Is it normal that the PSS Airbus aircraft in particular the A319, A320 and the A321 descend roughly 140-160nm away from the airport regardless of any STAR or Flight Level. I seem to get this a lot when flying and end up being at 10,000 feet with 50nm to spare. Seems very far to me. In addition, although I change some of the constraints, the PSS appears to ignore this and go ahead with the aircraft being at 10,000 feet 50nm before the airport.I was wondering if it was something with the ZFW perhaps? I use the US system in lbs and so my ZFW is around 124000lbs and I enter this into the MCDU. But nothing seems to change.Hopefully someone has been experiencing the same problem. If not I'm assuming its normal behaviour even though the Wilco series doesn't do so.Cheers,Foliga Mundia

Never had that problem, If anything I find it starts late and give the initial 3000 FPM then smoothes out.Could possibly (and only spit balling here) be your Cost Index might suggest a lower decent speed and therefore an earlier descent.

I spent a year flying the PSS A320 way back and never had the problem you described. I used a cost index of 80 and crosschecked TOD with the 3x rule.Have a read of this regarding real world opshttp://www.pprune.org/tech-log/412639-a320-descend-calculations.htmlRegards

Thanks a lot for the information. along with FLEX1978 I too use a cost index of 80, however I will have to try out a flight with a higher cost index just to make sure.Cheers

Hi guys I used the Cost Index of 80 and even higher numbers. The only thing that changed was that I was obvously climbing at a faster speed but still no luck with the descending. I still descend 140nm from the airport and have to stay at 3000 feet for almost 20-30nm. Any other opinions on this matter?Cheers,Foliga Mundia

Is CI even modeled on the PSS A319/20/21? I know you can enter CI numbers but I've never seen cruise Mach or climb/descent speeds change as a result.

From memory I think cost index does work on the PSS A3xxFoliga, The 'lower' the cost index on any aircraft the faster your rate of climb descent, on the A3xx green dot speed is best climb/descent angle speed. However you don't want to be flying at green dot from cruise at TOD as it will be near vls.The main factors are wind predictions in the MCDU, then cost index, lastly gross weight.

I have never had problems with PSS.