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How to start an A320 on approach with engines running?

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How to start an A320 on approach with engines running?

Postby MichaelDu » Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:27 pm

Dear FlightGear community,

I recently downloaded FlightGear 2020 on my computer, and I am very satisfied with the simulator. I mainly practice flying with the Airbus A320. I know that you can select the starting position of the aircraft to be on approach mode, and you can select the altitude, speed, and distance from the runway. However, when I do that though, the aircraft is always in its "cold and dark" state, which makes it impossible to practice my approaches and landings (it just falls from the sky). I tried changing settings, looking around in data files, and also adding "--prop:/engines/engine[0]/running=true" to the Additional Settings tab. Unfortunately, none of these work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I am very desperate on practicing my landings. For now, I can only do take-offs and cruises in FlightGear.

OS: Windows 10
Version: FlightGear 2020.1.2
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050
Location of issue: any aircraft, any airport
Where did I download aircraft and scenery from: FlightGear application, default addons
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Re: How to start an A320 on approach with engines running?

Postby Johan G » Mon Sep 21, 2020 10:47 pm

Welcome to the forum! :D

Unfortunately only very few aircraft supports being spawned mid-air.

One work-around I recently saw mentioned on the forum is to fly the approach, then use the Instant Replay feature to go back in time, press the red "My controls" button and fly the approach again. This might only partially work for some of the more complex aircraft though.
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Re: How to start an A320 on approach with engines running?

Postby MichaelDu » Tue Sep 22, 2020 10:18 am

Thanks for the help Johan ;D I guess I will just use the replay mode. Excuse me asking, but is there a way to "save" replays so that I can access them after exitting FlightGear and going back?
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Re: How to start an A320 on approach with engines running?

Postby D-ECHO » Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:24 pm

Good day MichaelDu,

which A320 are you trying to use? If it is the new A320-Family from FGAddon (by Joshua Davidson, Jonathan Redpath et.al), this one is very complex and thus does not support spawning in air, because it would require a lot of extra work to determine the correct systems state. For the same reason, this particular as well as some other highly detailed aircraft does not support using the Replay - "My Controls" option (it will reset the aircraft to cold and dark iirc).

Replays can be saved under File -> Save Flight Recorder Tape :)

Regards
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Re: How to start an A320 on approach with engines running?

Postby Johan G » Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:40 pm

MichaelDu wrote in Tue Sep 22, 2020 10:18 am:Thanks for the help Johan ;D

You are welcome. :D

MichaelDu wrote in Tue Sep 22, 2020 10:18 am:[...] is there a way to "save" replays so that I can access them after exitting FlightGear and going back?

Yep. "Main Manu > File > Save Flight Recorder Tape". :)

There also seem to be a "--load-tape" option that you could add in the launcher under "Settings > Additional settings" to run a tape when you start, but I am having trouble finding documentation for what it want (though it is very likely the full path to the saved flight recorder file).

As mentioned above the flight recorder probably will not work that well with more complex aircraft.
Low-level flying — It's all fun and games till someone looses an engine. (Paraphrased from a YouTube video)
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Re: How to start an A320 on approach with engines running?

Postby cgdae » Tue Sep 22, 2020 1:03 pm

There also seem to be a "--load-tape" option that you could add in the launcher under "Settings > Additional settings" to run a tape when you start, but I am having trouble finding documentation for what it want (though it is very likely the full path to the saved flight recorder file).


The --load-tape option doesn't actually take the full path. Instead it forms a path by taking the string specified, prepending the name of the tape directory and appending ".fgtape".

[I have some changes in my local tree that omits this prepending and appending if the string already ends with ".fgtape", which might make it into next at some point.]
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Re: How to start an A320 on approach with engines running?

Postby V12 » Wed Sep 30, 2020 6:10 am

Johan G wrote in Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:40 pm:As mentioned above the flight recorder probably will not work that well with more complex aircraft.

I can confirm in case of A320family.
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Re: How to start an A320 on approach with engines running?

Postby tdammers » Wed Sep 30, 2020 10:33 am

IME, in-flight start or retaking control from a replay is hopeless with complex aircraft like these, so what I usually do is start up normally, take off, climb to where I want to be, and then position the aircraft where I want it using the Phi map.

The problem is that, unlike something simple like the J3 Cub, these aircraft have a lot of functionality implemented in Nasal, and Nasal state doesn't get persisted in the flight recorder or anything like that - only properties are, and thus when you play back a flight, the Nasal scripts will just keep running as if you were hand-flying, which means that when you rewind, the state of the Nasal engine does not get reset back to where it was at that point, which can lead to all sorts of weird results. Essentially, it cannot possibly work unless the aircraft author manually wrote all those script to handle rewinding and such, which is difficult and not something people do a lot.
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Re: How to start an A320 on approach with engines running?

Postby FirstOfficerJadenAR » Mon Sep 13, 2021 6:46 am

Hi, Michael. I had that experience too. You have to do circuits and TO/GA for landing. It would be helpful.
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