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A320 FSX Glitch?


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Bare with me, I am an enthusiast and a simmer with no plans to be a pilot, I just play for fun with around 150 hours on FSX.

 

I have some sort of glitch. I go in for the approach (I'm too basic to use all controls so I literally just slow down the plane from miles off and use flaps and joystick to land) but a lot of the times I am almost near the ground and getting "Don't sink!" alerts, my thrust will just lock to 100% and I can't do anything to get it back down making it impossible for me to land... Any ideas on what I am doing to make this happen?

 

 

If anyone wants to know my horrible landing procedure, I bring my thrust down to very low, flaps to 75-100, and occasionally lift those wing flaps with the "/" key (not sure on the name) and basically just lower altitude until I am about to land, and then usually my entire fleet dies in a fire because of my terrible landing.

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Landing speed for the A321 is about 140 knots. If you are raising your "spoilers" to slow down, then, use only for a few seconds at a time. Landing an aircraft takes mucho practice. Try flying the Naples Mission over and over again.

Still thinking about a new flightsim only computer!  ✈️

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Landing speed for the A321 is about 140 knots. If you are raising your "spoilers" to slow down, then, use only for a few seconds at a time. Landing an aircraft takes mucho practice. Try flying the Naples Mission over and over again.

 

+1!!

 

Indicated Airspeed is the first variable to eliminate for successful landings and takeoffs. Notice I said "Airspeed." Speed Over Ground (SOG,) is what you see indicated as speed on your GPS readout and often isn't an indication of Indicated Airspeed. Indicated Airspeed is the speed determined by the pressure of air on your aircraft. This can be vastly different from what you see indicated on the GPS.

 

I've seen many a novice get into trouble relying on their GPS speed instead of Indicated Air Speed.

Being an old chopper guy I usually fly low and slow.
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Your use of the spoilers is almost certainly causing you problems. As you may or may not know, spoilers work by reducing the amount of lift the wing is generating and also creating some drag. Varying the spoilers to control speed and descent as you are doing, is a very bad idea on a large aeroplane such as an airliner. Pilots can (and often do) use opening the wing spoilers to control the descent on light aircraft if they are equipped with wing spoilers (almost all gliders have them for example and it is common to use them to control a descent).

 

But the only reason you can get away with doing that on smaller aircraft such as a glider is because gliders come in quite steep on finals and are relatively light in weight, which means it is easy for them to pick up speed and lift again once the spoilers are closed and they are coming down quite steeply. Airliners will typically only be coming down toward a runway at a descent angle of between 2.5 and 3.5 degrees and they need to be stable in speed and descent fairly early in their approach, not least for the comfort of the passengers. Having them drop like a stone with the spoilers out and with large amounts of flaps deployed will mean they'll tend to keep on dropping like a stone for a while even after you've closed the spoilers and throttled up because with so much weight and inertia and the massive amount of drag the flaps generate, they will be slow to want to change the path they are flying on. This is almost certainly why you are hearing 'don't sink' despite doing things to try to arrest your descent when using the spoilers. It simply is not what they are designed for. So...

 

If you don't want to use the ILS to guide your approach, but insist on flying manually, here's what I suggest you do...

 

First, make sure you don't have tons of fuel on board, real airliners do not land with a high percentage of fuel in their tanks as this means they have more weight on board than is necessary and too much weight means they would have to fly a very fast approach speed and overstress the landing gear and the wings upon touchdown.

 

Second, go out to at least 10-15 miles away from the airport and then turn toward it, get your flaps down to close to maximum settings (20-25 degrees, more flaps means a higher throttle setting will be needed to maintain your correct approach speed), get the landing gear down and aim for a speed of around 160-170 knots as you get aligned with the extended centreline of the runway whilst still several miles out. Try to be below 5,000 feet, but no lower than about 3,000 feet, and as you fine tune your approach you should be aiming to get the speed down to perhaps around 135 knots or so as you come over the end of the runway. The actual correct speed varies with weight and conditions, but you'll be okay with about 135 knots of so in most airliners.

 

Third, when you can see the runway, watch the PAPI (precision approach path indicator) lights to the left of the runway, you want to be able to see two white lights and two red ones, this means you are descending correctly along the ideal descent path for a good touchdown. More than two red lights and you're getting too low, more than two white lights and you're getting too high. The trick to a good landing, is a good approach, if you get the thing in a nice stable descent with the PAPI lights looking good, the aeroplane will pretty much land itself, all you'll need to do is chop the throttle at fifty feet and ease the nose back a touch to ensure you touch down relatively gently, but remember, airliners are not meant to be greased gently onto the runway, they are meant to be planted quite firmly down as this reduces tire wear.

 

For that controlled approach and descent, use the throttle and very minor pitch changes to control your speed and descent, do not not the spoilers at all. If you start seeing more red PAPI lights, give it some more throttle and slightly increase the pitch up, if you start seeing more white lights, reduce the throttle a little bit. You should 'arm' the spoilers (press shift+/), having them armed means they will deploy automatically on touchdown and keep you down on the ground instead of you bouncing back into the air (they are triggered by weight being on the wheels). You can also arm the autobrakes too and that will assist you in slowing once on the runway. If necessary, you can use reverse thrust too.

 

Hope that helps a bit.

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