Hi all. I’ve made a couple of flights with both planes in pax configuration to check their status after last update. I’m no engineer, so I’ve made screen captures and passed them to an efficient AI for analysis and comparison with real data. The result of our small test and long conversation is on the report that follows. Hope this helps to improve this plane we all love.
AAU5 ATR 42/72 – quick performance check after the update
After the recent update I did a small performance check on both ATRs, mainly to see whether the severe post-AAU4 underpowered behaviour is still present. Based on what I have seen so far, the good news is that the ATR 72 no longer appears underpowered. In a controlled climb with the power levers in NOTCH, PWR MGT in CLB and approximately 170 KIAS maintained throughout the climb, a ~22 t ATR 72 reached FL170 in about 17 minutes, which is very close to ATR’s published 17.5-minute figure. At FL170, ~21.9 t and approximately ISA+17, CRZ/NOTCH gave about 198–199 KIAS / 262–263 KTAS, so the actual cruise performance is now also very close to the QRH. The remaining discrepancy is that the aircraft achieves this performance with only about 56.7% torque and 280 kg/h per engine, while the corresponding QRH figures are roughly 65–66% torque and ~330 kg/h per engine. In other words, performance looks good again, but the power/fuel model still seems somewhat too efficient.
The ATR 42 also looks much healthier and, as expected, climbs considerably better than the 72. In our flight it reached FL190 in about 12:13 (departing at 2700 ft), using 160 KIAS in the climb. At FL190, ~18.2 t and roughly ISA+17, it stabilized at about 204 KIAS / 280 KTAS, 70.9% torque and 305 kg/h per engine. Again, the speed is remarkably close to the QRH (~282–283 KTAS under comparable conditions), while torque and fuel flow appear somewhat low (roughly ~77.5% and ~332 kg/h per engine expected). So both aircraft currently show a similar pattern: actual climb and cruise performance seem largely fixed, while torque and fuel consumption still appear lower than the published performance tables would suggest.
As for avionics, I have had no spontaneous AP disconnects. I did encounter the same apparent LNAV loss on departure, but after seeing the aircraft handle other very sharp turns correctly, I suspect this may be related to a flight-plan discontinuity rather than turn geometry itself; that still needs more testing. Most importantly, this is not an exhaustive test: these conclusions are based on only two test flights, so they should be treated as preliminary observations rather than definitive validation of the flight model. Still, compared with the clearly underpowered behaviour reported after AAU4, the current build looks substantially improved.