Aerosoft A330 Professional 64-Bit Problems Ib CLB

[vc10man 732]

Updated to the latest version via their Updater. Used the supplied Fuel Planner to load fuel; pax, etc; had the FPL in the MCDU all showing the legs okay in the left MCDU; went through all the Checklists sequences although I will admit I much prefer the UCGX pushback, for some unexplained tie-up with AS, only the GSX pushback will trigger the After Start checklist call-outs. Took off, applied thrust, climbed out..............and that's where the problems start.

Despite setting a low initial ALT of 29000ft, followed the flashing above the speed tape to set THR CLB setting on the throttle pedestal, and then watched aghast, an angle of attack showing 20 degrees(have never had it more than 10 degrees in any heavies I have flown) as the speed bled despite the A/THR being switched on to auto, to a display of A.Floor instead of THR CLB now showing with AP1 on auto too, to a ridiculous 140kts; the climb rate going up the scale instead of a nice 1500ft-2000ft per minute. Disengaged AP1, dropped the nose down, picked up speed losing ALT as I expected, but at around 320kts when I re-engaged AP1, back to square one, bleeding speed back to a ludicrous sub-160kts

As stated, Payload and Fuel were through  the AS Planner and double-checked for no overload via the lower MCDU.

At that stage, I thought not much point in going any further, so I killed the flight and uninstalled the aircraft.

Any ideas AS A330 Pro users what is causing that angle of attack to be so high that it bleeds thrust with a light fuel, pax,cargo load?

[mrlip 56]

When are setting THR CLB as the thrust setting? It should be in early stages of climb out, around 1500 feet 

[vc10man 732]

53 minutes ago, mrlip said:

When are setting THR CLB as the thrust setting? It should be in early stages of climb out, around 1500 feet 

I am throttling back----and have done this so, so many times with the FSL 318-321, so in theory should be no different, other than size,-----when the top left prompt changes from TOGA to LVR CLB in the PFD, and is above 1500 feet. The speed tape yo-yos like a pendulum, one minute IAS increasing,next minute dropping.

[HighTowers 1,434]

Im sure you do the checklists, but sounds like a potential issue would be the trim setting is incorrect or not setup as it might call for.  Or perhaps load and balance.?   

What about full throttle  set to swing through the axis on the ground before start checklist. If I dont do that , my throttle settings are messed up at times. That can be for any aircraft.  

[mrlip 56]

Would check it’s definitely going in to CL detent on the throttle and not manual thrust range. Also make sure all INIT page B is complete on MCDU

[vc10man 732]

1 hour ago, HighTowers said:

Im sure you do the checklists, but sounds like a potential issue would be the trim setting is incorrect or not setup as it might call for.  Or perhaps load and balance.?   

What about full throttle  set to swing through the axis on the ground before start checklist. If I dont do that , my throttle settings are messed up at times. That can be for any aircraft.  

The PM is asking re: Trim Settings as per her checks, and the PF is responding, so I ain't touching or doing anything with with what  ATSU comes up for the given airport(in this case, Kigali) or the given Runway

1 hour ago, mrlip said:

Would check it’s definitely going in to CL detent on the throttle and not manual thrust range. Also make sure all INIT page B is complete on MCDU

Having flown the FSL Airbus so, so many times, I do monitor that CLB THR does pop into the CL detent. After I get my figures printed off for the Loadsheet, I do double check INIT B again.

Going to re-install the plane and see if it still plays up.

[cwburnett 1,809]

It sounds like you're quite familiar with how the airbussen operate given your experience with FSL and there shouldn't be anything different about how the AS busses (I have them all) operate.

A few suggestions:

1) Have you disabled fly-by-wire in the third MCDU by chance? It should be enabled.

2) Is the aircraft following the direction of the flight director with the AP engaged? It should be, if it is not, it points to a problem outside the FMGS, like possibly the default autopilot is somehow engaged or some other weirdness.  If it IS following the FD and the FD is sending you into an unusual attitude, then the problem is within the FMGS and we need to look to configuration.

3) At light weights (short legs) the A330 will climb at a ferocious rate, like all heavies running short legs without derated climb thrust. If loaded lightly, you will absolutely see a climb rate in the 3k-5k fpm range and 20 degree nose-up pitch.  The flex temp will derate the takeoff power if using the FLX/MCT detent for takeoff, but the climb power is not derated with flex, so you will see staggering climb rates when lightly loaded in the CL detent. This can seem especially unreasonable if you're target speed is set to a very low v2 (say 140kts).  This can create trouble if you takeoff, and while manually climbing out let the speed get high and flaps start retracting. The airbussen will go from 1+F to 1 at the S (slat retract) speed automatically, but if you THEN engage the autopilot, you will see a severe increase in pitch as the AP tries to achieve the target speed.  When lightly loaded, rotate smoothly (to avoid tailstrike) all the way to 15-20 degrees nose up, depending on what it takes to stop accelerating. If you reduce/remove back pressure at only 8-10 degrees, your speed will get out of control and then if you engage the autopilot, it'll go a little nuts trying to 'fix' the over-target-speed situation.  When lightly loaded, I don't try to maintain target speed. I rotate smoothly to about 15 degrees and let the initial climb speed stabilize around 160 or 170 and hold that speed/pitch to 1500' and then engage CLB when commanded and let the speed increase to the target climb speed with about an 5-10 degree pitch angle or whatever works for a reasonable acceleration. I try not to engage the AP when wildly outside the FD command bars, so the AP can smoothly take over control.

Generally, and you probably already know this, in both CLB and OP CLB modes, airspeed controls pitch angle, so if you have a target altitude set above the current altitude, the FMGS will apply CLB thrust (if the throttles are in the CL detent) and the aircraft will pitch to attain the target speed (if AP is engaged).  The only time you should see something odd with respect to pitch on AP is if, as outlined above, you create a situation where the aircraft is being manually flown at a much higher speed than the target speed and then the AP is engaged in that situation it will immediately and aggressively pitch up to try and attain the target speed, whether set manually in the window or is commanded by the FMGS.  The AS bussen don't like that.

I would test a simple flight. Try just manually loading the aircraft in the third MCDU. Add 200 pax, 5.0 KKGS cargo and 10KKGS fuel (for your short test flight), it should give you the ZFW and a CG of (probably) 26.0. That should demand something like a 4 deg nose up trim, so make sure that's all set in the third MCDU (and that you selected to load the cargo and pax) and in the FMGS (MCDU1 or 2), as well as checking that you've manually set the trim on the wheel (you can view the trim setting in the F/CTL MCDU page). [Remember you have to load the pax, cargo and fuel either each line individually or by choosing the 'instant' option, and to do this, the doors must be open. I doubt that's your problem, but figured I'd mention it just in case.]

Set up a flight to/from the same airport with a cruise altitude of 5000' and only enter your departure runway and approach, don't add a SID or STAR. Line up on the departure runway, set the 5000' in the ALT window and activate it, don't use a FLEX takeoff, just use full takeoff power, and set runway heading in the HDG window.  Apply TO power (full forward detent), rotate and follow the flight director, which should be trying to maintain a target speed at v2 until 1,500'. At 1,500' AGL, you'll get the indication to reduce throttles to the CL detent, so do that and your target speed should also increase to 250, the FD will command a decrease in pitch to allow the aircraft to accelerate to 250 kts and then should command a continued climb to 5,000'.  If that works as expected, do the same thing, but this time engage the autopilot at 1,500' when you go to the CL detent, and see if it performs as expected, following the FD and reducing pitch to accelerate. Do your best to follow the FD and actually maintain the commanded (magenta) speed target.

Hope that helps...

[vc10man 732]

Just re-installed the Aerosoft A330-300. Can someone tell me as to what logic is there when the GSX pushback is completed, when the  Parking Brakes are set and a 'Good Engine Start' is confirmed back to the GSX pushback crew, this somewhat flawed AS product sits there waiting for the After Start checklists to be run. Yeah, I am sure in real-life passengers would be very content as the PF and PM sit there twiddling their thumbs!!

Only when I got hacked off sitting there waiting for all the checks to be done and nothing happening, so taxied to the departure runway without zilch of a sound coming from those AS  checklists, and this is where a bug manifests itself, applied the Parking Brake before take-off, lo and behold the AS pilot wakes up to ask for the After Start Checklist.😡

Is this AS product for real, with a title 'Professional' that a Parking Brake has to be applied twice after a 'Follow GSX Instructions' pushback and engine start for the AS in-built After Start checklist to kick in?

 

[iwebber 207]

I had similar problems (with the speed/high nose up leading to stall) and traced it back to not typing in a v2 speed.

When you put the flap in the PERF page, it fills out all the boxes (flex temp, v1, vr and v2; but if you don't type in and overwrite the v2 speed (you'll know when you have as it shows bigger/bolder than it was) then when you go to managed speed and (opn) clb it basically commands a speed of 0, prompting the Saturn rocket impression that fails when it runs out of oomph and you fall unceremoniously back to earth.

You didn't mention whether you did this or not so just suggesting it as something to try, as to your other problem, I've no idea...

[vc10man 732]

44 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

A few suggestions

Thanks. Appreciate it. Reading through it.

44 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

1) Have you disabled fly-by-wire in the third MCDU by chance?

No.

45 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

2) Is the aircraft following the direction of the flight director with the AP engaged?

Yes.

46 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

then the problem is within the FMGS

Now, you may have hit something there, because the ATSU is  not producing any Messages to give the PERF data for V_1,  V_{r ,} V_2, so took a wild stab at it as the speeds for Flap Retard, etc were shown, so used Take Off speeds not far off.

65000 kgs fuel, 252 pax 7000kgs cargo is not exactly a 'light' heavy. And as I was already at 8000 ft, seemed a safe bet to bring in CL followed by the AP1.

Once again, same too high nose-up attitude and resulting thrust bleed. At which point, I called it a day.

Back to other aircraft.

[vc10man 732]

14 minutes ago, iwebber said:

When you put the flap in the PERF page, it fills out all the boxes (flex temp, v1, vr and v2

Yes, it did so, and I am fairly certain I did as you so helpfully suggest

14 minutes ago, iwebber said:

You didn't mention whether you did this or not so just suggesting it as something to try, as to your other problem, I've no idea..

My fault for not clarifying.

I am going to have one more try using yours and CWBurnett's tips and let's see how we go.

[cwburnett 1,809]

If you want, feel free to hit 'v' and snap some screenshots of your two INIT pages, the takeoff PERF page and then another shot when the plane is going space shuttle status.

 

[vc10man 732]

2 hours ago, cwburnett said:

If you want, feel free to hit 'v' and snap some screenshots of your two INIT pages, the takeoff PERF page and then another shot when the plane is going space shuttle status.

 

Don't have an image hosting website any more since the last one the late Jim Young recommended here a long, long while back, when I first joined Avsim, has gone belly-up. so have no idea how I can post screenies.

Just wasted another hour and more trying to have another go, and I hand flew it for a long while so that I could keep the nose at a sub-10 degree pitch, and at around 16k engaged AP1, and all went smoothly, till...................sooner I ditch this particular plane, the less time I will waste😡

[F737MAX 5,534]

48 minutes ago, vc10man said:

Don't have an image hosting website any more since the last one the late Jim Young recommended here a long, long while back, when I first joined Avsim, has gone belly-up. so have no idea how I can post screenies.

A how-to guide is here:
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/479802-how-do-i-post-a-screenshot/

Imgur is my hosting site of choice, but there are plenty of alternatives available.
 

48 minutes ago, vc10man said:

Just wasted another hour and more trying to have another go, and I hand flew it for a long while so that I could keep the nose at a sub-10 degree pitch, and at around 16k engaged AP1, and all went smoothly, till...................sooner I ditch this particular plane, the less time I will waste😡

Could very well be a bug in the A330.
Though I haven't seen your issue appear in the AS support forums.

Could also be a problem specific to your PC and/or sim setup. And there's always the chance of user error.

I would get it up and running in v5 to test, but there are a few issues still unresolved. So that will likely mean a hotfix becoming available and inevitably necessitate another full re-install...

Might be worth your while raising the issue on the Aerosoft support forums:

Support Flight Simulation (FSX, P3D, FS9, X-Plane 11, Aerofly) -> FS2004 / FSX / P3D -> AIRCRAFT -> Aerosoft Bus Professional (64 bit, P3D V4) -> Support

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by F737NG

[otterspotter 8]

Had the exact same problem on my very first flight with Aerosoft A330. With 175253 kg TOW, 15500 kg of fuel, ZFWCG 32.2, TO trim 1.2, it climbed fine till about 7000 ft to then raise the nose sharply and let the speed drop to approx. 125 kts with A.FLOOR having replaced THR CLB mode on FMA.  Turning autopilot off before it started falling out of the sky, I could coax it to a more acceptable attitude and speed, but turning AP back on quickly resulted in a return to the previous state. No issues with LNAV.

The weird behavior continued in cruise.  Turning AP on at 40000 ft (no step climb, but the flight I was trying to recreate, CPA906 from RPLL to VHHH, didn't seem to require step climbs) led to a rollercoaster of steep climbs and descents (9000 fpm) as the AP was unable to hold the altitude.

All of the above in relatively good weather conditions using real weather from Active Sky (on P3D 4.5 HF2) and turbulence settings as recommended by PMDG and FSLabs (and absolutely no issues with products from those vendors).

I also had problems on the ground where the airplane would accelerate without any change to input. I read on Aerosoft forums that this behavior may be due to the FMGS coding having been tied to the frame rate, requiring a minimum of 18 FPS and resulting in AP and flight characteristics issues if the rate dropped below that.  I have a fairly beefy PC, unlimited frame rate seems to work best despite some fluctuations, though I never saw it dip below 18.

Similarly to the OP, got so fed up with the initial two flight attempts that I didn't spend any time on troubleshooting further.  This was on 1.0.0.10 (not the latest 1.0.1.0).  Was going to install the latest version and try without ActiveSky, but why get frustrated when there are other models working as advertised. Now I feel tempted to try out iwebber's suggestion to check and type in V2 speed.