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A320 Pilot In Command
By Kris Heslop (20 May 2003)
his package is huge
and it's going to be a long review so why not go and get a cup of
tea/coffee first. There are more features than a 15 screen cinema
here so it's unavoidable if we want this review to be a thorough one,
if only to do the eye candy justice.Well here it is the long awaited sequel to B767PIC from Wilco publishing. The screen shots and media hype have built this up to be groundbreaking stuff so I was eager to get it all installed and tame the beast with a little help from the features that made B767 so popular.
The installation process is pretty straightforward and while the silly amount of hard drive was being eaten up I delved into the rather disappointingly slim manual. The supplied manual consists mainly of a key press guide and a description of where each part of the panel is. Other than that the manual serves only as a warranty card. Not to worry, the 'on CD' docs will tell me all I need.
On completion of the install I didn't know what to do first, open up the sim and do a few circuits or read the manual, I decided the manual was the sensible place to start, after all the chief test pilot crashed the damn thing at the Paris Airshow so what chance have I got first time out. I opened the first PDF file to find that it was just a copy of the supplied paper manual so on to the next one. A nasty feeling entered my stomach when Acrobat told me the file was unreadable, the feeling got worse when the remaining 5 guides did the same.... Hmmm to the sim? No, one more thing to try, install the copy of Acrobat supplied with the package. As it turns out the files are not compatible with Acrobat 4.0 and you must either have Acrobat 5.1 or install it from the extras directory.
So with that done the manuals opened and I started to read the 'take
control' file. By the 4th or 5th page I was pretty bored, the manuals
are straight out of an operations manual and not written for mere
mortals. By this point the urge to just fly was overwhelming and with
that Acrobat was closed and the sim started, after all there'll be
all those lessons teaching me all about the systems and a helpful
co-pilot to tell me all about failures etc.
The sim starts as normal and the A320 is selected as you do any other
aircraft and I find myself on the ramp at Edinburgh in gin clear
weather and calm winds. On first starting you are placed in the 2D
panel mode that very helpfully tells you that there is 'NO 2D PANEL,
PRESS 'S'' so I do and into the eye candy I go. First impressions are
very good, you find yourself in the left seat in front of the two
primary displays with the ECAM displays on the edge of your view on
the right. You can look around using the coolie hat on your joystick
OR using the mouse by pressing the center button, which is very
instinctive, and probably the easiest way to do it. Panning around
only compounds the awe that I'm in, this simply puts every other panel
I've seen to shame. It actually looks and feels like a REAL A320
flight deck even down to the material on the seats and the digital
read outs on the Mode Control Panel (MCP) on the glare shield. A nice
touch is that you can click on any of the six main screens on the
flight deck to open them in a window by themselves and enlarge/shrink
and drag and drop as you please. This means you can look at the fuel
page whilst playing with the switches on the overhead or keep the PFD
in view while fumbling around on the FMGC keypad.
The aircraft defaults with engines running and all systems powered ready for push. The option for cold and dark is only accessible through the 'Load flights' menu option. That was the first disappointment; I was expecting a gauge like the DreamFleet B737-400 that allows you to stipulate what mode to start the panel in next time round. Not to worry that is easily fixed, just knock off the engines and that will make it dark pretty quick. The condition levers move to off with a mouse click in the appropriate area of the flight deck, helpfully the mouse cursor changes to a '+' or '-' when you are over a hotspot and the hotspots are placed sensibly next to the items they control. The engines spin down and the cockpit goes black. What I need now is an APU or battery or ground power.
Fifteen minutes later I find the APU controls helpfully nested in the
'Lights' section of the overhead panel... why didn't I think to look
there first? The main problem is familiarity here, the APU gauges we
all know are gone in the Airbus family, why provide a gauge for it
when its vital statistics (EGT and power output) can be displayed on
a screen. So the APU consists of two buttons, ON and START. Once up to
speed the AVAIL light comes on and the aircraft automatically ties
the electrical power to the APU and the displays come alive once
again. The APU details dutifully being displayed in the lower ECAM
screen in the center, at least it was...now it says DOORS. This is a
quirk of the A3XX family. The ECAM screens can be manually selected
as you would expect but the computer senses what stage of flight it
is in and will adjust the display to match this, i.e. the APU was
started, the computer has shown you it is working and all is well,
now the computer changes the screen back to the Doors page so you can
see when you are all buttoned up. You will notice this happens
several times during the flight, helpfully though it will NOT
override your own selection if you have made one on the mode selector
below the lower screen. All seems well with the world so I think I'll
take advantage of the much-touted ability to move around the
aircraft.
Using the keypad on your keyboard plus the mouse to turn your head
you can ease yourself out of your seat and turn towards the cockpit
door. Click on the door handle and the fortified bullet-proof door
swings open and you can see the cabin behind you, as you walk you can
enter the galley just behind the flight deck, perhaps open the
external door by clicking on the window, that should keep the ramp
agent happy, now they can board. Wander down to the back of the
aircraft and open the rear door to allow the galley to load the food
and then turn and come back up. You can even click on the drop down
screens to get a view of the navigation display, useful if you have
left junior up in the pointy end while you go down the back for a
swift coffee with the cart tarts. Anyway enough of this fraternising.
As the captain you are responsible for the walk around so off you go.
The clever people at Wilco have actually added this in to the sim,
you walk around the aircraft just as you did in the cabin at the
touch of the hotkey on your keyboard. Well now we have checked that
we have the correct number of engines and wings fitted we jump aboard
and program the Flight Management and Guidance Computer (FMGC) then
start up the beast.
The FMGC is the same as the FMC found on most modern add-ons in appearance alone. This is an all singing all dancing gadget that controls everything. My first flight ignored this piece of kit and resulted in a smoking crater about 10 miles from the airfield where I stalled and crashed (ala Paris Airshow). So a quick check in the manual (took about 10 minutes to find the right page) to find some kind of idea of what settings to use and then the thing is programmed resulting in all the speeds being added to the Primary Flight Display (PFD) and the flight plan, a short hop to London Gatwick. Now onto the flying.
Ladies and Gentlemen, there will be a slight delay, as the captain
cannot find the start button. Embarrassing I know but another
15-minute search of the overhead and throttle quadrant has yielded
only two guarded buttons which refuse to be pushed, perhaps it's time to
look at the manual again. There is an auto-start facility but we're
looking for realism and auto-start kind of takes the fun out of it.
After a quick perusal of the relevant 50-page tome of operations
manual I find the START procedure and print it, then jump back in.
Those two guarded buttons have nothing to do with it, it's all on the
panel just behind the power levers. The knobs and switches suitably
manipulated soon see the engines turning and burning with a
reassuring rumble. The sound is almost bang on, it even gives the
fast pulsing noise that the airbus is known for.
Push and start completed and it's off to the active, using the progressive taxi of course. On the ground the A320 handles nicely and is very responsive, the view from outside is nice, the BA livery is one of several supplied. The visuals include, well everything you'd expect, revolving wheels, moving control surfaces, etc., even the thrust reversers deploy smoothly and then return back to normal when commanded. Coming up to a bend and my first major issue with A320 is brought into play. I pull the trigger on my stick, BRAKES show up in the window as you'd expect but we keep on going, I apply the parking brakes and still nothing, in fact we're accelerating and now careering across the nicely mown grass. Time for another trip to the manual, which reveals the answer after much wading through techie stuff, A320 uses different key assignments which you MUST assign to your keyboard or joystick prior to flight using the A320 PIC options in the menu bar. The main ones are already present and assigning BRAKES to the trigger button solves the problem to a point. Also I have to assign trim up/down and flap up/down. Annoyingly the flap up/down functions aren't in the default list and must be found then manually mapped. Even more annoyance comes with the next time you start the sim up and the flap up/down functions are lost and must be re-input. The default commands remain but my personal preference to have flaps on the stick as opposed to having to turn my head and clicking on the flap lever during the critical phases of flight means I must re-map the function every time I start FS2002 up. Back in the sim and I manage to bring the aircraft to a halt, the wheel brakes I mapped to the trigger are not like the normal brakes, in fact they operate like the parking brake, i.e. you press the button once for on and then again for off which seems a little harsh particularly for the wine swigging punters in the cabin who are now wearing their pre-departure drinks.
So we get clearance to line up and take off, a check over my shoulder to ensure there is nothing on final and we line up. I check the ECAM to ensure we are in TO Config, all the entries are green and NORMAL TO CONFIG is displayed at the bottom of the screen. The power levers are moved to 50% against the brakes and the engines spool up. As they equalise the brakes are released and the levers are advanced to 100% giving clunks as they pass the various throttle gates (which we'll get to in a moment). The aircraft smoothly accelerates and the power is checked passing 80 kt to ensure we have TOGA power (as computed by the FMGC and FADEC systems according to temperature) and MAN TOGA shows in the mode area on the PFD. The acceleration is not rapid on the ground and you feel that the end of the runway is looming rather close by the time Vr approaches. A smooth pull up to 10 degrees pitch following the flight director and the A320 is airborne. Gear up, passing 100 feet AP1 engaged and we're on our way. As we approach green dot speed you can see the red bars on the speed ribbon showing flap limiting speed, passing green dot the 1 stage of flap used for takeoff is retracted and the aircraft is clean. At the same time THR CLB flashes in the mode area on the PFD prompting me to pull the throttles back to the Autothrottle gate. I pull the throttles back, one click is heard which is MAN CLB mode, then the second allowing the A/THR to take over. With cruise altitude of 23,000 feet in the MCP the FMGC manages speed and pitch to give the most economic climb. You can take manual control of these settings by pushing and pulling the MCP knobs in order to get into the selected mode (more 'Airbus' lingo).
From a handling point of view this is not an aircraft you can
instantly hand fly around the circuit. You MUST program the FMGC to
get the speeds and I urge you not to make the same mistake I did and
be too eager to get the flap in too early. The big issue here is that
if you retract the flap before the right speed is reached then the
aircraft is behind its drag curve and cannot accelerate and also the
computer will trim the aircraft as if the flap was still there
causing a large pitch up and soon the thing will stall, a situation
which 'Pierre' your friendly computer voice will be more than happy
to tell you about. The A320 DOES NOT allow you to trim manually so
don't even try. The fly by wire system automatically adjusts the
pitch trim to give you your desired attitude, this aircraft is made
to fly on the autopilot, human interaction with the side-stick will
only result in a stern talking to by the cabin crew because they have
been hurled on by an airsick passenger.
The climb is uneventful, the aircraft even senses it is below 10,000 feet and limits its speed to 250 kt; again this can be overridden using the MCP but it's best to leave it for now. The aircraft autoflight system automatically goes to VNAV and LNAV modes hence all the windows display '------' rather than numbers with the exception of the ALT window. The Airbus mantra for this is Managed mode, the opposite (i.e. pilot selected) is called Selected mode. The FMGC handles all frequency changes and gets all the idents so you just have to answer the most important question of the day, tea or coffee? This is also a good time to play with the ECAM pages, the computer will tell you if anything is grossly amiss but you can still be a good airman and spot things starting to go wrong. Each system has a page on the ECAM selectable from the panel just below the lower screen. These pages show the information in an easy pictographic form that even I could understand.
Once in the cruise I think it's time to play with the handling. The
manual handling of the aircraft is very twitchy, in fact it makes the
Extra 300S feel like a stable instrument aircraft. You need a VERY
delicate touch and ham fistedness will only result in 'Pierre'
telling you to stop it or the flight envelope protection cutting in
and righting the aircraft. The aircraft will protect itself by
limiting you to 63 degrees of bank plus if you get to that then let
go of the stick it will roll the bank off to 33 degrees. Up to the 33
degree mark you need NO pitch input, the computer will adjust the
pitch to keep your altitude, beyond that the normal laws apply. If you
try to stall the aircraft, well, I'd recommend not doing that.
Constant pulling on the stick causes Pierre to activate the ALPHA
FLOOR protection; put simply Pierre takes you out of the equation and
will apply TOGA power and push the nose down to avert the full stall.
I have as yet to fathom how to get Pierre to give me the aircraft
back. The Alpha floor is different to the stall described in the
departure, in the departure the stall was due to the autopilot
pitching as if it still had flaps deployed and so doesn't activate
the ALPHA FLOOR mode (at least I think that is the case, please do
correct me). So in terms of manual flying the aircraft is flyable but
is a handful at best. Perhaps Wilco will rectify this in their next
patch.
So on our flight we are approaching the 'Top of Drop', the computer
will denote this as a down arrow on the Nav Display (ND) but will not
descend until you put in a new altitude in the window and push the
knob to activate it. It will now descend the aircraft to the desired
altitude at the best rate and speed for its economy setting and again will
limit itself to 250 kt below 10,000 feet unless you state otherwise. At
the top of descent it is also advisable to input the expected arrival
(STAR) and approach in this case an ILS to runway 26L. The ND will now
show the arrival and show the final approach points, etc. It will also
put in any altitude and speed restrictions and manage the aircraft to meet
those restrictions. Personally I start to take manual speed control
(i.e. put the speed into selected mode and dial up what I want).
Hopefully this will all get us to where we want to be, i.e. stable at
2000-3000 feet and at about 180 kt with some flap out ready to fly the ILS.
And so we come to the AUTOLAND system.
A320PIC is the first time I've seen an autoland done properly in
FS2002. B737-400 said it did it but the shortcomings of FS2002 just
caused the autopilot to hunt and inevitably pile into the ground like
a dart. Well hang on to your hats, this bird will do it with bells on
assuming you set it up right. Your trusty FMGC should select the ILS
frequency automatically but you must put the course in manually.
Activate the APR mode and tie in the other autopilot and sure enough
CAT3 shows up in the mode area on the PFD and the aircraft captures
the LOC and G/S with a minimum of fuss (depending on the cut you give
it). Once LOC established a little speed tweaking and deployment of
the dangly bits (gear and flaps) ensure that the aircraft is stable
and ready for G/S intercept. At intercept the nose pitches down, the
throttles reduce power to keep your selected speed and down you go.
At 1000 feet I put out the last stage of flap and allow the computer to
once again take speed control. Pierre calls your RAD ALT heights all
the way down and at 500 feet (ish) the autopilot shows LAND in the mode
area of the PFD, meaning it is now ready to flare the aircraft. Fifty feet,
40, 30, 20...at this point please don't get offended as Pierre
chastises you for your poor performance, "RETARD, RETARD, RETARD" is
called to cue you to close the power levers to idle, the flare is
already in full swing and the aircraft kisses onto the tarmac. The
autopilot reverts to Rollout mode and the spoilers deploy, autobrakes
do their thing and all that remains for you to do is activate the
thrust reversers. Again Wilco have gone for a different approach
here. You activate the reversers with a hot key, when the REV goes
green on the engine display then the reversers are ready and you
INCREASE the throttle rather than the other way of frantically
hitting the F2 button to get more reverse. Again the sound is superb
and gives a real sense of power, at max chat the reverse gets
positively frantic. Using max reverse and max autobrake again will
probably upset your punters and require several Kleenexes due to the
broken noses in the back. The A320 will stop on a dime if you want it
to.
So there's a flight without any major problems. The beauty of B767PIC
was the addition of random failures that can be activated over time,
A320PIC has the same system and you can set which systems can fail, be it
all or none or just certain ones. You can also stipulate speeds for
engine failure or fire for the much-feared V1 cut that we real life
pilots must endure every six months. The ECAM will light up like a
Christmas tree giving helpful checklists to deal with the problem at
hand; after all you may as well have something to do in flight once
you've finished your coffee. This may be a great system and the one
in B767 was very good (apparently - I never had it) but I have to say
I was expecting more from A320PIC.
B767PIC was often referred to as a simmers type rating for the B767 and so I was expecting a lot more from A320. There are no lessons in the A320 PIC package, no helpful tips or lessons, in fact all you actually get is the aircraft and panel and four situations:
