Air-Bus A320-214 Operation instructions

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Airbus A320-214
A320 Beginners Tutorial
The Airbus A320 is a very complex modern airliner which is quite common on airports around the
globe. Chances are high that you already flew with this aircraft in the past. The Aerofly simulation of
this aircraft is very complex but due to the aircraft's automation it is very suitable for beginners as
well.
We split this tutorial into several parts, first we are going to do a short flight explaining just the
essential things that you have to do in Aerofly to fly the A320 from one place to another. After that we
are going to go into more detail about this aircraft to explore all the features that are offered.
First we are going to do a very short flight from Sacramento to San Francisco. This flight only takes a
few minutes and there aren't actually that many things we need to do fly this quick hop. So this first
flight is clearly aimed at beginners and leaves out many things that a real pilot would need to do as
well. We're just doing the bare minimum for now.
We recommend setting all wind sliders to zero, removing all clouds and setting daytime for the
beginner tutorial.
Before the Flight
Please select your A320 from the aircraft menu and set up a route from Sacramento (KSMF) runway
16R to San Fransisco (KSFO) runway 28R using the navigation menu. Select the ILS I28R for the
approach into San Fransisco. Then position the aircraft on the departure runway.
In the main menu click the “Start” button to begin the flight.

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Takeoff
Before Takeoff Checks
You should now see the cockpit of the A320 and everything should be ready to go. Please compare
the aircraft state that you have with the highlighted areas of the screenshot below. Please quickly
verify the following items:
The Display in front of you shows “CLB” and “NAV” in blue.
Flaps are set to “1+F” as seen on the center display
The T.O. Checklist is all green, no blue item
In the autopilot panel everything is dashed (—*) and 12000 (give or take 2000 ft) is shown in
the altitude window.
This should all be completed when placing the aircraft on the runway. If anything does look off please
set the aircraft to the runway starting position again, as shown earlier. Make sure that if you have
analog inputs for flaps or spoilers, that these are set to the takeoff position!
The aircraft should look like this now. If it doesn't even after repeated attempts please contact our
support or visit the forums for help.

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Taking Off
The takeoff has to be flown manually.
Advance your throttle input to full forward.
Use rudder to maintain the center line, very little inputs should be required for this.
When the airspeed reaches the blue circle gently pull back on the elevator to lift the nose up.
Continue gently pulling up until the green horizontal bar is centered, at about 18 degrees nose up.

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Gear Up
Press the “g” key on your keyboard or click the gear lever to retract the landing gear.
or
Click the gear lever or hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse up to drag the
gear lever up.
Autopilot On
Press the “a” key on your keyboard or press the autopilot (AP1) button.

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Climb
LVR CLB Flashing
At about 1000 feet above the runway a white “LVR CLB” (lever climb) text will start flashing on the
primary flight display in front of you. At this point the thrust should reduced for climb thrust because
the engines can only maintain the takeoff thrust for about 5 minutes before they are starting to
degrade and take damage from the heat and vibrations. In the Aerofly the engines won't fail because
of this (not yet anyway) but the autopilot won't be able to control engine thrust if you leave it like this.
Reduce To Climb Thrust
Slowly move back your throttle input until the flashing LVR CLB message disappears.
Note - If the green text above says “THR LVR” and “LVR CLB” is flashing in white you have pulled
back to far. Advance the thrust again by a bit.
The green text in the top left corner of the display should now show “THR CLB”.
If you look at the thrust levers in the cockpit it is quite clear where you need to position your throttle
input. The levers should snap to the climb “CLB” detent and will remain there until we are literally
seconds before touch down.
Flap Retraction
Once the airspeed is above the green -S (slat retraction) speed we can safely retract the flaps and
slats.
Either hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse to drag the flap lever
or
Use your scroll wheel whilst pointing at the lever to retract set the flap lever to the forward
position. You can also use the default key assignments for this (Shift + F) or your assigned
inputs.

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Lean Back And Enjoy
The autopilot is flying now and we have a little break. The next thing we have to do will be just before
we start descending. You can change the camera and look around for the time being. This flight isn't
very long so don't play around for too long. About 6 minutes after lift off we already have to think
about descending again
Cruise
The autopilot will stop climbing at the selected altitude, which is 12000 ft for our flight. The primary
flight display should now show in green: “SPEED”, “ALT CRZ” and “NAV” as seen on the screenshot
below. You can start with the descent preparations as soon as “ALT CRZ” is shown in green in the
second column of the primary flight display.
Top Of Descent Arrow
A white arrow comes into view on the navigation display of the A320. This white arrow marks the
point at which the descent starts, the so called top of descent point.

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Decrease Selected Altitude
For the upcoming descent we have to select a lower altitude for the autopilot.
Move the mouse cursor over the altitude knob of the autopilot. Scroll down to decrease the
selected altitude value to 2000 ft. Don't click or press anything at this point.
Start Descent
When the white arrow comes really close to our aircraft symbol you should initiate the descent. Unlike

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the Boeing 747 for example the Airbus A320 won't descent automatically.
Click the altitude knob with the left mouse button to push it in.
Descent
The autopilot will command idle thrust in the descent and tries to match the magenta target speed
range and the green altitude target by just pitching up and down. When too high the autopilot flies a
bit faster and with the increased drag it can catch up to the profile.
Display The ILS
Click the “LS” button in the glare shield to display the ILS localizer and glide slope on the
primary flight display.
Note - Depending on how far you are to the runway only the scale for the localizer and glide slope will
show up but no magenta needles can be seen. This is normal because the ILS ground stations only
have limited range and we can't receive them yet.
Approach
Let the aircraft descent until you reach 5000 to 4000 feet. We are now going to prepare the approach
into San Francisco. Luckily for this there is actually barely anything to do in the A320.
At this point the ILS should be automatically tuned and you can see magenta arrows for the ILS
localizer and glide slope deflections on the primary flight display in front of you as highlighted on the
next screenshot.

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Arm ILS Approach
On the autopilot panel click the approach button (“APPR”).
Arm Auto-Brake
Click the “LO” button on the AUTO BRK (auto-brake) panel.
Approach Speed
When passing the magenta “D” point on the map the aircraft will start to decelerate to approach
speed. In managed speed mode the speed will be kept high until you select more flaps. Watch the
speed target of the autopilot on the primary flight display. It switches to 135 knots on the display.
However the auto-thrust system will not allow you to fly slower than the green dot speed at this point.
When you extend flaps further than the speed minimum is reduced to -S, -F and finally the approach
speed.

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Flaps 1
Let the aircraft decelerate to this green dot speed. Make sure that the airspeed is below the two
amber bars that mark the maximum airspeed for the next flap. Then select Flaps 1.
Press the default key command “F” or any of your assigned control inputs for the flaps
or
Point at the flaps lever or hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse to drag the flap
lever to the first position
or
Use the mouse wheel whilst pointing at the flap lever to increase the flap setting.
Now the speed is allowed to drop to the -S speed (slat retraction speed). If you wanted to retract the
flaps for some reason you could do so safely because the speed is kept high enough.
Engage Second Autopilot
Click the AP2 button

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Localizer Capture
The autopilot will capture the localizer needle and steer us to the runway laterally. The primary flight
display will show “LOC *” followed by “LOC” in the top row. No action required.
Flaps 2
When your airspeed matches the -S speed you are slow enough for the next flap setting. As shown for
the first stage of flap, use the mouse wheel over the flap lever or use the shortcut “f” or other
methods to increase flaps to two.

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Gear Down
When the glide slope diamond moves towards the center of the scale the autopilot will capture it
because we armed the approach earlier. Now is a good time to select the gear down and help us
decrease the speed further and get it to the -F, flap retraction speed in case of go-around.
Click the gear lever
or
Use the mouse wheel over the gear lever
or
Point at the gear lever and hold down the left mouse button and then move the mouse down to
drag the lever
or
Press any of your assigned control inputs for the gear (default key “g”)
Flaps 3, Flaps Full
When the airspeed dropped to the -F speed you can select the flaps from 2 to full.

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Landing Checklist
Let's quickly check that we didn't forget anything. The A320 has a nice built in checklist for this.
Check that there are no blue items remaining on that list.
The aircraft is now prepared for a fully automatic landing.
Tip - If you want to return to this state you can exit to the main menu, then open the location dialog
and click the yellow aircraft symbol on the map approaching San Francisco Runway 28R.
Flare
The autopilot will start the flare at about 30 ft above the runway and will try to touch down gently. At
ten feet you should retard your throttle to idle.
Landed, Disengage Autopilots
The auto-brake slows us down and we come to a complete stop on the runway.
Press the autopilot disengage button if you have it assigned or click the side stick of to your left
to kick out the autopilot.
To be able to vacate the runway advance your throttle a bit, this should also disengage the
auto-brake.
Congratulations, you just completed your first A320 flight and landed in San Francisco!
A320 Advanced Tutorial
We just experienced how easy it can be to fly an airliner with all the automation helping us. But we
sort of skipped the whole procedures for setting up a flight plan with the on-board computers (MCDU),
preparing the aircraft for takeoff and all the checklists and the powerful auto-flight (autopilot+auto-
thrust) system.
A320 Autopilot Introduction
The Airbus A320 autopilot in the Aerofly FS 2 is an realistic simulation of the real world autopilot.

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Therefor you can also refer to A320 autopilot videos, other descriptions or tutorials or the flight crew
operating manual (FCOM) if you need to. We're going to provide an overview of what the autopilot
buttons do.
The flight control unit (FCU) is the interface between the pilots and the flight guidance system
(autopilot, flight management). It consists of four knobs that can be turned, pulled out and pushed.
Flight Director (FD) and Flight Mode Annunciator
Autopilot (AP) Master
The autopilot actuates the elevator, ailerons and spoiler and rudder to steer the aircraft laterally and
vertically. The elevator is used to control the pitch attitude of the aircraft to climb and descent. The
ailerons, spoilers and rudder is used to bank the aircraft and fly coordinated turns.
Push the autopilot button 1 or 2 to engage one of the two autopilots. Only for a fully automated
landing with ILS would two autopilots be engaged at the same time.
The state of the autopilot is shown in the top right of the primary flight display (PFD). The PFD either
shows AP1 or AP2 or AP 1+2 when the autopilot(s) are engaged.
The lateral and vertical mode that the autopilot is operating in is displayed at the top of the primary

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flight display in the second (vertical mode) and third column (lateral mode).
Auto-Thrust (A/THR) Master
The Auto-Thrust (A/THR) (a.k.a. auto-throttle in other aircraft) controls the thrust to the engines.
Depending on what the flight director vertical mode is the engine thrust is either constantly adjusted
to maintain a target airspeed or the thrust is advanced to full climb thrust for a climb or retarded to
idle thrust for a descent.
Push the A/THR button to arm the auto thrust system
Move the thrust levers to the climb detent to activate it.
The state of the auto thrust system is displayed in the top right corner of the primary flight display
(PFD). When the text A/THR is in white color then the auto thrust is active. When the text is in
cyan/blue the auto thrust has been armed but is currently not operating, e.g. because the pilot still
has the thrust levers at idle or above the CLB detent (MCT with one engine failed). Setting the thrust
levers into the climb detent changed the auto thrust state from armed to engaged.
The active thrust mode is shown in the top left corner of the PFD, in the first column. When it shows
SPEED then the auto thrust system is controlling the airspeed and varies the thrust command to the
engines accordingly. THR CLB or THR IDLE are shown when climb or idle thrust is commanded to the
engines. When the mode shows MAN TOGA or MAN MCT or MAN FLX then the auto thrust is not active,
you are manually overriding it with the thrust lever.
Interaction Between Vertical Mode and Auto-Thrust
If you select a vertical mode like CLB or OP CLB by pushing or pulling the altitude knob the auto-thrust
system will increase the engine thrust to climb thrust (THR CLB) and maintain that. The autopilot will
then pitch up to keep the speed target. This means the autopilot is controlling the speed with the
climb angle now and the engines are just producing the maximum climb thrust.
When you reach the target altitude the autopilot will capture the altitude (ALT*) and then maintain it
(ALT). When this happens the auto-thrust switches back to SPEED mode and change the engine thrust
to maintain the speed target again. Now the auto-thrust controls the speed again and the autopilot

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maintains the altitude.
A similar thing happens during the descent. If you have DES or OP DES engaged the auto thrust will
retard the thrust to idle (THR IDLE) and the autopilot pitches down to keep the airspeed target. So
again the autopilot is controlling the speed and the auto-thrust is just keeping a fixed thrust value, in
this case idle. Once the aircraft has descended to the target altitude the auto-thrust controls the
speed again and the autopilot switches to altitude hold.
Note - This works pretty well if you have the autopilot and auto-thrust engaged. If you control either
of them manually you have to be careful because you as a pilot then need to make sure that the
airspeed is kept within limits. Imaging the engines going to full throttle but you don't pull up to keep
the airspeed. Or the engines go to idle and stay there but you don't pitch the nose down. This can get
out of hand quickly. This is why most airlines require the pilots to either use both: AP and A/THR or
neither. Or at least make sure that for landing the auto-thrust is indeed controlling speed and no
longer keeping idle thrust.
Managed/Selected Modes
Generally speaking, if a knob is pushed in the control is handed over to the automation in the
managed mode. The field becomes dashed and a dot appears next to it (triple dash and a dot). Then
the autopilot will use the flight plan as a reference.
If a knob is pulled out we gain manual control and can change the target values ourselves in the
selected mode. If we pull the speed knob for example the speed window opens with the current
airspeed and we can then turn the knob to change the selected speed.
Speed-Knob
Push the speed knob to use the route speed as computed by the flight management computers. The
speed will automatically change throughout the flight and the autopilot will fly the aircraft
accordingly. When there is no flight plan it won't do anything (unless you're already on approach).
Pull the speed knob to set the autopilot target airspeed manually. Turn the knob to change the
selected speed.
Depending on the vertical mode the autopilot is either pitching the airplane up or down to keep the
target speed or it is using the auto thrust to keep the speed.

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Heading-Knob
Push the heading knob in to arm and capture the flight route laterally. This allows the aircraft to turn
left and right according to the programmed flight plan and steer towards the destination on its own in
NAV mode. When there is no flight plan nearby the autopilot will keep flying on the selected heading,
only when you intercept the flight plan will it capture the flight plan.
Pull the heading knob to fly a selected heading in HDG mode. Turn the knob left or right to change the
target heading, the aircraft will turn towards that left or right.
Altitude-Knob
Turn the knob to set a new target altitude that the autopilot is allowed to fly to.
Pushing the altitude knob performs a managed climb (CLB) or descent (DES) towards the selected
altitude when you have a route programmed. It does nothing if there is no route nearby and it only
works if you are already flying along the route in NAV mode. With this mode the autopilot will
automatically level off at altitude constraints if the flight plan requires that.
Pulling the altitude knob tells the autopilot to immediately climb or descent to the selected altitude
without any restrictions in open climb (OP CLB) or open descent (OP DES) modes.

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Vertical-Speed-Knob
Pushing the vertical speed knob is a bit different, as it doesn't put the autopilot into a managed mode.
If you push the vertical speed knob the autopilot will immediately level off with vertical speed mode
(VS) and maintain 0 ft/min.
Pulling the vertical speed knob also engages the vertical speed mode (VS) but it keeps the vertical
speed at time of engagement unless you change the target by turning the knob.
EXPED button
The expedite button when pressed triggers a rapid climb or descent to the target altitude. For the
climb the autopilot pitches up until the speed gets pretty low (green dot speed) and for the descent it
pitches down to almost the maximum speed. This button is rarely used in real life but if you need to
descent quickly, this is the button you want to use. That and full airbrakes.

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LOC and APPR
The localizer button (LOC) arms the localizer capture. If there is an ILS localizer signal the autopilot
will capture the runway localizer and fly towards the runway. It only steers left and right for this, it
doesn't change the vertical mode.
The approach button (APPR) does the same but also arms the glide slope capture. After capturing the
localizer (LOC* or LOC), when the glide slope is intercepted, the autopilot will capture it (G/S*) as well
and automatically descent to the runway threshold in G/S mode. When LOC and G/S are both
captured a fully automatic landing can be performed if the runway allows for that.
At 400 feet above ground the autopilot will switch to LAND mode and no buttons on the flight control
unit (FCU) will change that. The only way to leave this mode is to go around or land. At 50 ft the
autopilot switches from LAND to FLARE. It will automatically arrest the sink rate, retard the thrust to
idle, touch down and roll out. Between twenty and ten feet you need to retard the thrust levers to idle
because the auto-spoilers and auto-brakes only engage when the levers are at idle or in reverse.
Speed/Mach Toggle
At high altitudes the Mach number (speed divided by speed of sound) becomes the relevant speed
limit for the aircraft. E.g. the A320 can only fly Mach 0.85 (85% the speed of sound). At such high
speeds the sound barrier starts to have an effect and creates a lot of drag. For this reason it becomes

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more economical to fly at lower indicated airspeeds at a fixed economical mach number (ECON
Mach). At the crossover altitude the autopilot therefor automatically transitions from a speed target to
a Mach target. SPEED becomes MACH.
The button SPD/MACH allows you to manually switch between the Mach and speed reference after
pulling out the speed knob for the selected speed mode.
Heading/Track Vertical-Speed/Flight-Path-Angle Toggle
The HDG/TRK VS/FPA button switches between a heading and vertical speed reference (where the
nose is pointing at and how fast you climb or descent) over to a track and flight path angle reference
(where you're actually flying with the wind and at what angle you climb or descent).
The TRK+FPA mode is useful during an approach where you have a bit of crosswind and instead of
calculating how much you need to point the nose into the wind to fly where you want to, you just tell
the autopilot where you want to fly to in track mode. It automatically compensates the cross wind and
keeps the aircraft flying in the same direction.
Metric Altitude Toggle
The METRIC ALT button displays the selected altitude in meters on the primary flight display (PFD) as
well as on the bottom of the lower ECAM. In some countries like Russia and China the air traffic