Hello everyone. At the risk of feeling embarrassed and perhaps ridiculed I am asking for guidance from all experts here. I still consider myself a novice, a beginner with FS2020. I wanted to enjoy flying FS2020 by myself . As an example, I wanted to fly out of Charles de Gaulle and fly around Paris for  a sightseeing flight. I selected the airplane (Air France A320), selected the gate (medium) and selected the airport, ti,me and weather. Then selected "Set as Departure" and proceeded to "FLY" FS2020 pre set my aircraft on the runway, I thought I could do the flying, but the engines were already running and the plane magically took off and flew straight ahead,  suddenly the engines slowed down and it overrun the runway and barely climbed out and flew straight ahead and I could not take control of the flight. I I will really appreciated if anyone can help me here. Thanks.

I would say start with a different aircraft.  The FBW A320 might be a bit tough, try the Longitude, or one of the props.

Grab a Cessna or Cirrus for a sightseeing tour.  Easy to fly and very forgiving.  Plus, you don't sightsee in an airliner.  

Are you using a joystick? And we are all brand new at some point, so no reason to worry about asking for help. It's a flight sim and your not gonna hurt anything or anyone, except maybe be frustrated. Look at some YouTube videos to learn the basics. And the A320 with it's fly by wire, can be intimidating even to me. As until MSFS I had never flown a Airbus in a PC simulator. If you start on the runway the engines should be running, if you spawn at a stand or parking spot, it won't be running. So for learning just spawn on the runway for now. Heck get some info here, and YouTube, and other places, and one day you'll be an expert, or at least have fun. And to me that is the most important thing!

It's your sim, fly what ever you want. Might take awhile to get going though. We all have to practice learning new things. After reading your post again, you might enjoy being at the gate and using the built in assistant to help start the aircraft. Eventually you'll get it in the air. Now sight seeing, the A320 might be a little fast for that 🙂 But like I said, it's your sim, use it as you please.

Good luck!

Edited December 6, 20205 yr by in2tech

That's typical of starting with the engines running and the throttle advanced. Be sure you calibrate your equipment and, as others have suggested, start with something low and slow like a cessna or piper cub. Sightseeing in an airliner is not recommended. You need to be low and slow nnot high and fast.

I’d echo what others have said, something slow and stable makes a good sight seeing platform.  C152 or C172 could be good candidates.  The high wing gives good ground visibility too.

And no worries on being a novice and asking for help, ask away!

Make sure the you don’t have the AI copilot flying your airplane.

that’s an option for ease of use. 

" I thought I could do the flying, but the engines were already running and the plane magically took off and flew straight ahead,  suddenly the engines slowed down and it overrun the runway and barely climbed out and flew straight ahead and I could not take control of the flight. "

 

It sounds like you had a lot of the assisted flight mode enabled where the sim flies and you have but little input.

It is not quite a demo, but you the pilot play only a smaller part.

The ESC key can take you to a choice of 3 screens, the one in the middle is where you set options that can turn some or all of that unwanted help off.

Or if you just move the mouse up towards the top during a flight you can turn some of the help on or off from the overhead bar menu.

It was nice back in the early ages, when you would buy whatever new Sid Meir boxed computer game at Target or Sams. And inside was a large printed manual 100 pages long full of attractive pictures explaining what you had purchased.

Thank you all, but Ahsmatt7 is the one with right answer. After looking for videos with tutorials, I learned I had to turn off the AI pilot. This video answered my question:

 

Many (myself included) are finding the Cessna 208 to be a good compromise between a big, fast airliner and the small prop planes. 

I love that guy's outfit. 

My kind of pilot. He’s so adept, he can fly the plane with one hand, while playing Beethoven on the other

There's an occasional issue I'm trying to chase down where my throttle will suddenly advance. Often right as I take the parking brake off. I don't see the parking brake button co-assigned to the throttle axis, so I suspect it's a bug that doesn't rear its head every time. That may have happened to you.

Beyond that, I second the others' recommendation. An airliner is entirely too fast and slow-turning to be a good sightseeing plane. You'd be better off in one of the small single-prop planes. 

If you want to start with the engines off, start from a parking space rather than on the runway. 

Also make sure your autopilot toggle isn't mapped to a repeating switch if you have one on your joystick. Some of the Saiteks have a mode switch that will send a button press signal repeatedly. If that happens to be mapped to something like an autopilot, you'll run into controlability issues.