A320 flight dynamics

[Rocky 128]

Am I the only one thinking the A320 flight dynamics are strange?
Or did I do something wrong on my config?

I think the A320 is almost impossible to fly (and to land) because it is much too soft. I mean that a full stick deflection causes a very slow reaction, the aircraft yaws very, very slowly and same for pitch. With light aircraft such as the Cessnas or the TBM, a small stick deflection causes a quick aircraft movement, many people complained about this and adjusted the controls sensitivity because of this. But on the A320 it is the opposite, making the trajectory impossible to adjust when landing. The real aircraft is much more agile, fortunately...

Did you notice the same or am I crazy?

[Silicus 881]

Rocky, 

I think the A320 feels quite good, close to what I am used to from Toliss in x-plane.

I am not a real airbus pilot so I don't know if the aircraft behaves like the real thing, but you have to remember that you are moving a lot of weight and it takes a moment for all the weight to react.

It is important to think ahead when flying heavier aircraft. Practice makes perfect 🙂

Maybe a real world pilot can chime in....

[robert young 2,897]

1 hour ago, Rocky said:

Am I the only one thinking the A320 flight dynamics are strange?
Or did I do something wrong on my config?

I think the A320 is almost impossible to fly (and to land) because it is much too soft. I mean that a full stick deflection causes a very slow reaction, the aircraft yaws very, very slowly and same for pitch.

No you are not the only one. It is very sluggish in pitch. If you are flying without autopilot and turn reasonably sharply while low and under 180 knots the nose drops and it is quite hard to recover lost altitude. While the A320 is not exactly sprightly it should not be as sluggish in response. I see what Asobo was attempting to do here, but they have overdone the slow response - the opposite to what they've done in some of the GA aircraft which are at the other extreme.

I've been trying to find the file which controls the fly by wire parameters but so far no joy. Maybe it is encrypted.

[mjw8899 31]

Does the fmc allow you to stall the ac? If you turn AP and auto throttle off, can you perform a stall? It’s an easy test for FBW configuration. 

[Rocky 128]

6 hours ago, Silicus said:

Rocky, 

I think the A320 feels quite good, close to what I am used to from Toliss in x-plane.

I am not a real airbus pilot so I don't know if the aircraft behaves like the real thing, but you have to remember that you are moving a lot of weight and it takes a moment for all the weight to react.

It is important to think ahead when flying heavier aircraft. Practice makes perfect 🙂

Maybe a real world pilot can chime in....

I am not a real A320 pilot either, but I flew professional Level D full Flight simulators at Air France and at Airbus Training (when it was still existing...) This gave me an accurate idea of how the real plane flies. Real pilots train and take exams on these sims so they are realistic. 

I can tell you the real A320 is not that slow in reaction, you can even tell if you are a passenger. I also flew the A340 sim, a much heavier aircraft, and even this one is not that slow in moving. No, MSFS is not good regarding that aspect. I doubt this will ever be fixed, I hope good aircraft add-ons will be released soon... 

[Janov 2,383]

I don´t have Microsoft Flight Simulator so I can´t comment on the modeling - but I have flown the real A320 (family, including NEO) for 8 years now. Before that I flew Boeing (737, 747) airliners.

It is a common misconception that "heavy" aircraft are sluggish - "because of the weight". This is further exacerbated by the fact that airliner´s are mostly flown "smoothly" for passenger comfort, and the autopilot is also tuned for that.

In reality all of the aicraft I have flown are actually quite maneuverable, and the 747-400s roll response is in fact a lot more springy than the 737-300s.

All of these aircraft have great pitch authority and must be flown smoothly to not cause discomfort or even injury (to standing passengers).

The A320 in normal law will deflect the elevator to achieve +2.5g acceleration with full stick aft - if that much g-load is available at the current speed.

Here is a pretty good summary of the control laws of the A320 family:

http://www.aviationchief.com/airbus-control-laws.html

 

[sd_flyer 6,043]

6 minutes ago, Janov said:

I don´t have Microsoft Flight Simulator so I can´t comment on the modeling - but I have flown the real A320 (family, including NEO) for 8 years now. Before that I flew Boeing (737, 747) airliners.

It is a common misconception that "heavy" aircraft are sluggish - "because of the weight". This is further exacerbated by the fact that airliner´s are mostly flown "smoothly" for passenger comfort, and the autopilot is also tuned for that.

In reality all of the aicraft I have flown are actually quite maneuverable, and the 747-400s roll response is in fact a lot more springy than the 737-300s.

All of these aircraft have great pitch authority and must be flown smoothly to not cause discomfort or even injury (to standing passengers).

The A320 in normal law will deflect the elevator to achieve +2.5g acceleration with full stick aft - if that much g-load is available at the current speed.

Here is a pretty good summary of the control laws of the A320 family:

http://www.aviationchief.com/airbus-control-laws.html

 

You can always uninstall XP11 and try MSFS 🙂

[Janov 2,383]

14 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

You can always uninstall XP11 and try MSFS 🙂

The former will not happen until I have XP12 - the latter...I haven´t ruled out 😉

Note, however, that I do not have an A320 (or any Airbus) model installed in XP11 either - they give me enough trouble in real life as it is! 😁

Edited September 25, 2020 by Janov

[ShawnG 1,823]

6 hours ago, mjw8899 said:

Does the fmc allow you to stall the ac? If you turn AP and auto throttle off, can you perform a stall? It’s an easy test for FBW configuration. 

The alpha floor protection is definitely modelled.  I've had some amusement at new flight simmers on youTube expressing angst about it.  haven't kicked it off myself tho.  I agree with the others about the a320 being very sluggish,  I wonder though that if that is due to my control axis curves.  has any one flown it with straight linear control axis response?  my theory being that the FBW on the a320 might actually be decently accurate, but since I've compensated for the other aircrafts' over abundance of control authority by slowing my controls down, that it might be making this particular airplane worse?

[WestAir 2,522]

I have 3 major gripes about the '320 in my experience. The first is about the actual effectiveness of the FBW model. During the flare, the aircraft rolls full left for me, and my full right input is drowned out. It's probably the flare logic incorrectly assigned to the wrong axis. (Roll instead of pitch).

There's also an issue for rotation. You can't smoothly rotate as it stops you at about 10 degrees, and you have to yank back hard to continue the pitch trend.

My final gripe is pitch sensitivity, which I think is a problem with the sim as a whole. A small change in sidestick pressure results in a large change in pitch.

Those three issues make flying the bus a challenge, to say the least. I never had a type rating in the 320 family, but I'm confident enough to say that flying the sim bus is harder than the real bus from a "yoke n rudder" standpoint.

[jcomm 5,939]

1 hour ago, Janov said:

I don´t have Microsoft Flight Simulator so I can´t comment on the modeling - but I have flown the real A320 (family, including NEO) for 8 years now. Before that I flew Boeing (737, 747) airliners.

Thx Jan for the notes on flying an Airbus.... Regarding the above you really should !  It is a complete "game changer" ....

Even if these days I no longer  find much pleasure out of flight simming MFS still gives me some good minutes when I get the chance to start it in my desktop 🙂

[Janov 2,383]

1 hour ago, WestAir said:

There's also an issue for rotation. You can't smoothly rotate as it stops you at about 10 degrees, and you have to yank back hard to continue the pitch trend.

The NEO airbus variants have a "tailstrike protection logic" that hampers your rotation while close to the ground. It works that way in real life, too - and you have to "fight" the temptation to pull back harder (against it) because once you get out of the protection envelope the nose will "jump up" in response to the g-command induced by your aft sidestick.

In addition there is a change from direct pitch law (sidestick deflection = elevator deflection) while near the ground to the normal law (g force demand) happening at the same time - so there are 3 laws (+ the pilot) all trying to fly the airplane at this (critical) point in time 😒.

[WestAir 2,522]

34 minutes ago, Janov said:

The NEO airbus variants have a "tailstrike protection logic" that hampers your rotation while close to the ground. It works that way in real life, too - and you have to "fight" the temptation to pull back harder (against it) because once you get out of the protection envelope the nose will "jump up" in response to the g-command induced by your aft sidestick.

In addition there is a change from direct pitch law (sidestick deflection = elevator deflection) while near the ground to the normal law (g force demand) happening at the same time - so there are 3 laws (+ the pilot) all trying to fly the airplane at this (critical) point in time 😒.

This bird must drive you absolutely mad. 😂

[SierraHotel 982]

12 hours ago, Rocky said:

Am I the only one thinking the A320 flight dynamics are strange?
Or did I do something wrong on my config?

I think the A320 is almost impossible to fly (and to land) because it is much too soft. I mean that a full stick deflection causes a very slow reaction, the aircraft yaws very, very slowly and same for pitch. With light aircraft such as the Cessnas or the TBM, a small stick deflection causes a quick aircraft movement, many people complained about this and adjusted the controls sensitivity because of this. But on the A320 it is the opposite, making the trajectory impossible to adjust when landing. The real aircraft is much more agile, fortunately...

Did you notice the same or am I crazy?

I can't speak as a real A320 pilot only as a flight simmer of 35 years, but with the A32NX project installed the NEO in FS handles beautifully. It also lands perfectly for me, and, surprise, CAT 3 landings are also handled with perfection.

[martinboehme 492]

3 hours ago, Janov said:

It is a common misconception that "heavy" aircraft are sluggish - "because of the weight". This is further exacerbated by the fact that airliner´s are mostly flown "smoothly" for passenger comfort, and the autopilot is also tuned for that.

In reality all of the aicraft I have flown are actually quite maneuverable, and the 747-400s roll response is in fact a lot more springy than the 737-300s.

Thank you for adding some real-world perspective on this!

It's actually pretty easy to see why heavy doesn't have to mean sluggish. Heavier aircraft have larger control surfaces to account for their greater inertia. If the size of the control surfaces increases proportionally with aircraft mass, then maneuverability will, generally speaking, stay the same.

There are certification requirements for maneuverability (e. g. minimum roll rate), and I have my doubts that the A320 as currently simulated in MSFS would meet them...