What Did They Do To The A320?

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62

Conditions used:

  • CG within limits
  • Weight max. TOW and 52t
  • Modern flight model
  • Clean configuraion
  • ISA conditions
  • 290 kts until speed conversion then Mach .78
  • Thrust MCT

I’m sorry but the A320 is awfull. I tried take-off at max. TOW just now. Needing full sidestick to rotate to 10 degrees pitch. “S” speed above max. flap extend speed. Doesn’t look good so far…

You can see gross weight just below 79t on the ECAM, CG within limits. S speed above VFE…

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Force vectors still wrong with the CG in front of the envelope, lift acts in front of the weight with an up-force on the horizontal stabilizer. This is wrong. No wonder they had to tweak the fuel consumption…

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On the upside 2000 ft/min at FL150 at full weight with 290 kts in ISA, that is in accordance with the Eurocontrol aircraft performance database, although I doubt those figures are at full weight.

Now 975 ft/min passing FL240, not looking so good anymore. I found the A320 ceo has a max. ceiling of FL370 at max. weight. Lets see if it makes it that far.

Hitting absolute ceiling at FL290 after having to reduce speed to green dot to remain climbing (and hand flying because the autopilot is doing an awfull job maintaing green dot speed). To be clear not the service ceiling but the ABSOLUTE ceiling with 0 ft/min.

The Airbus A320 ceo should have a service ceiling of FL370 at 78t and ISA, the MSFS A320 doesn’t even reach optimum FL of FL315 for 78t! I’m expecting the A320 neo performance to be equal or better than the A320 ceo. The Airbus seems to significantly under-perform comparing to the performance data I could find.

Second test with weight at 52t, ISA conditions and MCT. Climb with 290 kts, then reducing to green dot speed as climb performance reaches near zero. You can see in the above tables that the Airbus must be able to reach FL410 easily with Mach .78. I’m stuck at green dot levelling out at FL370!

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How does Asobo test those things before release? It is not that difficult is it? And I assume they have more data available to them than we have. Just test the extremes of the flight envelope in ISA conditions and compare with that in the published AFM. It doesn’t have to be perfect either, really hitting the benchmarks on everything, but this is the other end of the spectrum. If they would have run one test at max. TOW they would have found the S speed above VFE and the bad climb performance at least…

Funny thing is that I was comparing the TBM 930 with the published AFM recently (before the update) and I was very impressed everything to be very close to what it should be in terms of climb and cruise performance (except ITT which is completely off and the descent glide performance are *** due to missing propeller drag).

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63

They ruined the autopilot is what they did

3 Likes
64

I completed a flight in the default a320 (not the FBW) and couldn’t shut down as usual. Set parking brake, switched engines 1&2 off, turned batteries off - everything is still running., even used keyboard command to shut engines down - nothing. Never had that before.

65

I made a separate topic for the performance issue:

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66

I haven’t tried to climb with full weight, or past fl350. Thanks for doing the research, I voted up your topic.

67

Most certainly does. More wind speed over the wing = more lift.

68

Certainly not. If you are talking about a take-off situation then yes headwind improves take-off performance. When airborne wind does not effect your climb rate.

Only climb angle is influenced as groundspeed is affected by the wind.

69

Are you using any mods that aren’t updated yet?

70

Without FBW mod:

71

Well I have a theory about this, it might be ■■■■ since I don’t know what is accurately simulated and what not. But since the aircraft experiences an up-force on the horizontal stabilizer during flight it has less drag and should therefore should have better performance and lower fuel consumption than it would have in real life.

In real life there is always a down-force required from the horizontal stabilizer to maintain stable flight which can basically be added to the weight of the aircraft, more lift is required which means more induced drag.

Seems like the lift / weight vector positions have not been fixed but they’ve “corrected” fuel consumption, I don’t know what they have done exactly but if they’ve reduced the fuel consumption it might have influenced the performance. According the release notes its the only thing they’ve changed.

72

same it climbs very slowly indeed and then cant go any more

only since update . fly the a320 manual full power it climbs but not steadily

(200 hrs a320 flight time so far)

73

same

exactly the same as you

74

Can you reinstall the previous version / patch ? It was great with the A32nx mod.

75

I did a flight yesterdat cruising at FL310, but I noticed that the last 1000 ft were a struggle indeed.

76

Yes no problem.

78

I guess I’m missing something here.
Am I right that if you have a steeper climb angle, you are getting to altitude in a shorter ground distance?
To get to altitude in a shorter ground distance, doesn’t that requires more lift?

79

Lets take an extreme example. Headwind is 100 kts and climb speed in 100 kts, groundspeed is 0. While airborne you won’t notice the wind as long as you are not looking outside. The climb angle (which is referenced to the ground) is 90 degrees as from the ground your are climbing straight up. Performance wise you won’t notice a thing, the climb rate is the same, power required is the same, everything is the same. Look at it this way, you are inside a kolom of air which itself is moving, you won’t notice the movement of this kolom of air with you inside it unless looking at the ground.

80

I tried a high altitude flight yesterday and turned de-icing on and the climb rate was much better at the higher altitudes. At 35k it was climbing at a VS of around 600 to 700. So that seems to be working correctly, it was clearly not right before when de-icing didn’t matter.

The ILS landings are a problem now though, always set to the left and too high close in

81

Are you saying de-icing is on all the time even in clear weather affecting performance?

82

No what I mean is when I first posted in this thread I wasn’t switching it on , when I got to 31k it wouldn’t climb any further. Since the patch apparently it’s important to use, so this time I switched it on once I got to 25k and it climbed properly