Fenix or FBW?

[rlashier 95]

Lotharen,

Since I fly both, maybe I can help.  With the FBW, you can assign a distinct axis to the tiller if you wish to use nosewheel steering. But I find that I can achieve sufficient steering during taxi simply by assigning the rudder axis to pedals or an axis on your flight stick. I have a separate flight stick with a twist type axis assigned to the rudder, and this works fine for me with the FBW. Don’t go overboard with the sensitivity setting here - small adjustments are all that are needed. The FBW documentation is clear that you must turn off MSFS assists in your Flight Controls settings, particularly Autorudder. If you have Autorudder on, your rudder control will be a holy mess. I learned the hard way!

Rich

 

 

[HiFlyer 9,376]

1 hour ago, Lotharen said:

My only issue is steering during taxi, OMG I couldn't track a straight line to save my life! and oversteering like crazy. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong with this?

Yeah. Its one of my few niggles with this plane. The ground steering is not pleasant at all, and you get warnings everywhere if you turn on any assists. 

[HiFlyer 9,376]

2 hours ago, crimplene said:

The Fenix is not free from little bugs, too, btw. For example, it happens on random that the autothrottle accelerates to S speed all of a sudden when in Approach mode with flaps already on 2 or 3.

My irritant is that when I call for pushback, The Fenix starts drifting backwards on its own, despite the brakes being on, and the pushback truck has to try and catch up to connect. Kind of blows ones suspension of disbelief....

Not sure if I have a setting wrong.

[Lotharen 287]

Ahh, I bet I still have Autorudder on. I need to disable that since I have it on my joysticks twist axis. Ill disable that and see what happens. 

[rlashier 95]

Lotharen, I’m guessing you’ll be pleasantly surprised. 
Rich

[El Diablito 330]

16 hours ago, Noel said:

You're not using the EXP version?

It's the only version I use, Noel. I just switched over to the DEV to see how it flew after the update but without the VNAV it just feels naked, not for me.

I went back to the EXP yesterday and it flies great.

[Bobsk8 12,879]

16 hours ago, Lotharen said:

Ahh, I bet I still have Autorudder on. I need to disable that since I have it on my joysticks twist axis. Ill disable that and see what happens. 

Auto rudder never works well for any aircraft, make it more like driving a car than flying an aircraft.

[Donstim 109]

On 2/16/2023 at 9:41 PM, Hatch76 said:

It’s been a few months since I flew it. So maybe it’s been updated since. 

Hi, just wanted to follow up with you on this.  I see that there was an issue identified last year about this time citing an unrealistically high glide ratio (26:1) for the A32NX: https://github.com/flybywiresim/a32nx/issues/3322. Does this sound similar to what you were experiencing?

There have been several flight model updates since then, the most recent being about a month ago.

A Google search for A320 glide ratio shows several research studies (e.g., https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279217100_Is_Green_Dot_Always_the_Optimum_Engines-Out_Glide_Speed_on_the_Airbus_A320_Aircraft) based on a clean glide ratio of 17:1, and a full flap, gear down landing configuration glide ratio of 9:1. The Airbus FCOM gives a descent rate of 2.5 NM/1000 ft (glide ratio of 15:1) with all-engines-inoperative at green dot speed clean. The landing procedure for all-engines-inoperative is to use CONF 2. In this configuration with gear down, the FCOM provides a descent rate of 1.6 NM/1000 ft (glide ratio of 9.7:1).

Tests at 60T with the FBW A32NX provided the following results:

Clean at Green dot speed: 3.2 NM/1000 ft (glide ratio of 19.4:1)

CONF 2/gear down at 163 KCAS: 1.5 NM/1000 ft (glide ratio of 9.1:1)

CONF FULL/gear down at Vref+10: 1.4 NM/1000 ft (glide ratio of 8.5:1)

Edited February 22, 2023 by Donstim

[vonmar 124]

On 2/17/2023 at 4:42 AM, rayharris108 said:

I have both. One thing I found that’s better (for me) with the Fenix is its FMGC seems to have correct SID/STARS. With the FBW it often seems to have some procedures missing. I’m right up to date with Navigraph data on both busses… eg in my case SKBO no RWY13R SIDS in the FBW, but all present in the Fenix. FBW is really nice - when its autothrottle works. Fenix is pretty rock solid for me, but you do lose a few frames compared to both FBW and PMDG ( I have the 736).

One thing I noticed about the Fenix though is it may not be ideal if you do a lot of flying in and out of high altitude airports. I believe the older A320 required engine mods for high altitudes and very hot conditions, both situations where the air is less dense. Obviously with FBW you just get the standard engines. So at say ZULS (11400ft) it will struggle to take off and climb even from a 2 mile runway, whereas the FBW with LEAP engines and the PMDG 600 do not to have that problem (better power to weight ratio, or smaller size?)

Good luck with whatever you choose. 

"One thing I found that’s better (for me) with the Fenix is its FMGC seems to have correct SID/STARS. With the FBW it often seems to have some procedures missing. I’m right up to date with Navigraph data on both busses… eg in my case SKBO no RWY13R SIDS in the FBW, but all present in the Fenix."

Which SID (name) was missing [SKBO no RWY13R SIDS} ?

[Noel 4,563]

On 2/19/2023 at 11:46 AM, HiFlyer said:

Yeah. Its one of my few niggles with this plane. The ground steering is not pleasant at all, and you get warnings everywhere if you turn on any assists. 

No assists needed thankfully.  Ground steering is great for me in the FBW--I use an old Cessna Trim Wheel assigned to ground steering.  As for missing waypoints or SIDS/STARS I use a hybrid approach (I love that w/ the FBW you can use either MSFS WM plans or SimBrief's) so they are in perfect sync and so MSFS ATC is in sync as well:

1. I create the basic plan in MSFS WM planner:  departure gate, altitude, arrival airport.  By selecting arrival and departure airports TWICE I am assured which runways will be used by ATC.
2. Next toggle to SimBrief and verify it's using the same runways
3. Next go back to WM planner and enter the SIDS/STARS created by SimBrief

Now all's synced up and I don't see evidence of missing waypoints in any part of the route.

[Crocket 47]

While it's 100% true the Fenix is a complete package with no major missing feature as the FBW can be (and crazily complete and complex for the price!!), because FBW is not completed yet, I must admit it makes me a bit sad when I hear "it has more in depth systems" or "it has failures".

What is already done in the FBW is probably the more advanced system simulation available in any sim. And what is not done yet... is not done yet 🙂

Not to mention the "Fenix mut be right FBW is wrong" bias, as sometimes FBW FMS will show bugs that ACTUALLY happens in the real plane, or stuff that appears in Fenix and not in FBW just because it's not the same software installed in FMS, so both are actually totally 100% correct.

You have a fully physically simulated gear system, including aerodynamic forces impacting gears and doors. A gear gravity extension will always be different depending on your speed or G load. 

Failures that are not scripted what so ever but just happens and if any chain reaction should happen... it will have correct impacts by simulation.

FBW models all the flight controls physically and reacting to airflow, which means there's no "hydraulic degraded state" that is scripted by any mean: it will just try to push on control rods of the surfaces and will be simulated in real time. Should hydraulics fail while a control surface is deflected: it will need airflow to push it back to a neutral position (which might not be neutral deflection but aerodynamic neutral).

PTU is a physical model that will never behave the same, and will have different wear state on each flight, thus different behavior. Depending on the plane you could have PTU constantly rotating finding an equilibrium state or just barking at different frequencies.... Sound is closely linked to physics too including electrical pumps speed regulation (using a current controller as per real pump).

Long is the list of things that you will never find in another sim/plane.  If you did not notice it on the FBW, maybe it means you are not really looking for a hard core study level after all 😄

 

 

 

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Edited June 20, 2023 by Crocket

[Noel 4,563]

On 2/19/2023 at 10:02 AM, Lotharen said:

Just took the FBW for a spin and loaded a flight and completed it with no issues! First time for me. I may get the Fenix at some point but I'm happy to learn with the FBW. My only issue is steering during taxi, OMG I couldn't track a straight line to save my life! and oversteering like crazy. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong with this?

Hi Lotharen, I can attest ground steering is exquisitely good for the FBW, at least when you use an axis.  I use an old Cessna Trim Wheel and it's fabulous!  All "assists" are off.  The FBW continues to improve and has some features I wish PMDG 738 had:  can input into the MCDU using your keyboard, a lovely EFB that is highly functional.  Performance is excellent in DX11, however DX12 not quite as good.

[DANgerousFlyer 9]

Interesting topic. As a novice simmer at best, with no real flight experience, and VR user, here's my perspective with hopefully points that others haven't mentioned much:

* I prefer to fly the Fenix, mainly because I think the look and feel of the cockpit in VR is preferable to FBW (I don't see much performance difference on my system tbh).

* In particular I find the spatial audio to be better in with the Fenix. To see what I mean, start up the Fenix and go to external view, stand behind it and turn your head left and right. Do the same in the FBW and it seems like the sound is much flatter and isn't coming separately from each engine.

* You can walk up and down the cabin in the Fenix, and experience nice spatial audio (again in VR). FBW only has static camera view points.

* I enjoy flying the FBW, and I always fly it if I am doing a longer flight because I can use sim rate x4 on the cruise. I can only do x2 on the FBW, which is often a showstopper for me as I don't have a lot of time. This is the main differentiator for me in determining which plane to fly.

* It's cool that you get a whole lot of liveries with the Fenix. For the FBW you have to download them which is a bit more effort.

* The FBW seems to enjoy more frequent updates, and has a nice installer. The documentation site is very nice and helped me a lot to learn about many things.

* At first I really loved the captain/cabin announcements of the FBW, but after 100 flights I found them very samey and turned them off. I wish there was more variety (different accents, male/female, etc.), and I wish the Fenix had it.

* I find the FBW easier to start up (I'm using Simbrief), it requires less effort moving from EFB to MCDU. Perhaps the Fenix is more realistic here but I find it a bit boring to look up the CI (for example).

* The MCDU flight plan page on the FENIX makes you press insert when getting rid of flight plan discontinuities. FBW is just one press which is nicer to use (not sure what is realistic).

* I use VoiceAttack, and it works with more controls in the FBW than it does the Fenix. Perhaps most annoyingly, I can't control the altitude in the autopilot panel in the Fenix using VoiceAttack, but it works with FBW.

* The EFB on the Fenix looks nice, but is a big sluggish to use when going through different screens, and requires quite a few clicks (and pauses) to use the Simbrief stuff. FBW is much quicker.

Overall, both fantastic products in my opinion. Perhaps obviously the FBW is best value because it costs nothing, and the devs deserve nothing but respect for that. However, I also have maximum respect for the Fenix, it's extremely polished and feels like a great purchase for me - clearly a lot of effort has gone into the accuracy and robustness of the software that I find lacking in many other aircraft I've tried.

Happy flying all!

 

[BrammyH 467]

48 minutes ago, DANgerousFlyer said:

The MCDU flight plan page on the FENIX makes you press insert when getting rid of flight plan discontinuities. FBW is just one press which is nicer to use (not sure what is realistic).

I *think* this is a difference between the A320n (FBW) and the A320ceo (Fenix). It's a software difference between the two planes. So, both are realistic for the model airplane represented.

[holland786 504]

6 hours ago, BrammyH said:

I *think* this is a difference between the A320n (FBW) and the A320ceo (Fenix). It's a software difference between the two planes. So, both are realistic for the model airplane represented.

Almost, it's actually a difference between the Thales and Honeywell FMSes. So either behavior is right for both ceo and neo, as long as it's consistent with the FMS version used in that particular product. In this case, it is correct for both since Fenix does the Thales FMS and we do the Honeywell FMS.

Note that the A380 version of the same FMS behaves like Thales, even though Honeywell produces it.