Proflig8tor

Most Airbus pilots should never see Alpha Floor and it would probably scare the bejunks out of the passengers. If that happens, the process to restore the autothrust to normal operation is to fly it like a Missed Approach; match the thrust lever position. Then turn off the autothrust either with the red instinctive button on the thrust levers or by the button on the glareshield. After ensuring you are at a safe speed and deck angle pull the thrust lever back and fly manually while you restore autothrust in this order SAFAA Speed - in the speed window Altitude - in the Altitude window as well as any vertical mode - pulling for Vertical Speed 0 works Flight Directors - ON and pointing the jet where you want to go Autothrust - back on - put the thrust levers back in the notch Autopilot - ON ... then start apologizing profusely to everyone who saw what you did, write an ASAP report and consider whether you need to start filling out job applications for other airlines 🙂 It has happened in the real world. More often than not the cause is turbulence plus an unstable glideslope. Sometimes if you have a fast descent rate going, a lot of drag, plus the airplane senses itself going below glideslope, the airplane will over react and pitch up quite rapidly, instantaneously hitting the angle of attack needed to trigger Alpha Floor. Windshear could also get you in Alpha Floor, in which case the Windshear profile and the Alpha Floor recovery profile are nearly identical.

If MSFS2020 works like the real jet, there is an easy way to manage speeds. Assuming the thrust lever is in the notch and SPEED is the mode shown in the Flight Mode Annunciator above your Primary Flight Display. Most often you will want to push the speed selector knob which will blank the speed window and the jet will fly "managed speed" on autothrust. Think of pushing the speed knob to give control to the jet and pulling the speed knob to take control yourself. Managed speed will refer to the calculated speeds on the FMC and also respect gear and flap limit speeds. So lets say you are flying a vanilla simple RNAV or ILS approach. Your thrust lever is in the "notch" and As you approach your final approach fix you will be slowing and configuring for landing; 160 to 180 knots and flap lever 2 works great. As you intercept your glideslope to the runway, press the speed knob for "managed speed" put the gear down, configure flap lever to match your approach page in the FMC. The jet will slow and the autothrust will maintain your VLS (landing speed in this case) plus a factor for winds and gusts automatically. At about 20 feet the airplane will tell you to "Retard" at about 20 feet. Slowly pull the trust levers to idle and land the jet. At 50 feet the jet pitches 2 degrees to simulate the feel of entering ground effect (about half the wingspan of an aircraft, but in a fly by wire jet they do this little trick to induce a little "feel" for the runway). The Airbus already has about 4 degrees nose up at that point, so just another two degrees or so and she bleeds energy and settles right in. Make you look like a hero much more often than you do on the B737-800 & 900. The hackneyed (but still funny) joke is that the first "Retard" is a verb. The second "retard" is a noun.

As others mentioned, you are seeing the difference between Indicated Airspeed (pressure in the pitot tube) versus actual speed over the ground. 360 KIAS (Knots Indicated Airspeed) would be very fast for a 320 and not very efficient. I fly a 320 for a major carrier and am killing time while waiting for the GB download for MSFS. The Flight Management Computer has a Cost Index which tells the box to prioritize time (speed) at the expense of fuel burn. At a typical CI of 45 you would see climb speeds from 290 to the 320's based on weight, winds aloft and cruise altitude. As you reach the 33,000 to 37,000 feet where the 320 is happiest you will see your low speed cues "the hook" of VLS, Alpha Prot and Alpha Max come towards you as the Max Operating Mach comes down the airspeed indicator. The Green Dot is lift over drag max, which is optimum for climb rate and fuel efficiency (although it is slow in cruise - Only American Airlines pilots fly that speed during contract negotiations). I drop 300 to 320 in the Descent Page during Init to keep up with traffic in the descent going into busy airports. The default at a CI of 45 is too slow for the real world. I have no idea what FMGC functionality exists in MSFS.

Thank you for this post Chuck. Hopefully this will revitalize the genre.

Older system here, which is not particularly high end. Core i5-3570 AMD7700 8GB RAM On installation you will have three resolutions to decide between. Basically these are poor, better (2K), best (4K). Running 1920x1080 (2K) my system is running better than my PDMG737 did under FSX. My guess is frame rates in the 30's with no stuttering or load issues. Have not even bothered to tweak the settings other than to ensure full realism was on (it was). Had to go backwards and buy P3Dv3.4 to buy FS Labs 320x. Counting on their free upgrade to 4.1. The aircraft is delightful but is not up to the standards of PDMG, or perhaps I've not found out some way to enable more realistic function of the ADIRU alignment. Probably not many people care about what is a hassle in day to day operations, but I bought the add on as a (fun) procedures trainer. It appears FS Labs simplified it a bit, which is fine. Some of the detail they did get into is astonishing, like the three modes of avionics cooling. The little doors work and aside from trivia on an oral examination someone could fly the real jet for a decade and probably not notice or care what it does as long as it works. Well worth the money and a lot of fun.

Milton - behave or we will put your cubicle back in the basement and fix the glitch :-) I bought Lockheed's P3Dv4 and would have to pay to buy the older v3 package if I wanted to also purchase FSLabs product. Some of us have time requirements. After October 13th I would have no use for the product, but could sure use it now. As for the P3D physics model, heard it from the instructors during the last recurrent check on the B737. Here is an article describing the industry's position. https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/features/stall-recovery/ We were told it will be working by early 18 if not sooner and already had to memorize the new procedure. (and trying to forget it as ground school approaches for the bus ... really looking forward to the AirBus, it is a much nicer airplane than the 737. Does not seem to perform as well, but the improved ergonomics mean we aren't in as much of a hurry to get the flight over with anyway - just fly around the weather and look at it through those big windows ... size wise the AirBus reminds me of my days on the 757/767)

Unorthodox? As a guy new to FSLabs, have to say they seem hostile to new customers. As a pilot getting his 320 Type next month I had hoped to use FSLabs product as a little play along study aid. Will now just move along with a copy of AeroSim rather than pay to downgrade to a old P3Dv3 and take the chance on FS Labs keeping a promise of a free upgrade to V4 ($320 total to go backwards for a few weeks until I am in a level D box anyway) ----- In other news Some of our Lockheed sims run P3D. The FAA is mandating full on stall training (which FS & P3D never modeled correctly). My understanding is there is a major improvement to the flight models in the works to meet the requirement.

Tom, It was truly a pleasure to write product reviews for you and AvSim a long time ago. Know that your contribution to aviation lives on in the hundreds of folks like me who moved forward from online simulation to careers flying people and their things all over the planet. God Speed, Sir; God speed. Tom Dilbeck

Depending on temperature and weight the 737 can be a "slow climber" particularly when compared to the 757 which happens to be one of Boeing's best performing designs. In fact, the 737's max altitude can be FL 33.0 to 35.0 when hot and heavy (check your CRZ page and the MAX and Recommended Altitudes should be displayed). I've rarely (trying to remember if ever) flown the 737-800 at FL 41.0 and have come to take the maximum displayed by the FMC conservatively, meaning, that at that altitude the jet is slow close to both it's maximum and minimum speed limits that it is uncomfortable to monitor it as a pilot. Even the recommended FL is usually above what the Company's dispatchers recommend based on their computer modelling which is specific down to the tail number for the jet you're flying. ( ... and I've found their models are so accurate that I can't beat them by climbing early or higher) Your example is a worst case scenario for any jet. Climbing into a tail wind reduces relative performance as the airplane must both accelerate through decreasing performance shear and yet climb. For a nice handling hot-rod, the 757-200 is hard to beat. As a pilot, I hate to see those jets getting close to the end of their operating lives. The 737-800 (and 900) does the job efficiently and safely, but it is not anywhere near the airplane the 757 is. P.S. OAT "Outside Air Temperature" ... warm air is less dense than cold air (which is how a hot air balloon works); warm air means there is less "air" there for the engine to burn and wing to get lift from. Cold air is to an airplane what a turbocharger is to a car ... I've got no idea how your sim works, but FSX models OAT and should give you better performance when cold, worse when hot.

Robert, Glad to see you are still here! You were a pleasure to virtually work for. The average AVSim review took about 30 to 40 hours between testing and documenting. I had a real head start since most of the airplanes I reviewed were aircraft I had flown in real life with someone else paying me to learn the systems. Some of the more interesting reviews of outstanding products, like PMDG's MD11 and Lotus Sim's L39 took more than 100 hours. ( I enjoyed the formation flying shots and those took a lot of time to stage with as many as four aircraft flying through ) Best regards and thanks for encouraging people in a way that keeps our hobby vital.