I'm new to the forums, but not, by any means, new to FS or flying. And I read these forums regularly with great interest -- there's so much expertise floating around on here.I've noticed that a couple of otherwise very high-quality freeware aircraft simply do not slow down in flight. The iFDG A320 is one example. Even with speed brakes fully extended (past the flight detent), the aircraft will gain speed in a 2,000-fpm descent rate below 10,000' MSL. In level flight with the speed brakes deployed, the deceleration is negligible. At length, my question: Is there a way I can tweak the FDE or .air file (in FS9) to improve the speed brake effectiveness? Has anyone else noticed this problem?I have, to be sure, seen other posts about speed brake effectiveness in other forums, the responses to which have been to observe proper speed management. But the truth is that, in real life, speed brakes are highly effective and an important part of speed management. And in some cases in FS9, they're just not working.Descending from 10,000' to the IAF at 500 fpm at max speed brake deployment -- just to stay within the 250-KIAS limit -- is maddening. In the "real world," we aren't limited to such shallow descents due to speed brake limitations. Believe me, when they're deployed, they slow the aircraft and increase the descent rate -- quickly.

Which panel are you using with the A320? I use Eric Marciano's excellent panel with the IFDG and it's my most often used aircraft...love it :) As for the speedbrake issue...what's the problem? I find that if I'm descending let's say, from 17000 to 5000, I will manually set the IAS to 240 at around 12000 (from automatic control at 280kts), and apply the speedbrake. Speed of descent is at 2200fpm. Give or take 50 feet I am at 250 or slightly below by the time I reach 10000ft. If I release the speedbrake before levelling out at 5000 then the airspeed rockets up to 280-290!!I'm no aircraft or panel designer so I'm not sure whether the overall effectiveness of things such as throttle settings, brakes, etc. are controlled solely by the aircraft cfg, of whether the actual guages involved have the most input. If it's a combination of the two, then maybe Erics' panel just does the job more effectively than a different one might. Perhaps I'll install a different A320 (Project Airbus maybe) with this panel and try it...see what happens....

In the aircraft.cfg file, section [airplane_geometry], find the line:spoiler_limit = Raising this value will make them more effective..At least, as far as I know, all aircraft that has air brakes / speed brakes / spoilers / liftdumpers (or whatever is appropriate for that aircraft type) use the FS Spoiler function to implement it.With extreme values (like 100000 or so) the aircraft immediately falls out of the sky or comes to a stand-still when on the ground.Some addon aircraft even use that to simulate arrested tailhook landings (then called "super-spoilers") .But there are now FAR better (freeware) solutions for that :-) :-).Cheers, Rob Barendregt

You can edit the aircraft .cfg file spoiler entry to change the drag, but the airfile has what you want for spoiler lift, drag, and pitching moment. I advise leaving the .cfg file entry alone, and working with the airfile instead. You can of course do as you like, but you'll get much better results editing the airfile. Go here:http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hsors/FS_Soft/fsairfile.htmlAnd download the free AirEd program. Be sure to download and install the latest .ini file for it (1-Apr-2004 by Ron Freimuth).Once you have it installed, open the airfile of the aircraft in question and look in Rec 1101 for "Drag Coefficient-Spoiler", "Lift-Spoilers" and "Pitch Moment_Spoilers". There is a boolean "BOOL 327 Spoiler Available True/False" but it appears inop as far as FS9 is concerned. Just click on the entry you want to change, edit the value in the box, and press enter on the keyboard to enter the changed number. Save your changes and test fly to see the results. You can edit 'on the fly' so to speak, with MSFS running, just make your changes and then re-select the aircraft from the menu to load the changed airfile. There is a control assignment called "reload user aircraft" that is supposed to accomplish the same thing, but it sometimes fails to operate as intended. Try it if you want, but be aware that with either method for reloading the aircraft you must also have AI traffic set to zero for changes to take effect.If you have time in the real airplane or a similar one, then you are ahead of the game and in a good position to model the flight dynamics to reflect the real airplane. If you know a little aerodynamics and flight theory that's even better. Airfile editing it isn't difficult, just time consuming and tedious when starting from scratch and writing a complete high fidelity airfile. If you learn a little of it then you won't be dependent on the modeling of someone who may not know how an airplane should behave for any given flight condition or how real aircraft systems work, and if you stick with it and apply yourself then you can achieve a fairly realistic representation of the real aircraft in MSFS. Here's a link to the airfile decode board at AvHistory:http://www.avhistory.org/scripts/MegaBBS/f...w.asp?forumid=5a lot of good info there, although sad to say it appears the old decode board messages are now lost.

Please check my question in the other spoiler thread following this about if it is possible by assigning different panel and key variable for a spoiler set to act as incremental flight spoilers and another key/panel switch to function as a forced or armed ground spoiler with an increased limit.