Cammac

Hi, Thanks for your post. I will try and give a summary of the systems behavior and link with some evidence. The A300 was indeed an early implementation of VNAV and was not all that successful. The current implementation in the sim is actually a little bit too good compared to the real aircraft. Most crews that flew the A300 / A310 said they used the TOD marker as a starting point when it comes to descent planning but never really used the coupled P.DES mode. Or if they did use it they often had to step in and help the aircraft in someway. Please see the linked video with a A300 captain talking about the issues they had with the A300s P.DES mode. As you can see this is no where near the same level as the A320 and even the A320 can have issues! The level of accuracy for the VNAV is not to the level that it can be managed from TOD to ILS intercept. Give ideal conditions it can do this, but as you mentioned the system often can't quite work that out. And that is realistic. When you said that why is the A300 pitched 3-4 degrees down. This is expected as it should be able idle. It's hard to see when the A/THR is at idle in the A300 as you don't get the flashing IDLE memo on the E/WD like on the A320. But idle in the A300 can be 60%N1 at higher FLs so you might indeed see high N1 on the engines but they are at idle. You can check by putting the aircraft into LVL change and seeing if the thrust changes. Or if RETARD is not shown on the speed column. Hope this helps, Thanks.

Hi, Thanks for the post. I think your issue may be coupled to an auto flight protection system in the A300/A310. If you ever see THR L shown this means the aircraft went over a set AOA and will try and protect itself by applying full power and the only way to reset this mode is toggle the A/THR on and off. In reference to this thread: The behaviour you are seeing is indeed correct. When you are in PROFILE the target is to stay at idle as long as possible the only way this is possible is to increase or decrease the target speed while staying at idle. If the target speed drops below the target speed -25kts ( I believe ) it will trigger to P.SPD again and come back on target speed. You see the same thing with the 320 family but it draws the speed window. This is not the case on the A310 / A300. If you are using very high CI then the speed target will be very much right on VMO / MMO which I can see in the one screenshot but the A310/A300 will reduce thrust when reaching MMO and VMO but often you will end up high as the aircraft has no way to get back on profile as it can't speed up. This can also be seen on the 32 family. Cheers.

Hi, Thanks for your post. Autobrake systems are quite complex but actually picking which setting you need is not too complex in the A300 / A310 family. The auto brake system aims for a deceleration rate. So LOW and MED do not always physically apply the same break pressure. So how in the real world will this effect stopping distance and break temps? Well if you land with autobrakes low and do not select any REV THR you will actually stop in exactly the same distance if you select MAX REV THR why? Well this comes down to that deceleration rate if it can match that rate without using much breaking pressure at all it will do so and leaves the breaks cooler in the process with less wear. MED works the same way but of course has a higher target declaration rate. On landing you will see the blue armed light change into a solid green bar, this only happens when 80% of that target declaration is achieved so on snowy runways you actually may never be able to get that, this is normal and is part of the system working as normal. But back to your main question of which setting do you use and when. In the A310 and up and coming A300 V2 you have a landing distance calculator and this will tell you if LOW or MED will allow you to stop on the runway you want to land on. But as a general rule runways under 2200 meters think about using MED and over that LOW should be fine. MAX can be selected in the air but the FCTM and FCOM say it should not really be used for landing. Brakes HOT will happen quite often after landing if you are using the autobrakes. This is fully realistic as carbon brakes absorb quite a bit of energy and 5 minutes after landing they will be at the hottest temperature. A technique used by real A300 / A310 pilots to keep the brakes cool is to land with no auto brakes let it slow down the first part of the landing roll using no braking at all. Then smoothly apply braking as needed in 1 single application. Carbon brakes get hot due to amount of applications not only the amount of force. Hope this answers your question. kind Regards, Lead Technical Team

Hi, Thanks for the post. I would also highly recommend using the flight plan import function via the IDC. This will load all the waypoints into the FMS exactly as they are shown on the SB plan including on route oceanic points. You can also make custom points using the PBD function. So place bearing distance. So for example you have TNT VOR, TNT/180/20 this will make a way point on the 180 radial 20 miles from TNT called PBD01. Or in the case here SUGOL/the bearing you want/ the distance you want. And then it will make a PBD point. But using the SB importer with the IDC is the easiest way to get a large flight plan into the A310. If you don't want to use the new style radio you can toggle it on download and import the flight plan and then swap back to the classics radios. Linked above is a video we made to show how to get this integration working. Granted it's with the Beluga but the IDC is the same in the 310. kind Regards, Lead Technical Team

Hi, Thanks for the post. The system works quite close to the 320 but with 1 key difference. The 320 is smart enough to know which runway you are departing from and will autotune the LOC or ILS. But with the A300 it has no auto tune function for the ILS. To get this feature working you need to tune the ILS yourself with the correct runway CRS set. Once you press the GO leavers then you should also get the RWY mode on the FMA with the associated yaw bar. But saying that the RWY function is only really helpful when you are in IMC for low vis takeoffs so I am guessing my crews won't bother unless you are in low vis conditions. kind Regards, Lead Technical Team

Hi, Thanks for your post. The TO/FROM indicator takes the form of the arrow shown on the below images. Once you have a CRS set you can see the tip of the blue arrow pointing in the direction of the CRS. So if the CRS set is away from the station then the arrow will be pointing down so in the southerly arc. Where as if your CRS is TO the station then the arrow is in the northern part of the arc. Station used was SPL sitting just in front heading 360 degrees. Kind Regards, Lead Technical Team FROM the station TO the station As seen in official documents

Hi @tiffernine, The new LNAV code has been implemented to improve general LNAV stability and overall accuracy, while giving the correct level of tracking accuracy for the A300. DME arcs already work correctly in the current LNAV code as only some can be flown in NAV. Intercept points have not been changed in terms of placement but tracking to them will be improved due to the above statement. Curved drawings are not possible on the A300 due to the limited power of the SGUs and limits of the technology at the time. The only time you will see a curve is on a DIR TO or in a hold. VNAV has not been changed because it's accurately reflects how the real A300 will fly PROFILE descent. In fact it's actually a bit too accurate compared to the real thing. We will be publishing an update to the A300 after completion of the A310 with many features rolled back including LNAV changes. Kind Regards,Lead Technical Team