Landing the FENIX 320

[vin747 316]

Having trouble manually landing the fenix 320 (latest fenix build, SU10).. Although FENIX team has acknowledged that the flight model needs tweaking (earlier builds were easier to fly but latest build is more accurate on the numbers, but lost some of the ease of flying), I still wanna get people's opinions here at AVSIM on the latest flight model.. here's my bug report/chat transcript from the discord:

Did my 1st flight on Fenix today. Everything went great except the manual landing.. Flight model was too sluggish and had lots of inertia compared to fbw a32nx and pmdg 737. Will have to tweak control curves and do a pattern to test it again tonight. But how do others feel about the inertia esp during flare? (edited)

Full disclosure - I was using honeycomb yoke during the first flight.. Will try with joystick and tweaked control curves tonight and report back..

Yoke had been usually great for hand flying the a320 neo.. So I assumed it shouldn't matter..

ok, just tried with linear settings/control curves.. response is a tad better, but the current version is unflyable..

it is a bit easier to hand fly now with linear settings, but real issue is during touchdown.. the floating effect is the plane launching into orbit near the ground because the ATHR is trying too hard to maintain VAPP.. normally in any other airbus, i leave ATHR ON until RETARD.. but if i do that here, there is a power surge during those last few moments.. just launches into orbit right around flare unless I cut to IDLE well before RETARD.. or I fly manually like a boeing without ATHR in which case i have better control over power management..

manual landings are impossible now with the current implementation unless you tune your flying skills to the quirks of this build.. in which case, you have to unlearn years of flying TOLISS, FSL, FlightFactor, FBW A320 etc.. and i don't wanna do that..

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by vin747

[Bobsk8 12,844]

Just now, vin747 said:

Having trouble manually landing the fenix 320 (latest fenix build, SU10).. Although FENIX team has acknowledged that the flight model needs tweaking (earlier builds were easier to fly but latest build is more accurate on the numbers, but lost some of the ease of flying), I still wanna get people's opinions here at AVSIM on the latest flight model.. here's my bug report/chat transcript from the discord:

Did my 1st flight on Fenix today. Everything went great except the manual landing.. Flight model was too sluggish and had lots of inertia compared to fbw a32nx and pmdg 737. Will have to tweak control curves and do a pattern to test it again tonight. But how do others feel about the inertia esp during flare? (edited)

Full disclosure - I was using honeycomb yoke during the first flight.. Will try with joystick and tweaked control curves tonight and report back..

Yoke had been usually great for hand flying the a320 neo.. So I assumed it shouldn't matter..

ok, just tried with linear settings/control curves.. response is a tad better, but the current version is unflyable..

it is a bit easier to hand fly now with linear settings, but real issue is during touchdown.. the floating effect is the plane launching into orbit near the ground because the ATHR is trying too hard to maintain VAPP.. normally in any other airbus, i leave ATHR ON until RETARD.. but if i do that here, there is a power surge during those last few moments.. just launches into orbit right around flare unless I cut to IDLE well before RETARD.. or I fly manually like a boeing without ATHR in which case i have better control over power management..

manual landings are impossible now with the current implementation unless you tune your flying skills to the quirks of this build.. in which case, you have to unlearn years of flying TOLISS, FSL, FlightFactor, FBW A320 etc.. and i don't wanna do that..

 

Landing the Fenix after it was updated months ago is is no fun at all. They keep promising to fix it, and so far, it still is a PIA. I am back to flying GA for awhile. 

[vin747 316]

here's what I observed during a few touch and go's.. during flare, nose goes up a little and speed drops a little as it should, but ATHR aggressively tries to maintain VAPP and there's a power surge which launches it into orbit.. happens around 50,40,30 before RETARD.. once it launches up, if you RETARD, then you drop like a rock from 50 ft..

[Bobsk8 12,844]

3 minutes ago, vin747 said:

here's what I observed during a few touch and go's.. during flare, nose goes up a little and speed drops a little as it should, but ATHR aggressively tries to maintain VAPP and there's a power surge which launches it into orbit.. happens around 50,40,30 before RETARD.. once it launches up, if you RETARD, then you drop like a rock from 50 ft..

Yes it is as if the A 320 is afraid of the ground, and does everything to avoid it when trying to land. 

[Pochi 68]

Same findings for me, they really need to update the FM to correct this. It is such a pain to make a perfect flight just to screw it up during the flare 😅

Pierre

[Wise87 1,286]

I gave up and went back to the version before all the landing issues started. 

[Bobsk8 12,844]

1 minute ago, Wise87 said:

I gave up and went back to the version before all the landing issues started. 

There is a long explanation on their Discord page, and basically it says now the aircraft is flying by the correct  numbers now , which makes it harder to land....

[Aamir 2,907]

Just now, Bobsk8 said:

There is a long explanation on their Discord page, and basically it says now the aircraft is flying by the correct  numbers now , which makes it harder to land....

Hey Bob, allow me to summarize what we sent to you last time you enquired about this, and to give some extra information to those here struggling with landing. These issues with approach/landing/flare are a side-effect of getting the aircraft to match the real world data more closely, not by us changing tuning values to make it more challenging etc. To put it simply, MSFS has a very strange relationship with inertia/mass; it seems plausible some internal calculations were written and checked against light aircraft, and fail to scale properly to airliners. Regardless, it's fast becoming apparent that a trade-off will need to be made between how it 'feels' to fly vs. how accurate to the real world figures it is, and what makes most sense for this product. Leaning fully into "it feels really nice" will ultimately lead to unrealistic behaviour in drag/lift/performance, but likewise going full-out "it's hit all the numbers according to the plethora of real world data" will lead to issues in how the aircraft 'feels' in certain flight profiles, as you and many other users are discovering. Ultimately 99.9% of simmers aren't sitting there with Airbus engineering tables in front of them, looking for a 0.5 degree discrepancy at 12,000ft in flap 3, so there is definitely some wiggle-room before most people notice the deviation.

Now as for the the delay in pushing an update that resolves a multitude of issues, we temporarily lost a couple of key devs during the last 2 weeks that significantly hampered progress. I had an unexpected medical issue that required emergency surgery, and our senior programmer's town was hit with missiles, knocking out most of the water and power. Whilst we agree the above landing issues need to be resolved swiftly, the team's health and well-being has been coming first this last week or so.

Regardless, our latest internal build is now auto-landing properly in gusty/xwind conditions, pilot feedback has been much better on qualitative items such as pitch/flare, several areas of the autothrust system have been rewritten including GS mini and we've also managed to tune some better behaviour into the flaps. Provided we squeeze in the last few rounds of tuning and testing over the next few days I'm hopeful we can have an update out this coming week. In the meantime, not a bad idea to sit on an extra cushion whilst driving the Fenix.

[MikeyOnTheFlightDeck 209]

3 minutes ago, Aamir said:

Hey Bob, allow me to summarize what we sent to you last time you enquired about this, and to give some extra information to those here struggling with landing. These issues with approach/landing/flare are a side-effect of getting the aircraft to match the real world data more closely, not by us changing tuning values to make it more challenging etc. To put it simply, MSFS has a very strange relationship with inertia/mass; it seems plausible some internal calculations were written and checked against light aircraft, and fail to scale properly to airliners. Regardless, it's fast becoming apparent that a trade-off will need to be made between how it 'feels' to fly vs. how accurate to the real world figures it is, and what makes most sense for this product. Leaning fully into "it feels really nice" will ultimately lead to unrealistic behaviour in drag/lift/performance, but likewise going full-out "it's hit all the numbers according to the plethora of real world data" will lead to issues in how the aircraft 'feels' in certain flight profiles, as you and many other users are discovering. Ultimately 99.9% of simmers aren't sitting there with Airbus engineering tables in front of them, looking for a 0.5 degree discrepancy at 12,000ft in flap 3, so there is definitely some wiggle-room before most people notice the deviation.

Now as for the the delay in pushing an update that resolves a multitude of issues, we temporarily lost a couple of key devs during the last 2 weeks that significantly hampered progress. I had an unexpected medical issue that required emergency surgery, and our senior programmer's town was hit with missiles, knocking out most of the water and power. Whilst we agree the above landing issues need to be resolved swiftly, the team's health and well-being has been coming first this last week or so.

Regardless, our latest internal build is now auto-landing properly in gusty/xwind conditions, pilot feedback has been much better on qualitative items such as pitch/flare, several areas of the autothrust system have been rewritten including GS mini and we've also managed to tune some better behaviour into the flaps. Provided we squeeze in the last few rounds of tuning and testing over the next few days I'm hopeful we can have an update out this coming week. In the meantime, not a bad idea to sit on an extra cushion whilst driving the Fenix.

Appreciate the update Amir. It’s slightly comforting knowing it’s not just me that has trouble flaring this bird at the moment. 

[Wise87 1,286]

Thanks for the update. By posting it here made it a lot easier to see what is going on and that it is being addressed then trying to decipher Discord.

[regis9 4,037]

14 minutes ago, Aamir said:

Now as for the the delay in pushing an update that resolves a multitude of issues, we temporarily lost a couple of key devs during the last 2 weeks that significantly hampered progress. I had an unexpected medical issue that required emergency surgery, and our senior programmer's town was hit with missiles, knocking out most of the water and power. Whilst we agree the above landing issues need to be resolved swiftly, the team's health and well-being has been coming first this last week or so.

This puts everything else in perspective, thanks for the update and I hope everyone on your team is well.

[F737MAX 5,737]

12 minutes ago, Aamir said:

Now as for the the delay in pushing an update that resolves a multitude of issues, we temporarily lost a couple of key devs during the last 2 weeks that significantly hampered progress. I had an unexpected medical issue that required emergency surgery, and our senior programmer's town was hit with missiles, knocking out most of the water and power. Whilst we agree the above landing issues need to be resolved swiftly, the team's health and well-being has been coming first this last week or so.

I sincerely hope that you are recovering well and your senior programmer and his family are doing OK.

Thanks for going above and beyond to explain the situation, and for recognising that there are issues that require some fixing with your otherwise great add-on.

[ha5mvo 260]

25 minutes ago, Aamir said:

 These issues with approach/landing/flare are a side-effect of getting the aircraft to match the real world data more closely, not by us changing tuning values to make it more challenging etc. To put it simply, MSFS has a very strange relationship with inertia/mass; it seems plausible some internal calculations were written and checked against light aircraft, and fail to scale properly to airliners. Regardless, it's fast becoming apparent that a trade-off will need to be made between how it 'feels' to fly vs. how accurate to the real world figures it is, and what makes most sense for this product. Leaning fully into "it feels really nice" will ultimately lead to unrealistic behaviour in drag/lift/performance, but likewise going full-out "it's hit all the numbers according to the plethora of real world data" will lead to issues in how the aircraft 'feels' in certain flight profiles, as you and many other users are discovering.

Hi,

Let me start off by wishing you speedy recovery and offer my sympathy to all those living in war zones and suffering its consequences. I personally had lived in war-ravaged areas and I know exactly how it feels.

For sure, such issues should definitely take precedence over flight simulation....

One thing I didn't really understand from your post is your reference to "feel". If an airplane flies by the numbers, then that's how it should fly...or else, what do you mean by "feel" and why should realism be sacrificed for it?

[tangjuice81 8]

Flew from ORD to TPA today. The winds in were 09006kt but then changes slightly to 11011kt and approach was set to rwy 01L. I decided to do an autoland which resulted in a 519fpm landing rate. Now I usually fly with a/thr on and land manually but this time I let the computer do it. A few minor tweaks and it should be good to go. And all those affected by the war I say a prayer for you. I appreciate you all! Stay up!

[Aamir 2,907]

1 hour ago, ha5mvo said:

One thing I didn't really understand from your post is your reference to "feel". If an airplane flies by the numbers, then that's how it should fly...or else, what do you mean by "feel" and why should realism be sacrificed for it?

Welllllll not really. You're basically positing that Asobo's recreation of the world of aerodynamics is perfect.