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

[Noel 4,560]

25 minutes ago, crimplene said:

On a sidenote from an A320 sim pilot who tries to fly the 737:

Why does this old-fashioned piece of aluminum has so many unnecessary knobs and switches? 😉

That seems like you're joking, no?  Seems like it's the other way around this A320 is so much more complicated my God!  

Taxiing w/ what I use for ground steering is horrible and I'm not sure why.  I read the guide on it and it mentions there is a delay in effect as you steer but the curve is hard to figure out it's so sensitive despite the fact I use the same sensitivity for all other planes in my hanger including PMDG and AS CRJ which are easy in intuitive to steer. 

[crimplene 634]

16 minutes ago, Noel said:

That seems like you're joking, no?  Seems like it's the other way around this A320 is so much more complicated my God!  

Taxiing w/ what I use for ground steering is horrible and I'm not sure why.  I read the guide on it and it mentions there is a delay in effect as you steer but the curve is hard to figure out it's so sensitive despite the fact I use the same sensitivity for all other planes in my hanger including PMDG and AS CRJ which are easy in intuitive to steer. 

I was only half joking. The Airbus concept is much more logical in my eye. Using the 737 I feel like an engineer, calibrating a very complicated piece of mechanics. And there are strange redundancies in the 737. Why do I have to dial in the ILS frequency when it is already shown in the CDU? Why does the Autoland system needs me to put in runway eleveation and length? Why do I have to use at least twice as much knobs and switches to start up this plane compared to the A320? Etc. etc.

But I can understand the feeling that the Airbus is more complicated when you come from Boeing. The stuff with pulling and pushing the knobs is confusing at first.

Taxiing: At first I was a bit suprised about the (lets call it) inertia of the nosewheel steering in the Fenix. It over-steers a lot above 10 knots GS. But watching the nosewheel, I found that this wheel needs one or two seconds from being fully defelcted to going straight. So it was me oversteering it. I think the Fenix has a very good relation between visible nosewheel inflection and steering direction. Of course, I have no clue if all this is realistic. With the 737 I am a bit annoyed because I need lots of brake to make a narrow turn.

Both planes are very interesting and fun to fly, though.

[hvw 415]

26 minutes ago, Noel said:

That seems like you're joking, no?  Seems like it's the other way around this A320 is so much more complicated my God!  

Taxiing w/ what I use for ground steering is horrible and I'm not sure why.  I read the guide on it and it mentions there is a delay in effect as you steer but the curve is hard to figure out it's so sensitive despite the fact I use the same sensitivity for all other planes in my hanger including PMDG and AS CRJ which are easy in intuitive to steer. 

Same here. As I mentioned before, this is the main reason that I won't use FBW A320 anymore. I tried everything possible, still I need a lot of space to make any turn, thus missing a lot of taxiways. FYI. I am using Thrustmaster's Airbus A320 TCA Captain Pack.

[gdjak 176]

17 minutes ago, hvw said:

Same here. As I mentioned before, this is the main reason that I won't use FBW A320 anymore. I tried everything possible, still I need a lot of space to make any turn, thus missing a lot of taxiways. FYI. I am using Thrustmaster's Airbus A320 TCA Captain Pack.

Kinda sounds like you enabled the tiller axis and are trying to steer by rudder only - that'll get you a massive reduction in nose gear authority.

If the plane steers in the opposite direction for a bit, you need to disable the MSFS autorudder setting.

Edited January 22, 2023 by gdjak

[hvw 415]

1 minute ago, gdjak said:

Kinda sounds like you enabled the tiller axis and are trying to steer by rudder only - that'll get you a massive reduction in nose gear authority.

Yes, sounds like  But I also tried with tiller axis disabled and still no success. I also tried different other settings without any luck. (I followed as well all suggestions/directions given in FBW's documentation). 

[crimplene 634]

I just compared taxiing with FBW and Fenix A320 and the PMDG 737-800. All of them are able to make a u-turn on a dime at very low speed. The 737 needs the lowest speed, though, it starts to slide the deflected nosewheel straight ahead at speeds over maybe 3 knots. This might even even realistic, come to think of it, since there is only very low weight on this wheel. But I am no RW pilot.

At around 20 knots all three of them were perfectly capable of following the yellow lines. I use a simple joytick with z-axis, no pedals.

Edited January 22, 2023 by crimplene

[gdjak 176]

21 minutes ago, hvw said:

Yes, sounds like  But I also tried with tiller axis disabled and still no success. I also tried different other settings without any luck. (I followed as well all suggestions/directions given in FBW's documentation). 

Do you get full rudder deflection? 

[Tierborn 190]

5 hours ago, hvw said:

Taxiing the FBW A320 is a royal PITA even after following directions given in FBW's documentation. This is the one and only reason that I use Fenix A320 exclusively.

 A royal pita?

[MySound 407]

1 hour ago, Noel said:

That seems like you're joking, no?  Seems like it's the other way around this A320 is so much more complicated my God!  

 

Lol - no. Just no. 

[Krakin 5,837]

Is anyone going to actually answer his question?

[jcomm 5,974]

Fenix steering disconnect button logic is wrong, btw....

they modelled it in a strange way. you click the tiller DISC button to be able to test your rudder without moving the nosewheel ( usually during taxi to active ) and the rudder stops moving 😕

[chapstick 2,762]

6 minutes ago, cagarini said:

Fenix steering disconnect button logic is wrong, btw....

they modelled it in a strange way. you click the tiller DISC button to be able to test your rudder without moving the nosewheel ( usually during taxi to active ) and the rudder stops moving 😕

They game-ified it because people were putting in too many support tickets about how it worked. 🤦‍♂️ 

[Fiorentoni 4,326]

1 hour ago, Noel said:

I got the CG% value from there but the tutorial referred me to find a chart online to convert that into the correct setting for pitch trim.  Apparently it can be determined looking at the trim wheel I guess you are saying?  I'll look in a little bit thanks!

No idea what tutorial you mean, the FBW site says as I said: https://docs.flybywiresim.com/pilots-corner/beginner-guide/preparing-mcdu/?h=cg#perf

The value calculated by the FMS is the same that is calculated in real life by the performance calculator (EFB), only that the expressions are different (not % of CG which refers to the w&b, but instead something like "0.5 down" which refers to the angle of the stabilizer). It's just two ways of saying the same thing, just like in the 737 you have a CG you enter in the takeoff page and you get a trim value to set.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Fiorentoni

[environmental_ice 240]

I'd love to see fenix incorporate the iPad to be more vatsim friendly. I love how on the FBW I can just click the controller frequencies instead of manually tunning them. It really cuts down on the workload in busy airports. I don't fly the FBW as much anymore but when I do I'm always pleasantly reminded it has this great feature among forgetting how beautiful the cockpit is compared to the Fenix (which I understand as FBW is supposed to look newer being a NEO) 

 

FBW short comings don't make it any worse than the Fenix. I don't really care about seeing predicted TOD and things like that. At least FBW can fly in icy conditions without turning into a pumpkin 😂The feel, the sounds, the realism is both great to me for both aircraft in their own ways. 

[Bobsk8 12,836]

14 minutes ago, cagarini said:

Fenix steering disconnect button logic is wrong, btw....

they modelled it in a strange way. you click the tiller DISC button to be able to test your rudder without moving the nosewheel ( usually during taxi to active ) and the rudder stops moving 😕

I never use that button and all my steering is done with rudder pedals. When I start to taxi, I can easily see if rudder deflections are proper. No issues at all.