What is TOGA (TO/GA)... yes I know, n00b question

Takeoff/Go Around

It's not a noob question, either. 🙂

Think of it in terms of a car, as shifting down, maintaining high RPM, lots of power, power to spare. Not surprisingly, you use TO/GA for.. take-offs and go arounds =p Situations where losing an engine could mean a crash. Thus, you push the engines to the maximum - for a short time. Crude explanation, I apologize, but I hope it helps.

Thanks everyone

So are you saying that it is a button that basically just pushes the engines to max, so it shares the same function with the F4 key in Flight Sim??

So in real world aviation... does the TO/GA button do any damage in the long run to the engines?? I mean if you have to press that button instead of yanking the throttles up by "the lever"

I thought that TO/GA was part of the autothrottle. When enaged it sets the correct N1 for takeoff i.e. enough power to get airbourne but not more than is neccessary, to conserve both fuel, money and engine wear. Thats not neccessarily maximum power, it depends on the weight of the plane and other values. In first generation aircraft it was calcualted by the flight engineer, but nowadays its all automated. I might be wrong. 😉

It won't do any damage to the engines, but it would if they operated at that power (above 100% N1) for lengthy periods. Throttles shouldn't be kept at above 95% for longer than a few minutes because it isn't good for them. It isn't dangerous to do so if you do it occasionally but it is bad practice 😉

Operating the engines at maximum for long periods of time will damage them yes. TOGA does not necessarily run them at full power, it's not a throttle setting, it's rather a storage of dynamic energy in case it's needed. As I said, it's like running a car at a lower gear and higher power, not necessarily pushing the pedal to the metal, if you see what I mean.