Hey guys, I wanted to ask you if anybody knows how to disable the autopilot pitching down,
when flaring the A320. I’ll upload a video, showing my problems with landing the aircraft.
Its twitchy and makes it very hard to control the flare. Can you disable that in CFG?
I’d appreciate it if anybody can help. You can see my stick movement below.
Pulling back a 100% and not getting any nose up.
Other times its instantly dramatic and a very fast sudden movement…
Assuming you had full flaps down, you’re pretty close to the stall speed for the A320. If you didn’t have full flaps down, I think that means your stall speed is even higher.
But there may be other A320 experts here that can give you a better answer since I’m not the best with the A320 either.
It looks like you pull the throttle back too early, way before the RETARD prompt.
That will produce a downward moment, especially if you chop it like that. Decrease the throttle gently and flare against the loss of lift to get your rate of descend down to something less bone crunching.
Since the autopilot is not engaged in your video, how would it influence your landing? I don’t think the FBW is actually simulated to that degree. Without knowing your weights, you might have been close to stall speed and throttled back too early and too high, resulting in a not so subtle drop.
It’s also possible you ballooned and and landed nose down because of your speed being too high. It seems like you almost touch down the nose wheel first, which is a big no no. Hard to tell from the short clip.
I find it generally harder to judge my height in the arliners in MSFS. Something I did not feel in older sims. I think they have actually reproduced the feeling of “sitting high up” pretty well and it’s better to trust your radar altimeter and the systems first and foremost.
It’s hard for me to look at for sure, but it looks like you’re approaching too fast… and very unstable. I don’t have the same issue as you do, but this is pretty much how I do my landings most of the time which is using a different procedure:
I’m also on Modern flight model… Not legacy.
I have a short question, which is absolutely off topic, but maybe you can help me anyway.
Where in the settings do I find the option to have the ATC texts displayed as a subtitle? I saw it on several videos, but I guess I am too dumb to find it.
Thank you in advance!
Audio or accessibility settings. Find a setting named like ATC Subtitles(not sure what)
First, it looks like you have a 12 kt tailwind which would make the plane twitchy.
Contrary to a previous poster, I think you will find that you are way too fast.
If you notice the red portion of your speed tape (the stall zone), it is around 110.
You should be just above striped stall area to land, in your case, about 124
The speeds the FCU sets are way too fast in the default.
I find the mod much better, but still a bit fast.
In your case, I would be approaching at about 128 at that altitude.
You are about 143, that’s going to make a big difference in the attitude of the plane, making it more nose down.
Also, it seems you are giving a couple of tugs on the yoke at 30 feet rather than a gentle steady pull back.
Good luck!
VREF Landing speed was 138 Knots, I was flying (as you can see) between 140 and 150 Knots,
so well above landing speed. I would say I’m comfortable with landing airliners in general,
at least I’m thankful for over 3000 hours in flight simming and a recorded average landing
rate of -167fpm on 357 recorded flights for my VA.
Its not a problem in the 747 though.
The real Airbus also trims the stabilizer down slightly so positive sidestick input is necessary during flare, even on the real aircraft. I agree that FS2020 does not simulate this effect very accurately.
Second of all, the RETARD callout is not necessarily the point to chop the power, its is fine to select IDLE before the RETARD prompt depending on speed and glide path, the RETARD callout is merely there as a reminder.
Then the thrust levers on an Airbus NEED to be pulled from the CLB detent to the IDLE detent promptly. Pulling the thrust levers back slowely will increase thrust as the thrust levers on the Airbus are in a fixed postion.
Flare mode
This mode is automatically engaged when the radar altimeter indicates 100 feet above ground. At 50 feet the aircraft trims the nose slightly down. During the flare, normal law provides high-AOA protection and bank angle protection. The load factor is permitted to be from 2.5g to −1g, or 2.0g to 0g when slats are extended. Pitch attitude is limited from −15° to +30°, and upper limit is further reduced to +25° as the aircraft slows.
It’s hard to see, but it seems that you plane is fairly heavy. I see that there’s a 5 digits number for fuel and GW seems to be around 60 tonnes?
I don’t thik that MSFS currently simulates weight and corresponding speed very well. In my experience, you are better of with flying (end especially landing) the aircraft at much lower weights.
Perhaps if you were going a little faster (before pulling the stick back)it looks like it could have been perfect (maybe you needed to arrest the descent slightly but didn’t have the airspeed/power available at the critical moment. (IS your autothrottle OFF? if so maybe you needed a touch more power before touchdown)
maybe a software stutter/lag (ie the software has ignored some of your joystick input because there is too much going on at once) (question is the plane sluggish or the SOFTWARE?!)
Wouldn’t surprise me if it was lag/stutter. its the one time when its at its worst at that runway threshold. (ie since you are quite experienced maybe iMSFS ignored some of your inputs)
The difference in your procedure is being high on glideslope with a high approach speed and touchdown at the end of the touchdown zone? 
Did you check your CG position? AOA protection is active in the flare mode but your approach speed seems sufficient and you are not pulling 2.5g (until hitting the ground that is ) so the flight envelope protection should not kick in.
I agree the Airbus controls a little weird during flare, the Airbus A321 did the same in FSX only much more dramatic. I assume they are trying to simulate the Airbus “flare” mode kicking in which in real life trims the nose down slightly.
That being said, I haven’t experienced needing full-up sidestick like you do. But I’m using the A32X mod. I don’t know if that has something to do with it.
It doesn’t feel like a high approach speed. Mine feels a lot slower than OP’s approach speed, even though it looks like both of us are at 140 kts VAPP. But I can’t be sure since I can’t zoom in to OP’s airspeed.
The difference in my procedure is that I fully utilise the Autopilot, Autothrust, managed airspeed, managed heading and managed altitude with the ILS glideslope and localiser mode active. While OP is doing a fully manual landing. I only disenage the AP at 100 RA callout to prepare for the flare, and to butter the bread. I don’t think it’s at the end of the touchdown zone since I touched down just after the second double line marking and well before the first single line marking. To me as long as I touchdown within the touchdown zone with very smooth touchdown, I’m happy.
I determine by VAPP by looking at the nose pitch. When I’m already on the G/S on full flaps configuration and landing gear down, my nose should be between 0 - 3 degrees pitch on short final. If my nose is below the horizon, that means I’m approaching the runway too fast, reducing the VAPP will slow down my approach speed and bring the nose up.
If my nose is more than 3 degrees, then my VAPP is too low, I change the VAPP to a higher speed to bring down the nose to within that limit as well. You can see me adjusting this at the 0:10 mark where I noticed my nose is a bit high, so I need to increase the VAPP to 140 knots. As soon as it happens, my nose pitches down with the pitch I want for the landing.
I don’t exactly know the Airbus autopilot limitations but for a CAT I landing the minimum height for autopilot disengagement is typically around 160 ft and 80 ft for CAT II (except autoland). A smooth landing is absolutely not a requirement for a safe landing, its much more important to land inside the touchdown zone with a short flare and positive landing just behind the aiming point markings.
The Vapp should be taken from the QRH + wind correction (typically 1/3 the headwind component + full gust to max. 20 kts), the resulting pitch varies not only with weight but also with wind and CG position. With your technique you will approach too fast with headwind and too slow with tailwind.
I think FS2020 is not doing a very good job flight model wise, I do agree the pitch settings are way too high in some situations and the aircraft flares for ever in the ground effect, the real aircraft would definitely not react like that.
Well I change my technique depending on the situation. I’m just showing one technique I used for that particular situation in the video. Of course on headwind I adjust things differently, tailwind while I tend to avoid it, I also adjust it accordingly as well.
The FBW team is working on adjusting the flight model namely on the pitch, VAPP and VLS calculation. So it looks like it’ll just keep improving. When they do, I’m going to adjust my technique again based on the results. Not a big deal for me, I’m flexible with my methods and techniques. If I need to change my techniques based on the updates to get the results I want, that’s what I’ll do. I’m not a by the book kind of person. I’m more of a “wing it” kind of person.
Yeah, I suppose I need to work on that. I could delay my autopilot disengage to a later and lower altitude so I can have a shorter flare. and land inside the touchdown zone. It just doesn’t feel right if I land at -800 fpm just because I’m aiming right at the touchdown marking with a short flare. Feel like I’m gonna break my passengers back doing it. It’s just my personal preference I guess.
I thought the Airbus goes into Direct Law mode below 100 feet since the fatal accident of a demo flight crew. Alpha floor kicked in at 30 feet or so and the crew didn’t manage to bring the plane down because the pitch was controlled by the alpha floor protection, the plane eventually crashed into a forest at the end of the runway. The plane shouldn’t nose dive below 50 feet, you get the plane as it was trimmed by the autopilot when you disengaged the AP. Some pilots retard the throttles to 50% at 50 feet or so and the rest upon callout or from experience. Hot and cold weather make a difference and your last rate of descent also. All i know is the Aerosoft Airbus was a dream to flare, so i wait for more patches.
The flare mode is not a direct law mode. The accident you are referring to had a different root-cause, as I remember, in order to demonstrate certain maneuvers they have been screwing around with switching off computers or even pulling circuit breakers, in any case the alpha-floor protection was disabled (the alhpa protection itself worked and activated without alpha floor protection). They’ve also shown that without the flight envelope alpha protection kicking-in probably more people would have died. To be clear:
No you won’t get the plane as trimmed by the AP below 100 / 50 ft. In the flare mode the nose is trimmed slightly down, indeed nose diving is the other end of the spectrum. On an Airbus the thrust levers are promptly pulled back to IDLE. This is becase of how the automation on an Airbus works, its unusual to fly without ATHR engaged, even when flying the approach manually. You definitely don’t pull the thrust levers to 50% Throttle Lever Angle (TLA) as this will result in an acceleration during flare.
Normally the thrust levers are left in the CLB detent after take-off and that is where the thrust levers stay during the entire flight until the flare (the thrust levers do NOT move with different thrust settings as for example a Boeing AT system). Pulling the thrust levers out of the CLB detent will not disengage the autothrottle and the auto throttle system will continue to operate in the SPEED mode, increasing thrust to maintain speed. The autothrottle only disengages in the IDLE detent.
I am not sure this is an autopilot issue, the AP seems to be off?
My own landing techniqe is rather poor so I don’t even try to critique yours. That said, some points that I noticed:
You do describe it as if the aircraft is sluggish to respond to your control inputs, this could be due to sheer mass/load, CG, trim, airspeed, icing… and even as other mention, the effect of the engines on the pitch.
It could also be that your VS was so high that there was simply not a lot of time to execute the flare, the voice altitude announcements seem to be coming rather quickly in your video.
Not totally out of subject, careful with VAPP/VREF: I have done a couple of maximum range/max fuel flights and the numbers suggested by the MCDU when near the destination didnt seem to reflect that the aircraft had already burned through most of the 40,000+ pounds of fuel.
are you using presets for blizzard?
