On Feb 7, 1:20*am, Amine wrote:
How come the first officer (with over 5500 hrs
with that type of aircraft) made such a decision to deploy spoilers
while still in the air? What else, when full flaps and idle power
aren't enough, can a pilot use to handle a too high/too fast final
approach if not deploy spoilers?

Dudley got this one right (Go Around), but it is kinda a loaded
question because you cannot use flight spoilers or airbrakes beyond
certain flap settings . So if you had landing flaps, spoilers are not
an option. In the older jets you would get a warning horn if you had
any flaps deployed. The best thing to do when you are to high is to
get into the landing configuration early because this will cut the
ground speed and give you the best decent rate over a given distance.

As a side question, what is the functional difference between spoilers
and airbrakes?

Nothing. The current Boeing manuals make a distinction between
airbrakes and ground spoilers because not all of them deploy in
flight. Some only deploy on the ground during landing rollout or RTO.
As a side note the flight spoilers augument roll control when you pass
10 degrees of aileron deflection (This makes Xwind takeoffs
interesting). Hope this helps,
FB