Noob to the FBW A32NX needs help

So, I just tried my first flight in this bad boy, and I have good news, and bad news.

The good news is that everybody got where they wanted to go, in one piece, and almost certainly without any idea that their noobie pilot was having some issues. The bad news is that their noobie pilot was having some issues…

Here are those issues:

  • I was having great difficulty getting the aircraft/autopilot to climb or descend when I wanted it to. Eventually it did, and got to where I wanted to be, but it seemed to initiate the climbs and descents when it ■■■■ well felt like it, instead of when I (thought) I asked for it. The one exception is that when I blew through my assigned altitude for unknown reasons, I couldn’t figure out how to get it to go back down at all, and only solved that problem by asking for another climb. But any advice/help/links to helpful YouTube videos, or whatever else you might have up your sleeve to help me with this are requested and appreciated.

  • I also had issues getting the approach I wanted (and was assigned by ATC) to enter into the FMC, and I’m not even sure if it was something I did wrong, or some kind of error in the underlying nav database. I was trying to get into KCLT on ANY of the RWY36s, L, R, or C, and my FMS was acting like those approaches just didn’t exist. I solved this one by turning the AP off and hand flying the beast to where I wanted it to be, and it worked, but it wasn’t the prettiest landing I’ve ever had. Then again, it’s my first time ever landing this b1rd under any circumstances, so I’m actually kinda proud of myself there. But I would’ve preferred to have used the FMS/Autopilot properly, if for no other reason than to teach myself how to in the first place.

So, to reiterate, any help, suggestions, instructions, or even making fun of me for not seeing something so obvious that even Stevie Wonder could see it are all welcome if they get me using this thing more like a professional.

Thanks!

Signed,
A guy who really needs a flight instructor to teach me how to fly this thing, but they’re few and far between, and I don’t even think MS/Asobo has enabled multi-pilot cockpits in multiplayer yet. (Man, that’s one hell of a signature!!)

Feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel. I do livestreams the A32NX regularly. So you can jump in and review the recordings and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll post my channel down below.

But to answer your questions:

  • Climb and descent all come to the way you set up and prepare the flight. I usually set up all my flight plan by departing from a gate, and arriving to a gate. So it’s a gate-to-gate flight plan. Then I look at the weather and wind direction and select an appropriate departure pattern from the right runway. At the end of the flight plan, I select the runway approach and the arrival pattern again based on the wind direction at the destination.
    Then when the flight starts, prepare the MCDU INIT page by entering the CI (I usually go for 100), cruise alt, ZFW, and block fuel. then I just prepare the perf page (you can refer to my videos for more detail on what I do).
    When I take off, once I hit the Autopilot, whenever the ATC assigns me the altitude to climb, I just set the target altitude, and press the knob. That’s it. The aircraft will do the calculation to prepare for the climb and will start climbing as soon as it’s ready. Just make sure all the airspeed and nav heading are all on managed mode. The descent is the same, just turn the knob to your targeted altitiude, and press the knob again to confirm it, and the aircraft will start to descend on its own when it’s ready at the most optimal rate calculated by the aircraft.
    It usually takes me about 15-20 minutes from take off until I reach the cruising altitude, and roughly the same time coming from the top of descent to my approach.

  • Yeah, again this is why I set my approaches all the way in the beginning of the flight plan. So I can avoid issues like this. It also helps to have navigraph mod installed, this updates the navigation data to fill in the missing ones and also fixes the ones that are incorrectly assigned.

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That’s gotta be at least 30+ hours of videos to go through! Looking forward to it, if I can master this plane, then I’ll be close to good to go as far as being an FS2020 master. I’m a real world instrument rated private pilot, so the GA stuff comes pretty naturally to me, and I’ve been working on the WT CJ4 for awhile and getting good that that, so between those two and the A32NX, I’ll have GA, biz jets, and short-medium haul airliners all covered. All I’ll need is a long haul jet from a quality study level plane maker, probably a Boeing of some kind, and I’ll have the whole world as my basket!

I can’t help but to love 747s, but the 787 looks really interesting, too. The 767 and 777 are almost "me, too"s at this point, but with Boeing, once you know one of them, it’s not that big of a deal to change back and forth.

Then again, I’ve always loved DC-10s, and if I give it some serious thought, I can come up with probably at least half a dozen (probably more) that I really like, too.

Then there’s the reality that you can only remember how to properly fly so many aircraft at once, and it becomes a conundrum…

Lol, just skip the ones you don’t want to watch. A lot of the stuff there are cruising phase, where I usually just leave my desk to watch TV or do some work or something. You don’t have to watch the whole thing, skip the ones you want to have a look at and just go through it. I flew over 500 hours in total in the sim. The 30+ hours were something I recently just started doing. Hahaha.

Lol, then you don’t need my help… Hahaha… Just go through A320 flight manual and pilot handbook and you should be able to pick it up within hours. I’m not a real pilot, nor am I certified for anything at all. I’m just an aviation enthusiast, I only know how to fly the A32NX in the sim. But you probably know about piloting a lot more than I do.

So in that case, just use my video as a reference on how I do things. Not necessarily for something for you to learn. You can do it if you want, but I guess you have access and knowledge and skills that are far better than me and would benefit less from my videos.

I just completed my 300th flight in the A32NX , been around the world in it.
thanks the developers
Great fun , but I always have to turn to sound off when landing because of the incorrect warnings always blaring… sort of takes the fun of he landing away since I can’t hear the last altitude callouts … but I’ve added a software co-pilot to call them out … works.

What kind of warning are you getting?

I just wanted to give a shoutout to @Fmgc320 who has been giving me some private lessons on the b1rd, and we’ve even had a couple of video/audio sessions (with more to come) that we’ve recorded and will be publishing in the not too distant future. He’s really an amazing instructor, considering he’s not a real world Airbus instructor (which he probably should be, he’s that good), and I’m genuinely grateful to him for his help.

Once we’ve got the first (hopefully of many) videos posted, we’ll be sure to let everybody know, as his first student I think it will be extremely helpful. We did a flight from KPHX to KSAN, and landed in some pretty squirrley IMC conditions (isn’t that redundant?), and not only did nobody get hurt, I’d bet nobody in the back even knew they had a rookie flying the plane the whole time!

Anyway, that’s my update on this, with much more to come. Right now I’m going flying, not quite ready to solo the A320, so I’ll be flying a CJ4 from KPAE to PANC just for giggles. I’ll probably subtract some hours from the day because I really want it to be in daylight hours, but also with real weather, so who knows how that’s going to turn out. If you want to join me, meet me in my Discord server chat room #1 within the next 15-20 minutes. Invite is here.

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@ZenMusic2, granted I have 298 flights to go to get caught up to you experience wise, but on my landing during our flight today, I had no warnings going off at all. What are you hearing?

Hey Kev you are too kind, my friend! It was really a blast and I’m glad we found a way to connect and enjoy flying. I certainly love the A320 and enjoy sharing what I know - Which is always learning more! Plenty of others have shared their knowledge, too but I’m absolutely appreciative that you found it helpful. We should be able to get that video up soon! As you know, I’m now working on getting the G2 setup but may need to pause for the evening and pick up tomorrow. I’ve run the windows VR demos and so far, really cool! Can’t wait to get this going in MSFS!

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One for example, so loudly I hear “Too Low, Terrain” “Too Low, Terrain” “Too Low, Terrain”
I’m on the perfect ILS glide slope … and sometimes I’m even over the runway and still have it blaring and I can’t hear the callouts for altitude etc… (fly KSAN to 25R at KLAX to see it)

Also after landing I get alarms … “not in takeoff configuration” …

Also get pull up and sink alarms … too much

There are switches on the A320 overhead panel to mute those warnings … wish they would get implemented soon

I haven’t experienced any of that, but then again, I’m just barely safe enough to be allowed to fly the aircraft solo lol… I’m sure there’s a LOT of stuff I haven’t experienced yet.

In Nascar, they make rookies and other newbies put a yellow stripe on their rear bumper to let other drivers know they are dangerous and don’t know what they’re doing. I have a feeling my entire tail should probably be painted yellow lol!

This occurs if you’re too low and you haven’t extend the landing gears. I usually extend the landing gears when I’m at 2,500 callout.

You probably already set to retract the flaps, but you’re pushing the throttles too much as if you’re trying to take off.

This is when your descent rate is too fast.

All of these alarms can be avoided if you managed to do the proper approach and landing procedures.

I extended landing gear by 10 nm out …
I’m at idle after landing

I’m always on ILS approach , the AP is flying , i can post a video

Yes, please do…