Thrust lever

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Thrust lever of a Boeing 727

When the thrust levers (engl. Levers thrust ) of an aircraft If it is those levers with which the pushing force or the power of the engine is controlled. By pushing the push lever (s) forward, the pushing force is increased. The thrust levers are usually located in the center console or, in the case of small aircraft, under or in the dashboard (panel) of the cockpit. There they often have the shape of a pull button. The thrust levers are usually operated directly by the pilot (s) , but in a three-man cockpit also by the flight engineer , who (depending on the aircraft type) can either adjust his seat in the direction of the thrust lever or has his own thrust lever console at his workplace. In a few aircraft, the thrust levers are mounted above the pilots' heads, e.g. B. with the models DHC-4 Caribou, DHC-5 Buffalo and DHC-6 Twin Otter from de Havilland Canada or in the Zeppelin NT .

The thrust levers act mechanically via rods or cables or electrically or electronically on the actuator responsible for the power setting on the engine, such as the throttle valve of the carburetor in piston engines or the turbine governor or the FADEC .

Usually there is one throttle per engine. The three - engine MD-11 has three, and a Boeing 777 , which has two engines, has two, to name a few examples.

With the thrust levers or additional levers attached to the front, the pilots can activate the thrust reverser after touching down on the runway to support the wheel brakes . In addition, thrust levers in larger aircraft often have switches to turn off the automatic thrust control or to activate the start / go- around mode of the autopilot without having to take your hand off the levers.

In propeller engines, the lever for preselecting the speed of the controllable pitch propeller (usually in blue) is often found on the thrust console , and in the case of piston engines there is also the mixture lever or levers for setting the air / fuel mixture ratio (usually with red levers).

Automatic thrust control

In most of the larger commercial aircraft , the throttle controls are equipped with an automatic throttle control (autothrottle / autothrust), which moves them electrically. In the current Airbus models (A318 to A380), the system for automatic thrust control intervenes directly in the engine electronics; here the thrust levers are locked in various fixed positions and remain there until the automatic thrust control is deactivated again. Due to this construction, in the autothrust mode, the thrust lever position obviously does not show which thrust is currently applied and which thrust changes are occurring; these values ​​must be read from the engine data display.

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