Help with flying Airbuses

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faisal-777
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Help with flying Airbuses

Post by faisal-777 »

Hello,

It has been a while I have been playing FSX and can now easily fly any Boeing aircraft well. However, with Airbus aircrafts, I am encountering strange problems.

First of all many aircraft I downloaded (A319, A310, A340, A330) have strange behavior after takeoff. Normally a Boeing continues to fly if I leave the throttle button on my game controller as its throttle goes on increasing, that of Airbus continues to fall if I leave the button free at any time during flight. Consequently, the aircraft stalls due to low speed and falls to the ground.

Another strange observation is to keep the airbus flying, I have to keep the throttle control pushed to maximum else the stall will occur. Apart from that, sometimes, the aircraft after takeoff wont gain height slowly, rather leaving the controls free will result in aircraft going upwards vertically. I have to constantly push the elevator down to keep the aircraft horizontal.

Is there something about Airbus aircraft I am missing and need to know ? Since the problem is with multiple type of aircraft, it cannot be error in the model, rather something strange with the way Airbus aircraft behave.

Help would be much appreciated as I badly want to fly Airbus too having become bored with Boeings (despite the fact they are so awesome)
Once you have tasted flight, you will ever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward - Leonardo Da Vinci
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raihans
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Re: Help with flying airbuses

Post by raihans »

well, the problem seems to be not with any Boeing or Airbus aircrafts; instead i would say that you are not aware of flying skills completely. Have you used the AP - Autopilot console for your flights? Through Auto pilot, you can define maiinly following parameters:

- Altitude (ft)
- Verticle Speed (ft)
- Air Speed (kts)
- Auto Throttle (to be use with Air Speed settings like below FL100 / 10000 ft, Air Speed will be 250kts or less)
- Heading
- Flight Director
- NAV mode (to be use with GPS)
- Course (for approach/rwy heading)
- Approach (for following ILS glide slope / autolanding)

For engaging Autopilot, you have to ON the Autopilot Master switch. I am not that much perfect in flight and maybe some other guys expert in flight simulation can guide you much better :)
Raihan SR Bakhsh

flickr.com/photos/raihanshahzad
EY-B77W, A345, A320, A319, EK-B773, B77W, A388, FZ-B738, GF-L1011, B732, A332, A320, A319, KU-A343, AB6, A310, A320, NL-A320, PK-B707/720, B733, B772, B77L, AB4, A310, A320, QR-A320, A321, A333, A359, A35X, B77W, B788, WY-B738, B739, A333
faisal-777
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Re: Help with flying airbuses

Post by faisal-777 »

Well raihan bhai I have used autopilot and infact I use it for all of my flights.

While flying I use

Speed hold switch
Hdg hold switch
Altitude hold switch
Vertical speed limiter
Course Heading indicator
ILS frequency option
Autothrottle
Auto level

All these work perfectly fine on Boeings. Somehow, airbuses are not easy to control using Autopilot off or on
Once you have tasted flight, you will ever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward - Leonardo Da Vinci
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raihans
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Re: Help with flying airbuses

Post by raihans »

it is hard to understand then what is being wrong.

Anyhow, let me expalin about one of my recent flight that i had in the recent days. I downloaded the Project AI Airbus A321 in Gulf Air livery; started flight from Bahrain - Mumbai using the FS Passengers. As soon as i was air borne, engaged the Autopilot around 3000ft AGL and continued the rest of the flight following the ATC and my own navigation using IFR rules. The verticle speed was around 2000 ~ 2200ft for reaching to cruise atlitutude, as i crossed FL280 / 28000ft, it started loosing speed whereas my both engines were available and generating maximum power N1 to maintain the speed which was set around 300 kts; as i noted the lost of speed, i reduced the climb rate some thing around 1400ft, still the situation was not improved and the worst happened; i lost speed, got stalled and crashed somewhere between UAE & Qatar in the ocean. i tried to recover it by disengaging the Altitude hold and giving some dive for gaining speed but to no avail.

resetting the same flight again; i took off again and this time i kept my verticle speed around 1600 ~ 1800ft for climbing to cruise level and all worked well; i reached my destination as per the flight planned.
Raihan SR Bakhsh

flickr.com/photos/raihanshahzad
EY-B77W, A345, A320, A319, EK-B773, B77W, A388, FZ-B738, GF-L1011, B732, A332, A320, A319, KU-A343, AB6, A310, A320, NL-A320, PK-B707/720, B733, B772, B77L, AB4, A310, A320, QR-A320, A321, A333, A359, A35X, B77W, B788, WY-B738, B739, A333
faisal-777
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Re: Help with flying airbuses

Post by faisal-777 »

I guess you faced the same problem as me. I have tried A321, A330, A340 and A310, all with pretty much similar problems. And I am using game controller to control aircraft movements and throttle.

Also interestingly, I found that the airbus is better managed by using mouse to adjust throttle. It just doesn't response adequately to the controller inputs even with high sensitivity. When I flew A321 using mouse cursor to adjust throttle, everything went fine. However, other models like A330,A340 and A310 are still a mystery to me
Once you have tasted flight, you will ever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward - Leonardo Da Vinci
faisal-777
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Re: Help with flying airbuses

Post by faisal-777 »

OK I just successfully flew and landed an A310 :shock:

What I feel the problem is that unlike a Boeing aircraft, you have to manually set the vertical speed limit for climb/descent. For Boeing, if you select an altitude above/lower than your current altitude, vertical speed automatically gets set to a default value of 800 ft/min. For Airbus, it appears it does not. This is only speculation.

But thanks for guidance raihan bhai. I would be thankful if you can help me find A310 in PIA livery

BTW here are some snaps from the flight :mrgreen:

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Once you have tasted flight, you will ever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward - Leonardo Da Vinci
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raihans
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Re: Help with flying airbuses

Post by raihans »

glad to know that some success you got with my fav A310 at last and nice screenshots of the Uzbek A310, from the cockpit shot; it seems to be you are on approach to OPLA rwy36L :thumbs_up:

for A310 in PIA livery, there are number of freeware repaints available at flightsim.com, search for Umair Ayaz or Ahmed Ahsen and you will find a few repaints in provincial liveries. Last night i was trying for the same but did not got any latest PIA livery for Harald Nehring's A310-300 model; hopefully some one will do them as well beside the payware re-paints.
Raihan SR Bakhsh

flickr.com/photos/raihanshahzad
EY-B77W, A345, A320, A319, EK-B773, B77W, A388, FZ-B738, GF-L1011, B732, A332, A320, A319, KU-A343, AB6, A310, A320, NL-A320, PK-B707/720, B733, B772, B77L, AB4, A310, A320, QR-A320, A321, A333, A359, A35X, B77W, B788, WY-B738, B739, A333
faisal-777
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Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:02 pm

Re: Help with flying Airbuses

Post by faisal-777 »

Thanks, I am going to search flightsim.

One more question, for Airbus cockpits, what should be done after you have entered the ILS frequency and omnibearing selector ? Do I need to activate the Approach Hold Switch or LOC one ? Asking because I have done ILS landings with Boeings but somehow Airbus aircrafts are not changing direction to line up with runway with ILS
Once you have tasted flight, you will ever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward - Leonardo Da Vinci
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raihans
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Re: Help with flying Airbuses

Post by raihans »

Yes you have to engage the APP - Approach hold switch and ensure that the COURSE heading is the heading (degrees) of the rwy you are approaching for landing like for OPLA / rwy 36R, rwy heading is 360 so your COURSE should be 360 on the autopilot console. Moreover, you should be some 10NM from rwy and at appropriate altitude to execute the approach.
Raihan SR Bakhsh

flickr.com/photos/raihanshahzad
EY-B77W, A345, A320, A319, EK-B773, B77W, A388, FZ-B738, GF-L1011, B732, A332, A320, A319, KU-A343, AB6, A310, A320, NL-A320, PK-B707/720, B733, B772, B77L, AB4, A310, A320, QR-A320, A321, A333, A359, A35X, B77W, B788, WY-B738, B739, A333