What makes Fenix the better A32 over FBW...or is it?

[Noel 4,573]

I just settled on what FBW advised which is to leave auto-rudder off.  I then assigned rudder axis to aileron axis and at least between my tiller control for low speed ground steering just using my yoke's aileron axis made steering easy again at higher speeds.  Landing may be an entirely different experience and I will know soon as I'm at cruise again going over the beautiful Rockies for LV again for the 5th time now and all's well.

Can one change/edit the speeds used in "managed" flight level change mode (its version of VNAV), or does it become using VS to change levels and adjusting speed manually?  

I'm still not seeing how one can take the CoG % and come up with a pitch trim number on the wheel, which is what the tutorial mentions should be done by finding a chart on line to refer to.  Of course the B738 gives you the exact setting but not seeing it here.

Is it possible to increase brightness of the green characters separate from other components in the PFD?  When I adjust brightness up with the dedicated knob the center gets too bright relative to the green characters.

One more:  ground steering around KDEN I got some hard pauses once again and I just have not had any of this for months now.   Has nothing to do w/ overtaxed CPU/GPU those numbers are fine.  Any ideas where this might come from on this plane?  I assume it's this plane but haven't flown in other planes since getting acquainted with this remarkable freeware, but haven't made any other changes except adding this, and it's requisite .  It's been great and I can certainly see why it has its fans!

Two more:  I don't see altitude constraints on the navigation display.  What did I miss to enable them?  

Edited January 22, 2023 by Noel

[speedyTC 206]

4 hours ago, Noel said:

And I did notice the button presses executed by pushin an up arrow--no very intuitive. 

Agreed, but this is a MSFS-ism. It was far better implemented in P3D (FSLabs) where left (mouse) button "pushed" and right button "pulled".

On a separate note...I think you'll find that once you get used to the Bus's autotrim feature going back to the Boeing and the endless trim adjustments to be quite taxing 🙂

Edited January 22, 2023 by speedyTC

[chapstick 2,769]

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

I don't know why this is so difficult. If I just start to taxi at one or two MPH, I can apply full left and right rudder with the rudder pedals, and watch the rudder display , and it will show full deflection of rudder. Takes about 4 seconds to do. 

It's not difficult to find a workaround. 

No one said it was.

It's simply modeled incorrectly, for now, until Fenix corrects it, which they said they will. 

Edited January 22, 2023 by Chapstick

[Bobsk8 12,960]

17 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

It's not difficult to find a workaround. 

No one said it was.

It's simply modeled incorrectly, for now, until Fenix corrects it, which they said they will. 

Well what also is modeled incorrectly is the desk where I do my flying from. I don't have a tiller wheel bolted  to the left side of it. 😉

Edited January 22, 2023 by Bobsk8

[Bobsk8 12,960]

32 minutes ago, Noel said:

I just settled on what FBW advised which is to leave auto-rudder off.  I then assigned rudder axis to aileron axis and at least between my tiller control for low speed ground steering just using my yoke's aileron axis made steering easy again at higher speeds.  Landing may be an entirely different experience and I will know soon as I'm at cruise again going over the beautiful Rockies for LV again for the 5th time now and all's well.

Can one change/edit the speeds used in "managed" flight level change mode (its version of VNAV), or does it become using VS to change levels and adjusting speed manually?  

I'm still not seeing how one can take the CoG % and come up with a pitch trim number on the wheel, which is what the tutorial mentions should be done by finding a chart on line to refer to.  Of course the B738 gives you the exact setting but not seeing it here.

Is it possible to increase brightness of the green characters separate from other components in the PFD?  When I adjust brightness up with the dedicated knob the center gets too bright relative to the green characters.

One more:  ground steering around KDEN I got some hard pauses once again and I just have not had any of this for months now.   Has nothing to do w/ overtaxed CPU/GPU those numbers are fine.  Any ideas where this might come from on this plane?  I assume it's this plane but haven't flown in other planes since getting acquainted with this remarkable freeware, but haven't made any other changes except adding this, and it's requisite .  It's been great and I can certainly see why it has its fans!

Two more:  I don't see altitude constraints on the navigation display.  What did I miss to enable them?  

 

 

[Bobsk8 12,960]

27 minutes ago, speedyTC said:

Agreed, but this is a MSFS-ism. It was far better implemented in P3D (FSLabs) where left (mouse) button "pushed" and right button "pulled".

On a separate note...I think you'll find that once you get used to the Bus's autotrim feature going back to the Boeing and the endless trim adjustments to be quite taxing 🙂

"Up" is forward, "down" is back is the way I remember it. 

[crimplene 634]

It is possible to assign button pull and push to mouse buttons. I forgot, where to do that but it was somewhere in the mouse settings, of course, called "tertiary mouse action" or similar. Very helpful.

The trim settings for takeoff usually get calculated together with the takeoff speeds. I don't remember if this is implemented in the FBW already. In the Fenix it is put in the Takeoff Perf page. Format is like "1/UP0.2", "1" being the flap setting.

[Noel 4,573]

Did great all the way gate to gate on my 5th flight.  Quite a lovely plane and it's already making sense quite well, though still I can't see the number of button presses used to fly the B738 will be as many as this bird.   The only issue is this nagging intermittent hang/pause mainly noticed around the airport during taxi and I get zero of this any more in the PMDG 738 nor any other plane and this is in the context of ample CPU and GPU headroom, so it's some process presumably that came with this plane, some polling activity or something.  Anyone have a clue on this??

I used this livery to exclude the Air France livery as being a possible source of this issue but it wasn't.

[RALF9636 2,031]

1 hour ago, Noel said:

 The only issue is this nagging intermittent hang/pause mainly noticed around the airport during taxi and I get zero of this any more in the PMDG 738 nor any other plane and this is in the context of ample CPU and GPU headroom, so it's some process presumably that came with this plane, some polling activity or something.  Anyone have a clue on this??

 

Quote

One more:  ground steering around KDEN I got some hard pauses once again and I just have not had any of this for months now.   Has nothing to do w/ overtaxed CPU/GPU those numbers are fine.  Any ideas where this might come from on this plane?  I assume it's this plane ...

 

Yes, it is the FBW. It induces terrible stutters, at least on some systems (including mine - and apparently yours). So far there doesn't seem to be a way to fix it. That's why I stopped using it.

The only fix is: Get the Fenix, it is totally smooth.

 

Edited January 22, 2023 by RALF9636

[martinboehme 586]

1 hour ago, Noel said:

I then assigned rudder axis to aileron axis and at least between my tiller control for low speed ground steering just using my yoke's aileron axis made steering easy again at higher speeds.

Do I understand correctly that you assigned rudder and aileron to the same joystick axis? That doesn't seem advisable, as you'll never be able to make an aileron input without making a rudder input at the same time. Turns in airliners are flown with the ailerons alone - the yaw damper takes care of keeping the turn coordinated. 

1 hour ago, Noel said:

I'm still not seeing how one can take the CoG % and come up with a pitch trim number on the wheel, which is what the tutorial mentions should be done by finding a chart on line to refer to. 

A "chart" that relates CG and trim setting is on the trim indicator itself. See the first screenshot on this page:

https://docs.flybywiresim.com/pilots-corner/a32nx-briefing/flight-deck/pedestal/thrust-pitch-trim/

The CG scale is on the left of the trim indicator, right next to the trim wheel. Simply set the trim so that the triangle marker is aligned with your takeoff CG. In the screenshot, takeoff trim is set for a CG of about 27%. (Yup, no computers involved - on an Airbus!) 

[Noel 4,573]

Thanks RALF9636 that is good to know and already I'm liking the plane enough to consider the Fenix.  Before going there I will visit their Discord channel and see if I can learn how widespread it is and if anyone has discovered the source for this because this plane is pretty darn complete already and is still under development it seems.

Cheers

[RALF9636 2,031]

Just now, Noel said:

Thanks RALF9636 that is good to know and already I'm liking the plane enough to consider the Fenix.  Before going there I will visit their Discord channel and see if I can learn how widespread it is and if anyone has discovered the source for this because this plane is pretty darn complete already and is still under development it seems.

Cheers

You are right, it is a shame that these stutters ruin an otherwise fantastic freeware addon.

If you succeed to find a way to avoid these stutters, please let us know here.

 

[Noel 4,573]

4 minutes ago, martinboehme said:

Do I understand correctly that you assigned rudder and aileron to the same joystick axis? That doesn't seem advisable, as you'll never be able to make an aileron input without making a rudder input at the same time. Turns in airliners are flown with the ailerons alone - the yaw damper takes care of keeping the turn coordinated. 

You are so right.  I have rudder and aileron to my Boeing Edition yoke.  It's maybe the best I can do w/o a good rudder I think and quite frankly both TO and landing were excellent a moment ago.  What I haven't done is tried this w/ the PMDG 738 as I use auto-rudder for it, and auto-rudder is not a good thing at all w/ the FBW A320NX.  However I think auto-rudder can be toggle on and off w/ a key/button press.   It may become troublesome with crosswinds I imagine, not having independent rudder and aileron.  I don't portend to be a valid pilot I just have a blast pretending and learn bits and pieces along the way so mainly it's "whatever works" to allow me to score high in my APL career 😉

[Noel 4,573]

11 minutes ago, martinboehme said:

he CG scale is on the left of the trim indicator, right next to the trim wheel. Simply set the trim so that the triangle marker is aligned with your takeoff CG. In the screenshot, takeoff trim is set for a CG of about 27%. (Yup, no computers involved - on an Airbus!) 

That's interesting because the tutorial I watched said because CG was 25% it need 1 up trim which is way more than is shown in that screenshot which shows CG would need to be about 22% for that.  Thanks!!!

[gdjak 176]

36 minutes ago, Noel said:

You are so right.  I have rudder and aileron to my Boeing Edition yoke.  It's maybe the best I can do w/o a good rudder I think and quite frankly both TO and landing were excellent a moment ago.  

Just so you know, any rudder input during normal operations is very much not expected outside of takeoff and landing - so the fly by wire system may run into issues since it's already trying to fly coordinated and has control of the rudder .. so if the plane gets wobbly on you, that's one of the probable causes.