A320neo Weight and Balance

I've discovered that I have to move the center of gravity to the rear-most acceptable region as shown in the weight/balance section. Then the plane continues to be flyable even when fully loaded. I've noted that the landing speeds when left in managed mode are not always correct, as it tried to bring me in on final at over 200kts. I should have gone missed but didn't have time so came down a bit hard, but just a bit over 500fpm.

If I understand the various threads on this topic, this is still a bit buggy (the elevator control and balance). It's possible that my settings were wrong for the landing rate speeds. The sim's ability to auto-configure things seems hit-and-miss. For example, even though I have the copilot set to handle radios, he sometimes refuses to set the squawk code yet does it other times. I have to check it before takeoff otherwise I'm fiddling with it during takeoff to avoid ATC cancelling my ATC services.

John

Understanding that I'm using the open source mod A320nx with MSFS, I tried to fly KMSP to KDSM last night only to find that the plane had turned completely around and went back to MSP about 2/3 through the flight. I had left the "flight deck" briefly and missed this turn around so I just landed in MSP and called it a night.

Checking today, the navigation - like many other things with this sim is still quite buggy. Today I successfully completed that failed flight, but manually loaded the flight plan into the MCDU rather than using the simulators planning process. Unfortunately I had to manually add the data to SPAACARS to start logging, but the plane followed the flight plan completely and ATC performed reasonably based on the flight plan I entered.

This also included making CG adjustments with the CG moved to the rear almost as far as the limits allow. This gave control of the plane and kept it flying more level rather than at a 6 to 10 degree upward angle.

John

What seems to work best for me for flying the A320 is to just put the origin airport in the sim at start and to set the weight and balance with the weight as far back as possible to stay within limits. The flight plan should then be manually entered in the MCDU and then clearance asked for after that. Prior to takeoff, set the autothrottle and altitude to selected mode to avoid dropout of throttle input after takeoff and to ensure autothrust activates promptly after autopilot is set. Once airborne and climbing safely, managed speed can be set. I prefer to keep altitude in selected mode for the flight, and also change the autothrottle back to selected mode for approach and landing. Check the calculated landing speed in the Performance page to ensure you have the right speed set for landing. Too low will not hold altitude and you'll likely crash on approach because the plane won't hold altitude.

The autothrust and nav settings are likely bugs with the sim. Using the Sim's flight planning can result in the plane not following the nav path and it seems to by buggy when you need to try to make changes mid-flight. I will sometimes change arrival runways, but it can cause strange problems and mess things up badly. I'll sometimes ignore ATC and just fly my original plan to prevent these problems from ruining the end of an otherwise successful flight.

Just my observations.

John