Required breakaway thrust affected by month of year (and location)

Bug Reporting Hub Aircraft & Systems
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ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Description of the issue: The breakaway thrust required varies based on location and time of year.

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

How often does this occur for you (Example: Just once, every time on sim load, intermittently)? Always (in certain locations, common in Europe).

REPRODUCTION STEPS

Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:

  1. Load a flight starting on the runway of Liverpool airport (EGGP). Either end.

  2. Set plane to approx MTOW.

  3. Set weather to clear, leave date as today’s (Jan 9th at time of writing).

  4. Set parking brake.

  5. Set thrust to idle and ensure engine speed is settled at idle.

  6. Release brakes.

  7. Observe plane move off.

  8. Apply brakes.

  9. Advance date by 1 month.

  10. Release brakes.

  11. Observe if aircraft moves.

  12. Repeat steps 8-11.

  13. At EGGP you should witness the plane breaking away from standstill under idle thrust during Dec, Jan, Feb and March only (the aircraft you select may be designed to breakaway under idle thrust, but you will still observe a difference during Dec-Mar compared to Apr-Nov). The 737 should require significant throttle to move off from standstill.

  14. At some locations in the world the problem is present for fewer months.

YOUR SETTINGS

If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.

What peripherals are you using, if relevant: Turtle Beach yoke, USB mouse

[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it? N/A

[PC, MSFS 2020 Only] Are you using DX11 or DX12? N/A

[PC Only] What GPU (Graphics Card) do you use? N/A

[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share? N/A

MEDIA

In the video below I am holding the aircraft on brakes, incrementing the month, observing if the aircraft moves, then reapplying brakes (repeating for each month). You can see the plane moves off under idle thrust only for December through to March).

Edit: Video removed as was unfairly being used by moderators to direct criticism towards the third party when the issue is clearly with the game.

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Hi @Squish20191374 ,

Thank you for this report. We’ve moved your topic into the User Support Hub.

The Bug Reporting Hub is for posting suspected or confirmed bugs that other users are able to reproduce without duplicating an existing bug report. Using the template or providing all the relevant information about your bug and sim setup is required in order to provide valuable information, feedback, and replication steps to our test team.

If you are not sure if your issue is a bug or need further input from the community, please use the User Support Hub category. If the community can replicate your issue, first search the Bug category to see if there’s an existing topic. If it already exists, contribute to that report. Duplicate bug reports will be closed.

If you believe it is a new report and no duplicate exists, then create a new bug topic using the provided topic template.

All issues caused by or involving third-party addons/mods should be reported to the third-party developer. Assure that no addons/mods are used when reporting issues in Bug Reports.

1 Like
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Hi. Where is the duplicate report please? I’m confused as to why you’ve moved this. I searched without success for a similar report before raising. You say:

“If you believe it is a new report and no duplicate exists, then create a new bug topic using the provided topic template”.

……..which is what I originally did.

This is a significant issue with the game which I have already invested much time in. I see you have made it PMDG specific. It is not. I made the video yesterday using the PMDG 737 but it transpires this affects ALL aircraft. If it matters please remove the video

Please can you reinstate my thread as you’ve made this a complete waste of my time. The month of the year allowing a fully laden transport plane to reach 50+ knots at idle (given enough runway) is surely a glaring bug that Asobo will want to fix ASAP?

Thank you.

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What a thankless activity.

I would be extremely grateful if users could attempt to recreate this pretty absurd problem - and report back their findings.

Many thanks :+1:

1 Like
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@Squish20191374 : your report has not been moved because it is duplicated but because the aircraft used to reproduce the issue is a 3rd party aircraft. If you can reproduce the issue with a 1st party aircraft (you mentioned that you were able to), please update the reproduction steps mentioning that aircraft and upload a corresponding video. Report will then be moved back to the Bug Reporting Hub . Thank you !

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Simulator issue, not PMDG issue.

Mathijs Kok
PMDG

1 Like
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Hi. Many thanks for the reply. I’ve not got the time to make another video currently (which was only added to help demonstrate the game-wide issue).

It’s definitely a MSFS issue. I’m sure it’ll come out in the wash, until which time further reputational damage to Asobo ensues.

Cheers.

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Can replicate, following OP steps using the A320v2 at EGGP:

Screenshot (2408)
Screenshot (2408)1918×1029 163 KB

Screenshot (2409)
Screenshot (2409)1922×1030 202 KB

The only difference I am seeing is the month does not make any difference, aircraft is moving once breaks are released.
Hopefully others users will be able to test (using 1st party aircraft) and provide additional feedback.

Note: I have not tested with the Asobo 737 due to this ongoing bug Asobo B737 MAX gound/air resistance that will probably affects the behaviour of the aircraft for this specific test.

Moved back to Bug Reporting Hub

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Thank you very much for this.

If you look carefully you will see that the A320v2 does actually have markedly increased acceleration between December and March (compared to April through November). I did this exact test amongst countless others over the last few days. There is essentially an infinite number of combinations one could use to test this issue - hence me hanging up my hat.

It may well be that the A320 is supposed to breakaway at idle - so may be displaying correct behaviour between April and November. But the reason I included the PMDG 737 in my original post was that 737 pilots had confirmed that to move off a fully laden 737 required the thrust to be briefly raised to 30-40% N1. So for the 737 to reach 50 knots at idle over the length of EGGP is just insane. And the concept of the PMDG product having some weird response to the time of year was extremely unbelievable.

This nearly drove me to distraction over the last few days so am very eagerly awaiting confirmation/news about it.

Thanks again - kind regards,

Mike

1 Like
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Couple more examples:

Asobo 172 - set power in November so it stays put. Then increment the months, releasing and re-applying brakes between each monthly increase. You will hopefully witness a whippet of a 172 raring to go between December and March, yet stay stationary between April and November:

A310, fully loaded - idle thrust. Same test, cycle through the months releasing and reapplying the brakes between each monthly increase. You should hopefully find the plane moves off only between December and March (noting at other airports these affected months may/will change):

1 Like
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Temperature pressure and humidity is the same otherwise? I can imagine that during the cooler months, the engines produce more thrust for the same (idle) N1 %. I don’t know how much 59 freedom units per bald eagle is in Celsius…

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Hi. As far as I’m aware all met values remain constant when simply incrementing the month.

Regardless, the notion of a MTOW 737 achieving 50 knots at idle thrust by the end of the EGGP runway is simply insane.

Cheers.

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I’m not familiar with the 737 but the A220 would do that in real life, if you don’t brake periodically it will continue to accelerate slowely. Perhaps something to do with surface friction on colder versus hotter days with more hours of sunshine (eventhough ambient temperature is the same). I doubt MSFS is that advanced but does it do the same with an overcast layer?

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Yes, I imagine many a/c move off at idle thrust. It’s the massive difference between certain months that highlights a problem. No change of atmosphere on inhabited earth could lead to the performance increases I’ve witnessed over the last few day’s experimenting.

Thanks,

Mike

Edit: For now I’ve only tested under clear weather. There are obviously practically an infinite number of setups.

2 Likes
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That would hopefully be easy to test. Keep the month the same, just vary atmospheric values instead, and see if the same increase in performance is detected.

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As a professional flight model developer I am highly intrigued by the OP report.
However, I was unable to reproduce. I used the default A320 (Inibuilds), at EGGP, starting January 16. All the way up to June - no difference whatsoever. Also the engine debug window showed exactly the same idle thrust (obviously, because the ‘clear weather’ preset applies 15C temperature).

The default 737 does not even start to roll on idle on my test.

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This is a separate issue reported here: Asobo B737 MAX gound/air resistance

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Hi. Would you mind trying with the stock Asobo 172? Thanks.

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Sure. Result: stock C172 for me does not start to move on idle and off the brakes.

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Thanks for trying and reply. How odd. I know others can create this, including a developer. It’s still present for me and it’s a very significant difference. The 172 sets off like a scalded cat, depending on the month.

Needs fixing, the planes are much more engaging to taxi April-November!

Regards.

1 Like