I’m having problems interacting with the knobs and buttons inside the A320 Neo cockpit. I’ve been playing with autopilot over the weekend.
I load the flight plan in the World Map, take off and press the Z key to engage autopilot. ATC instructs me to go to a certain flight level. I (somehow) manage to select that flight level using the mouse on the altitude knob.
I am struggling to operate the knobs for altitude and speed, and telling the autopilot to follow the new settings. The ‘help’ tells me to press ‘middle’. Is there a tutorial on what this ‘middle’ is? I’ve watched a couple of YouTube videos on the A320 Neo autopilot and the clicking itself isn’t explained.
I understand that there is a ‘managed’ mode and another mode, but it’s the interaction I’m having the most issues with.
If you’re using Mouse and Keyboard setup. I recommend you go to the Options Menu → General Options → Accessibility → Cockpit Interaction. Set this from LOCK to LEGACY.
That way, you can use your mouse wheel while hovering on the knob to change the altitude, and move your mouse slightly up on the knob to make an Up arrow cursor. click on this to push to enable Managed mode. If you move the cursor on the bottom side of the knob, it will show a downward arrow cursor. Clicking on it will pull the knob into selected mode.
Thank you. I will try this input method. All the videos I’ve seen show the up and down arrow, but I was not able to see this. The middle mouse button method did not work well for me as my middle button is erratic and notched. I found myself changing the values when trying to use it.
This is probably better in a new thread, but it’s related to the A320 Neo: my pitch trim does not appear to work. After much Googling last night, it appears that the A320 Neo has an automatic fly-by-wire pitch trim.
What I’m trying to understand is how do I fly the aircraft to get this auto-pitch to function? Do I just point it at the attitude I want and it adjusts the pitch to keep that attitude?
It’s a fly by wire system. If you want to pitch up, you pull the stick, and when you want to “stop pitching up” you release the stick to neutral, and the aircraft will maintain the pitch when you let go of the stick.
When you want to level off, you push down on the stick until you get to level, then you release the stick again when you want to stop the pitching down action.
You don’t need to trim, because it autotrim itself. It’s about using the stick to control the aircraft by “moving” then “releasing” when you want to stop.
Okay, I have the trim figured out now and I flew a 1.5 hours flight on autopilot today and here are some observations:
The plane flew at 5000 feet all the way! This is despite a flight plan using the World Map that had climbs and descents in it. I noticed that 5000 was displayed above the altitude knob. When I hovered over the altitude knob and saw the up arrow and down arrow, I did not get the text for managed or selected altitude. However, pressing one of the arrows (can’t remember which) I did get a dot symbol appear next to the display of 5000 feet. I believe this is altitude managed mode, but no altitude changes happened. Any ideas?
During my approach everything seemed fine. I enabled APPR and the aircraft followed the G/S. I manually set flaps and lowered the landing gear. I did not touch the throttle and speed seemed to be managed by the flight computer. As I got closer to landing I saw LAND appear in the main display. So far so good! Then almost upon landing, I saw ‘FLARE’ appear. Great, I thought. The only problem was that the aircraft did not flare. It hit the runway nose first and started bounding along the runway. I set the thrust lever on my throttle quadrant to idle and managed to get control of the aircraft eventually. Any ideas why the A320 Neo just landed nose first into the runway despite showing FLARE?
When the aircraft is already flying at 5000 feet and the altitude panel is showing 5000 and you click the knob with the up arrow cursor to engage the managed mode, nothing will happen because you are telling the autopilot to target 5000 feet but the aircraft is already at 5000 feet. So nothing happens.
When you want to change altitude, use the mouse scroll wheel to change the altitude indicator. When it’s showing 5000, that means the aircraft is targeting 5000 feet. If you want to climb to 10000 feet for example, use the mouse scroll wheel to change this altitude indicator until it shows 10000. Then click on the knob when it’s showing the up arrow and it will engage the managed climb. When it reaches to 10000 feet it will automatically level off and maintain that altitude. Until you scroll on the knob again to target a different altitude. Same method to descend.
I usually target the cruising altitude on the knob directly when the aircraft is still sitting at the gate. That way, once I took off and engage the Autopilot, the aircraft can automatically climb straight to the cruising altitude.
Which aircraft are you referring to here? The default Asobo A320neo doesn’t have Autoland implemented. So even though the FMA is showing LAND and FLARE. The aircraft just continues on the same glideslope as it was during the approach. On the default A320neo, you need to disengage autopilot and manually flare yourself.
If you want the autoland function, you need to install the free FBW A32NX aircraft. There you can approach the runway with ILS approach, and the aircraft will automatically flare on touchdown.
With regards to Point (1) - the altitudes at various points along the way should have been in the flight plan from the World Map (I checked the route in the World Map). I was hoping that the stock A320 Neo would follow the altitudes in the flight plan.
For Point (2) - stock A320 Neo crashing into the runway, I’ll disconnect the autopilot shortly before landing . I’ll also look at the FBW A32NX, so thanks for the heads up!
In regards to point no. 1 the altitudes are in the flight plan. But Airbus doesn’t have auto-climb or auto-descent. Even in real life airbus aircraft, it doesn’t have that. So pilots have to turn the knob to target the altitude that’s set in the flight plan or what ATC cleared them to, and press the knob to engage the managed climb/descent profile.
Same for descent, even though the flight plan is set to have an altitude constraint for 10000 ft while you’re still cruising at FL300. The aircraft won’t descend unless the pilot turn the knob to target 10000 ft, push the knob and the aircraft will engage the managed descent. Without this action, the aircraft will stay at FL300 even though the flight plan is set otherwise. This is how the airbus behaves in real life.
However, there is another layer that the system can do. For example: You take off from 1000 ft runway elevation. The next waypoint that was loaded into the flight plan has a altitude constraint of 12000 ft, but your cruising altitude is FL300. In this case, you can just set the altitude panel to 30000 and engage manage climb.
After takeoff, the aircraft will engage the managed climb with a target of 30000 ft. However, since there is an altitude constraint on the next waypoint for 12000 ft. The aircraft will actually level off at 12000 ft and it will stay there until it passes that waypoint. You can see this on the PFD with the FMA showing as “ALT CST” or Altitude Constraint. After it does, and if there’s no further altitude constraints on the next waypoint, the aircraft will be out of ALT CST and goes to CLB again and start to continue its climb to the target altitude of 30000 ft.
But pilots still need to target the altitude and press the knob, without this the aircraft won’t climb or descent, even if the altitude waypoints are entered in the flight plan.
You can check out my Neo - YouTube channel. I do regular livestreams on the FBW A32NX and sometimes the occasional A330-900neo.
Thanks to your help, @Neo4316, I managed to complete a flight using the stock A320 Neo. Pitch/trim control worked out well, now that I know how to use it. Also, I got the altitude sorted too - I followed ATC’s requests.
One thing I observed was that the constraints were not followed at all. Perhaps this is a bug?
Anyway, I disengaged autopilot for the landing and all was well. I now need to practise my approach and landing as it was still a bit wobbly at touchdown. Perhaps I am not disengaging the autopilot properly? I am just pressing the Z key to engage/disengage autopilot, nothing else.
It’s left click. See this video of mine. When the ATC clears me for descent, I hover my mouse over the altitude knob then I use my mouse wheel to scroll down to 30,000 ft. Notice how the cursor is showing up arrow. This is to indicate I’m about to “push” the button. Then I use the Left Click on my mouse while my cursor is showing the Up Arrow, to push the knob.
