Fenix A320 auto pilot disengages and won’t turn back on

Greetings,

Had an odd experience (well at least my first) this morning departing KBOI in the Fenix A320. Everything was going as normal, took off with throttles set to to TOGA.

Once I engaged autopilot shortly after take off and the plane began to follow the FP as normal. I set the torttles to the climb detent . All of a sudden I got a warning and the message “AUTO FLT APP OFF” displayed on the ECAM.

I could not get this message to clear/ didn’t know how. I tried re engaging autopilot but all it did was make a click sound and would not turn on.

I tried re setting the levers into the climb detent but to no avail autopilot would not engage.

I have never had this issue before I don’t believe I’m doing anything I haven’t done before.

Can’t anyone help, I’d appreciate any advice!

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Sometimes it is kicking out my autopilot because of joystick nullzone jittering, and sometimes it is not possible to get the autopilot engaged afterwards.
But the copilot autopilot might be still functional :slight_smile:

Here I found something related to this ECAM message:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrosoftFlightSim/comments/w0owjy/fenix_a320_auto_flt_ap_off_ecam_warning/

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Thank you! I’m guessing that what’s going on with me!

What probably kicked your APoff is the null zones on the elevator and airleron are insufficient. Set them at around 4-5…Once the AP kicks off, you have to turn off autothrottle, to reingage the AP.

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Can you please explain what you mean a little more. What would I have to do to fix it? Sorry I’m pretty new with it.

I was flying today didn’t have an issue until about 50miles out of the airport the AP turned off again would re engage for the life of me. I tried disconnecting auto throttle but it still would not re engage.

It seemed like it was out of no where when it just kicked off. Appreciate the help

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Also to add, I have been successfully flying this plane for a few months and never had this issue. It’s been two times in a row now it disengages and no matter what I try it won’t re engage.

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Another thing to try if the autopilot won’t re-engage is to ensure the aircraft is stable, then try disconnecting both FDs. Then you can re-enable the FDs and then try to engage the autopilot again. You may need to set selected modes - HDG, ALT, V/S etc. before trying to return to managed modes.

This has happend to me also. What I did to try to fix it was to increase the dead zone for the joystick using the sensitivity settings of the sim. Then went to the config and calibration menu in the Fenix and used the arrow key → to go to the second config page. There you can see if there is any detected movement of the joystick. If there are then you can attempt to sett a null zone there or go back to the controls menu and modify the null zone there.
A combination of the two should allow you to zero this out.

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I will keep that in mind and try that if it won’t re engage again! I did not try turning the FD off and back on!

Thank you! I did re calibrate and adjust dead zones for the joy stick and did a flight last night with no issues… so I’m hoping that was fix!

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Having the same problem as CraderBug, I followed your suggestions. Unfortunately I still face the same problem : the AP disconnects some minuts after the takeoff. I chose a nullzone at 4. Am I right. Thanks

Dead zone of 4 both for in FS sensitivity and on the MCDU sidestick calibration. Calibration doesn’t show any joystick chatter, stick centered properly. AP disengages 5 seconds after engaging after takeoff, every time now. Tried FD disable/reenable A-THR/reenable AP, no joy.

Gets really frustrating, too, as you create a flight plan in SimBrief, load it in FS, go through all of the startup procedures and checklists, get your clearance, get your taxi clearance, taxi, get your takeoff clearance, take off, have the AP disengage almost immediately, so you restart the flight to go through it all over again, hoping maybe it will be different, and then it crashes to desktop after takeoff. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It’s a beautifully rendered plane, and when it chooses to keep the AP engaged, it’s fun to fly. That’s about 1 flight out of 10 now.

If you are seeing jittering of the controls in the Fenix setup menu then you have to set the null zone for your controller in the sensitivity setting of the sim. It wolud seem logical to be able to set the null zone valu in the Fenix setup but I’m not certain if that acually works.

So my advice is to increase the null zone for the controller until no furter jittering is visible in the Fenix controller setup

The nullzone calibration in the MCDU is used primarily for when the throttles are at their Flex and Climb detents, to compensate for detected jitters when they are supposed to be bracketed (contained?) and stable in the detent - so the bigger the nullzone is at those points, the better.

If I remember, I have something like 7% in the MCDU as I have very chatty throttles.

What I was refering to in my post was the second page of the Fenix calibration (accessed using the → arrow key) where you can observe the noice on the roll and pitch axis.

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Had the same issue. Tried all suggestions - no luck re-engaging AP. Then looked in cockpit view at my rudder pedals and they we significantly engaged without my feet on them (MFG Crosswind). Wiggled pedals briefly, then re-engaged AP. Sounds similar to sidestick nullzone issue.

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I see no jitter. The numbers in the calibration panel don’t move a bit unless I move the joystick.

The Fenix seems to be very sensitive to any noice on the controls. Like the previous post mentioned it can be created by the rudder pedals as well as the joystick. In any case if there is any jitter the autopilot will disengage. In my case it was the joystick that I have used with out problems for all other planes in MSFS and in XPlane. The Fenix? No way, its a different animal. Hypersensitive and very difficult to adjust.

Hell yeah!! Thank you so much. That solved it for me! All I had to do was look down and see my pedals askew. Jostled them a bit and I was good again. Definitely recommend to check anyone else having this issue. Saved a flight for me.

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Glad it helped. I since discovered a more insidious related problem. Despite having rudder pedals, I still had rudder inputs bound to the KB and they were the same as some of the numeric keypad inputs I used for cockpit views! This would result in apparent “rudder drift” but was actually self inflicted and caused sidestick nullzone issues.

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