A few times while flying, I hit "esc" and went into other menus to tweak a few changes. Upon "resuming" the flight, I'd find the airplane either with a lower speed, or climbing-- depending on the aircraft. I did not realize  that the sim deploys the flaps whenever you leave the screen. I suspect Asobo will need to make a few changes on this, too.

24 minutes ago, flyforever said:

A few times while flying, I hit "esc" and went into other menus to tweak a few changes. Upon "resuming" the flight, I'd find the airplane either with a lower speed, or climbing-- depending on the aircraft. I did not realize  that the sim deploys the flaps whenever you leave the screen. I suspect Asobo will need to make a few changes on this, too.

This makes absolutely no sense. I think you're the only one experiencing flaps down when you leave the main window. Its possible that flaps is assigned to multiple buttons

23 minutes ago, flyforever said:

A few times while flying, I hit "esc" and went into other menus to tweak a few changes. Upon "resuming" the flight, I'd find the airplane either with a lower speed, or climbing-- depending on the aircraft. I did not realize  that the sim deploys the flaps whenever you leave the screen. I suspect Asobo will need to make a few changes on this, too.

Strange, I don't see that on my system. Suggest you check under the assigned controls menu that the Esc key is not assigned to flaps somehow.

Al

32 minutes ago, flyforever said:

A few times while flying, I hit "esc" and went into other menus to tweak a few changes. Upon "resuming" the flight, I'd find the airplane either with a lower speed, or climbing-- depending on the aircraft. I did not realize  that the sim deploys the flaps whenever you leave the screen. I suspect Asobo will need to make a few changes on this, too.

Have thoroughly exhausted all other possibilities before blaming Asobo? 

I know its trendy to do it, but come on... 

typical user error, and trying to put the blame elsewhere.

MSFS can definitely do some weird things which are totally system related. For example, I have a slightly ropey connector on a USB pair of headphones, and if it glitches in the USB socket, the throttle reduces in MSFS owing to some spurious signals conflicting with the HOTAS signal.

The sim does not do this on after ESC then resuming. The flight is precisely as it was before pressing ESC.

I will look into it some more. It may very well be, as someone suggested, that the esc key is activating the flaps.

 After a few serious users provided real feedback, I went back to my system and, sure enough, I was wrong to suggest that the flap issue was perhaps a bug. I stand corrected. As a "quadrant" custom builder, I sometimes have more than one button or axis configured in a sim. I do this intentionally to push the sim and the devices.  For the most part, I think I know what I am doing. In this case,however,  a 3D printed prototype part that I had made to move the gear for the axis that controls the flaps had broken. ( That's why I prototype). With a broken gear mount, the pot controlling the axis had stopped somewhere beyond the zero point, thus activating the flap. I knew that it was possible to have an axis and a button configured for the flaps. The "esc" button was too obvious for me to think that it was configured for the flaps in the sim---this button is always taken for sim related functions. That's why I jumped the gun a bit, and for this I apologize to Asobo and their great team.