2 flights and same issue that auto throttle won’t assist in slowing down the aircraft on approach.
Flying with Vatsim and was vectored both flights to the final approach and was trying to follow the ils. Aircraft followed ils correctly but wouldn’t slow down. I was able to disable autopilot and landed manually.
There has to be a speed setting within the fms that I am missing or something.
Has the approach phase been activated?
If you are on the ILS in clean config, an A320 (and most other jets) will not slow down at idle.
You should learn how to use all the Managed and Selected options in the FCU. If you find yourself too fast on approach you can … (because setup was not completed)
Leave Throttle on Climb … then On the FCU set Speed Selected Mode and set to 200 (on keep speed below 210 direction) (gear down and flap 1) then down to 120 (or whatever increasing flaps until full) and move throttle to Idle & flare 20-30 feet
If you switch from managed to selected speed (for what reason?), why 120kts and why would you reduce thrust to idle at 100ft?
Looks like a bad advice to me.
This is bad advice. Keep the speed in managed mode, but if you are having issues with getting the approach phase to trigger. You can use the MCDU to activate the approach phase manually. And all the reference speed in managed mode will be adjusted to the approach speed for each flaps position.
Move throttle to idle should be at the Re-tard callout. Which is about 20 Feet AGL callout. Not 100.
How do I activate the approach phase in the mcdu? I did turn on the approach on the autopilot.
Push the PERF button. And in your current phase, you should see the message Activate Approach in the bottom left button. Click it twice to confirm and engage the approach phase.
The APPR button on the Autopilot FCU is only used to capture the localiser and glideslope. And without being set to approach phase in the MCDU, your speed won’t be managed properly.
If you are in managed mode the A320 should automatically switch to the approach phase when passing the DECEL point.
If you are in heading mode there will be no DECEL point to pass and you would need to activate the approach phase manually as @Neo4316 explained.
And if you are in NAV mode, there’s an Airbus “Gotcha” to be aware of. Be careful allowing the aircraft to automatically engage approach mode upon passing the DECEL point. This point is shown on the Navigation display as a Magenta “D” with a Magenta circle around it.
At this point, if you set the APPR brief page on the MCDU, the aircraft will activate approach mode and slow to the VAPP speed provided by the FMGC which you would have prepared by entering the appropriate data in the MCDU APPR page before TOD.
If this happens, the gotcha is that you may still be a good distance from the airport and slowing to approach speed. Typically, you would either have speed restrictions or ATC (real ATC, not sim) would assign you a speed. For instance, slow to 210 kts. At that point, usually before the “D”, you would PULL the speed knob and dial in a SELECTED speed per ATC.
Once ATC clears you for the approach - ILS or visual - you would then PUSH the speed knob to go back to managed mode. If you are past the “D”, the mode will switch to APPR and the aircraft will begin slowing to your VAPP speed, as able.
Getting slowed for approach really starts during the descent and requires energy management all the way down so you don’t arrive at your approach gate with excess energy to dissipate.
Here’s a cool reference on setting up for the descent phase and the approach brief setup: https://www.smartcockpit.com/docs/A320-Descent.pdf
Extremely helpful everyone thanks.