flare when the main gear is approximately 15 feet above the runway by increasing pitch attitude approximately 2-3 degrees which slows the rate of descent and disengage the autothrottles . Once in to flare, smoothly retard the thrust levers to idle. Remember, the autothrottles can always be easily overpowered by the pilot if engaged. The pilot must hold them manually in a new position, otherwise they will try to go back to the commanded thrust position.Floyd

>Remember, the autothrottles can always be easily overpowered by the pilot if engaged. The pilot must hold them manually in a new position, otherwise they will try to go back to the commanded thrust position.:).Cheers,Gosta.http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2betateam.jpg

>Do you at some point during or just before the flare,>disconnect the autothrottles? >>I would like to know how the resident experts here does it.>>Thank you.>At 50-100 feet, I punch off the SPD button but leave the autothrottle on. Then I pull the throttles to idle as I flare starting at 50 feet.I leave the autothrottle on and ARMED so that I can hit the TOGA button and go around if I need to and I won't have to worry about managing the throttles too much.

hey im not postive--but didnt i read somewhere, that if you are flying a manual landing--A/T canot be used to mantain speeed, that in a sense, its all automated or nothing. (Obviously when ur flyig with the AP, A/T can be uesd)? Does anyone know if that is true or not?

>>>>>At 50-100 feet, I punch off the SPD button but leave the autothrottle on. Then I pull the throttles to idle as I flare starting at 50 feet.I leave the autothrottle on and ARMED so that I can hit the TOGA button and go around if I need to and I won't have to worry about managing the throttles too much.:) ). Anyway, in the section on landing, you didn't mention disconnecting the SPD button......I should have figured that out though. (As the saying goes, everything is obvious to those who know where to look).Anyway, thanks for clearing that up. The only problem is that I feel like I'm flying a ScareBus now...:) Thank you.

I think if you goto www.b737.org.uk and goto Q&A there is a topic on using A/T with manual approaches.

thanks a ton, although im not the thread starter--that really clears some things up!

>>>>>I think if you goto www.b737.org.uk and goto Q&A there is a topic on using A/T with manual approaches.<<<<