I think what’s supposed to happen if you engage a managed descent “early” is the plane should start descending immediately, but at a relatively slower rate (1000 fps I believe) until it intersects the calculated descent path, where it will start descending to stay on profile and hit altitude constraints. If the plane is not doing that, then yes that sounds incorrect.
Are you in NAV mode when you press the ALT knob? Is it possible you are pressing it too late? You want to press it before you reach the TOD marker (I ususally press it within about 3-5 nm), and as noted by BigCow74, it will begin a gradual descent then intercept the managed descent path automatically… I think Youtube is your friend to watch how people configure prior to descent and then initiate.
Hi, on MCDU I don’t see this information.
May be this is the reason–I generally start the descent at about 5 miles before TOD and on others liners it starts descending immediately self-adjusting the descent VS in order to catch the path. May be here I am impatient ..ha ha . I must repeat the flight and wait and see..I’ll let you know.
Well, I generally start the descent at about 5 miles before TOD. As explained to BigCow74 may
be I have to wait a little bit more to see it going down. Let’ repeat the flight.
No, I think the A380 should also start descent immediately, like you are expecting. If you can capture a video when you engage descent and show the PFD/MFD/MCDU status, that could be educational for us.
Yesterday I repeated the same flight . At 5 miles from TOD I put the target ALT at 4000fts and pulled the the ALT knob arrow-up…
At TOD nothing happened…I let it fly a few miles but it kept going on at the cruise alt. Pressing ALT knob arrow-down it started the descent and on the PFD appeared OP DES again.
If you all have no problems with the A380 it’s possible that I have downloaded currupted files. Who knows..At this point I give-up with this plane.
Thanks a lot for the prompt support.I’ve appreciated it very much
For me, it sounds like an incomplete flight setup in terms of flight plan, weight & fuel, performance etc.
Thank you. So how would you explain my first issue raised here that INI Request is greyed and non working not allowing a FPlan load on MCDU ? I’ve been given a clever alternative solution by Ic4c 2 days ago “Take a look at the screener. Goto sec index, Press FP request, insert and than swap. FP is now active and you are ready to insert payload etc.” You might have not read the previous posts.
We are talking about two different problems.
There may be several reasons if you are not able to import a Simbrief flight plan: Wrong credentials, Navigraph account not linked or running engines. During an appropriate Cold&Dark setup, it is possible to load the flight plan. Starting on the runway maybe prevents to load a flight plan, since it is too late then.
Nevertheless, you can set up your plane correctly without Simbrief. You can enter all the details from Simbrief also manually. But it is possible that this is also not possible starting on the runway, since as I said: it is too late to load a flight plan and setup weight and performance. You have to finish the initialization before starting the engines.
FBW are just incredible. Their A320neo and A380 are fantastic. What a pity MS / Asobo can’t achieve FBW’s standards - their (2024) versions of the ATR and Twin Otter are truely awful. If only FBW could develop a twin prop…
I finally made my first 2024 native flight. Dev version, 4k, with cabin.
I was happy to see how well the flight plan imported from the sim EFB to the avionics. I am completely Navigraph-free, and no longer use Simbrief. But I used the sim EFB to create departure, arrival, and auto-generated route from Hong Kong VHHH to Seoul Incheon RKSI. Everything imported correctly and after the usual discontinuity clean up, I had a good route with all constraints.
Plane setup took me a long time. I had to remember where everything was and still couldn’t find a couple small things like the predicted wind shear toggle.
Not having Simbrief makes it tougher to manage fuel planning and V Speeds, and it’s still a little confusing getting the plane W&B loaded between having to use the FlyPad to load the plane and the sim EFB to determine pax/cargo/fuel contributions. I need more practice or a better guide on this. I would LOVE to see a comprehensive startup guide that doesn’t use Simbrief. I think every good guide is from someone that always uses Simbrief import.
I’m also still confused where I get the right trim setting for takeoff. I thought I had it right, but the EFIS gave me a disagree error that I ignored this time.
Performance was pretty good. I fly at 30fps capped with 2X FSR frame generation, and the flight was a steady 60fps for the most part.
The plane handled 4X time acceleration very well, very stable. Some complex planes teeter on the edge of stability at 4X, like the 738 MAX. I know FBW limits to 4X so I couldn’t try 8X, which is impossible on the 738M if you’ve ever tried it.
I didn’t have any climb or decent issues. Both in managed mode, and worked as I expected. I needed some spoilers to speed up my descent because I started it a tiny bit late.
My landing was terrible 
Plane is currently in maintenance checking the landing gears for damage.
Bugs? One minor, one very annoying.
Minor: I couldn’t seem to enter a flight number in the MCDU during initialization. Everything was rejected, and just the orange squares remained. I left it blank.
Super annoying: Toggling the ATC communication window also toggles the VHF1 CALL button every other time you open it. So, you can get in a state where the ATC window is open, but CALL is off, and you can’t communicate. I was constantly having to turn the call button back on. This must be a bug as it’s unique to this plane and I haven’t seen it before on any other.
I’m looking forward to livery makers getting more compatible liveries out for this new Dev version.
Fun experience. I’ll be flying out more when I have time. This is not a plane for quick setup!
Great job, FlyByWire team. It’s an amazing accomplishment.
The FBW team pushed a fix for this in a recent development release. 
I’m on my first proper flight in the FlyByWire A380X (after a couple of experiments) and I’m finding it really interesting. I have only flown the default A310, 320, 330 in MSFS. Also my first time using the newer Honeywell-style MCDU.
I’m only mid-flight, but performance-wise, it seems really good considering I’m using triple screens. I installed the “Development” build which updates frequently, and is 4K textures instead of 8K, thankfully, and I turned off the cabin off to save VRAM.
The cockpit lighting is really good, with adjustable / auto cabin lighting on the EFB (click the gear in the upper right corner), as well as an ambient lighting knob on the pedestal, allows for really good fine tuning at night.
It took me a while to figure out a few simple things:
- I like to add fixes with rings for position awareness on long flights, but it took me forever to find where to enter them: F-PLN page, F-PLN INFO pop up menu at the bottom.
- If you want to “Step” through waypoints on the flight plan, use the physical up/down buttons on the keypad below the display
And the airport map (OANS) on the ND (FBW Guide here) - shown when you rotate the Range knob to “Zoom” - is really cool, I think it requires Navigraph (signed in via the in-plane EFB). It allows you to set Brake to Vacate, to have the plane manage baking on touchdown to a selected Exit.
- Turn the EFIS Mode to Plan
- Turn the EFIS Range Knob to Zoom
- On the ND click the double arrow near the lower right corner
… Click ARPT SEL and choose destination airport
… Click MAP DATA and choose destination Runway, which will show with a Green Arrow - Click the label for the Runway and it will draw 2 magenta stop lines for Dry and Wet
- Click on the label for the exit you want, info will annunciate on the ND upper left corner
- Set the Auto Brake knob to BTV
- Check annunciation on the PFD FMA (upper left corner)
- … I’ll find out if it works shortly!
One thing that was a problem (for me) was the throttle. Since I spent my flight sim piggy bank on the PC and screens, I have not yet purchased throttles, etc, and am still using an Xbox controller.
On the default Airbuses, I can bind controller inputs to Next and Previous Throttle Detents, which makes it really easy to mange. But the FBW A380X doesn’t respond to those keybinds. Luckly it does respond to holding the Increase and Decrease Throttle buttons (A and B on the controller) a bit longer than normal, which seems to catch each detent - but you still have to look at the throttle positions to be sure.
The throttle also doesn’t seem to respond to the normal Throttle Idle key binding, but ironically, “Previous Detent” binding sets throttles to Idle. That means the plane does “hear” the inputs, but seems to have different behaviour than the key bind label.
I have a Velocity One yoke and throttle and it has 4 levers (with no detents) and I found that there was no way I could map each engine separately and get them to all hit the same position unless I create some kind of locking bar so they all move together. Mapping 1 & 2 to one lever and 3 & 4 to another gave me back more precise control again similar to how I fly the Fenix aircraft.