Getting to know the cockpit

Before your first flight, it helps to know what you are looking at. The A380 uses a "glass cockpit" — almost everything is shown on large screens rather than traditional round gauges. This chapter maps every major display and panel so nothing catches you off guard.

The screens

The overhead panel

The large panel above and behind the pilots' heads contains switches for every aircraft system: electrics, hydraulics, fuel, air conditioning, and lighting. For a basic flight you only need a small section of it — the electrical switches and the ADIRS knobs for IRS alignment.

The pedestal

The console between the two seats contains the four engine thrust levers, the flap lever, the speedbrake lever, the CDU keyboards, the Radio Management Panels (RMP) for tuning frequencies, and the parking brake.

Powering up from cold & dark

Starting "cold and dark" means the aircraft has no electrical power at all — just as it would be parked overnight at a real gate. You need to bring systems on in the right order before anything else can happen.

Step-by-step

What to do during the 11-minute wait

• Open the EFB and enter your fuel quantity and passenger weight
• Start programming the CDU with your route (see Chapter 3)
• Tune your departure radio frequency on the RMP panels
• Set the transponder squawk code on the SURV page in the CDU

When alignment is complete, the red flags disappear and your current position appears on the ND map.

Setting up the flight computer

The CDU (Control Display Unit) is where you tell the aircraft everything it needs to know about the flight. For a standard route you only need four pages: INIT, FUEL&LOAD, F-PLN, and PERF.

INIT page — start here

Press the INIT button on the CDU keypad.

FUEL & LOAD page

From the CDU menu, scroll to and select FUEL&LOAD.

F-PLN page — your route

Press F-PLN. Initially you will see just your departure and destination airports.

• Adding a SID — press the button next to your departure airport, select DEPARTURE, choose your runway, then pick a SID from the list. Press INSERT.
• Adding waypoints manually — type a waypoint ICAO name in the scratchpad at the bottom, then press the button next to where you want to insert it.
• Adding a STAR and approach — press the button next to your destination, select ARRIVAL, choose runway, STAR, and approach type. Press INSERT.

Loading a route automatically

Hand-typing the route works, but most of the time you'll load it from somewhere else. There are three common ways to get a full flight plan into the CDU without entering every waypoint by hand — which one you use depends on your simulator version.

1 — SimBrief import (EFB)

SimBrief is a free online flight planner (part of Navigraph). You build your route on simbrief.com — it generates an OFP (operational flight plan) with the airways, SID, STAR, cruise altitude, cost index, and a fuel and payload breakdown.

2 — MSFS 2020 world map (loads on spawn)

In Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, you can build your flight plan on the sim's main World Map screen before you start the flight — pick departure and arrival, choose a runway, SID, STAR, and routing (or load a .pln file).

When you then spawn into the A380, that world-map flight plan is automatically loaded into the CDU. You'll find your route already on the F-PLN page when you load in — no manual entry needed to get started.

3 — MSFS 2024 native EFB

In Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 the flight-planning workflow changed. Rather than relying on the world-map-to-CDU spawn behaviour, FS2024 uses its own built-in native EFB (the simulator's EFB, separate from the aircraft's tablet) to create and edit the flight plan.

A flight plan built with the FS2024 native EFB loads into the A380 CDU. So on FS2024, the recommended path is: build or adjust your plan in the native FS2024 EFB, and it syncs into the aircraft's FMS.

What you will see on the map

After programming, your route appears as a magenta line on the ND. Computed markers appear along it:

Performance page — takeoff speeds

Press PERF then select TO (Takeoff). The CDU calculates three speeds from your weight and runway:

Engine start & taxi

The A380 has four engines, all started using compressed air from the APU (a small jet engine in the tail). Engine start is managed from the overhead panel and monitored on the ECAM ENG page.

Starting the APU

Starting the engines

Start sequence: 2 → 3 → 1 → 4 (inner engines first to minimise jet blast risk at the gate).

Before taxi

• Set your squawk code — CDU → SURV — enter 4-digit code and set mode to ALT
• Check the ECAM WHEEL page — all gear uplocks green, all doors closed
• Set flaps for takeoff — CONF 1+F or CONF 2 depending on runway
• Arm ground spoilers — move the speedbrake lever to ARM

ETACS taxi camera

The A380 has a real-world camera mounted beneath the fuselage called ETACS (External and Taxiing Aid Camera System). It shows what is directly under the aircraft — very useful for judging clearance at tight gates. Select it from the ECAM Control Panel to display the view on the SD screen.

BTV — Brake to Vacate setup

Before you leave the gate, you can pre-select which runway exit you want to use at your destination. When the airport ground map (OANS) is shown on the ND, select your target exit from the list. The BTV system stores this and automatically applies the correct braking on landing so you roll out to that exact exit — no manual braking needed. More on using BTV in Chapter 8.

Takeoff & climb

The A380 uses fly-by-wire: your sidestick sends commands to a flight control computer rather than moving surfaces directly. The computer prevents you from exceeding structural limits, making the aircraft very stable but slightly different from smaller planes.

FCU setup before takeoff

Thrust detents

For takeoff: advance the levers to FLEX (or TOGA). Auto-thrust arms itself automatically.

Calibrating hardware throttles (EFB)

If you fly with a physical throttle (a HOTAS or a dedicated Airbus throttle quadrant), it needs to be calibrated so your hardware positions line up with the aircraft's virtual detents — IDLE, CL, MCT/FLEX, and TOGA. This matters because the A380's auto-thrust is detent-based: a lever resting even slightly outside the CL detent will disconnect A/THR. Without calibration, your hardware "click" positions won't land where the aircraft expects them.

The current method uses the aircraft's EFB throttle calibration page:

The takeoff roll

• At V1 — do not abort. You are committed to flying.
• At VR — gently pull the sidestick back. Aim for 10–12° nose-up attitude. Follow the green flight director bars on the PFD.
• At V2 — maintain this speed or above for best engine-failure climb performance.

After liftoff

Cruise

Once levelled off at cruise altitude, the autopilot and auto-thrust manage everything. Your job is to monitor the systems, update the flight plan if needed, and prepare for descent in advance.

The ECAM Cruise page

Shortly after gear retraction in climb, the SD automatically switches to the CRUISE page. It shows two areas:

• Left — Fuel: fuel flow for each engine (kg/h) and total fuel used since engine start. Cross-check these against your fuel plan occasionally.
• Right — Air: Cabin Altitude (CAB ALT), pressure differential (DELTA P), and target cabin temperatures for cockpit, passenger decks, and cargo.

The ND map in cruise

Your route continues as a magenta line. Watch for two important markers:

Step climbs

On long flights the aircraft becomes lighter as fuel burns off, allowing it to fly more efficiently at a higher altitude. Step climbs are mid-flight altitude increases — typically 2,000 feet at a time. To plan one: CDU → VERT REV on a cruise waypoint → STEP ALTS. When you reach the step point, dial the new altitude on the FCU and the autopilot climbs automatically.

Traffic & weather on the ND

Both are off by default. To enable:

• Traffic — press the TRAF button on the EFIS panel (left of the FCU). Other aircraft appear as symbols on the ND. TCAS collision warnings remain active regardless.
• Weather — press the WX button on the EFIS panel. Weather radar overlay appears on the ND.

Descent planning & approach preparation

Good approach preparation starts 20–30 minutes before the T/D marker — well before you start going down. The A380 approach system is highly automated but needs the right data entered in advance.

Step 1 — Get the destination weather

Listen to the ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service) at your destination — a recorded broadcast with active runway, wind, visibility, QNH pressure setting, and conditions. Note the active runway and QNH; you will need them shortly.

Step 2 — Set up the arrival procedure

On the CDU F-PLN page, press the button next to your destination airport → ARRIVAL. Select:

• Runway — the active runway from the ATIS
• STAR — Standard Terminal Arrival Route — the routing from cruise airspace to the approach
• Approach — the type of approach, e.g. ILS 27L

Press INSERT to confirm. The STAR and approach legs appear on the ND map.

Step 3 — PERF APPR page

CDU → PERF → APPR.

Step 4 — Enable the ILS display

The CDU auto-tunes the ILS frequency when you selected the approach. To display the ILS needles on the PFD, press the LS button on the EFIS panel (left of the FCU). Two extra scales appear on the PFD: a vertical scale for glideslope and a horizontal scale for localizer.

Initiating the descent

The aircraft will not start descending on its own at T/D — you must command it.

Approach & landing

The approach phase is where everything comes together. The autopilot manages runway alignment and glidepath while the flight computer manages speed through each flap setting. Your job is to monitor, configure, and be ready to intervene.

Approach phase activation

Activates automatically when two conditions are met together: you are within approximately 7,200 feet above the destination's elevation AND the flight plan is being tracked in NAV or LOC mode. You can also activate manually: CDU → PERF → APPR → ACTIVATE APPR PHASE.

Flap extension — managed speed

In managed speed mode the aircraft follows a defined sequence tied to flap position. Speeds appear as coloured markers on the PFD speed tape.

Gear down

Lower the gear when established on the approach, typically at or before 4 nautical miles from the threshold. The ECAM automatically shows the WHEEL page — confirm three green gear symbols.

ILS capture

With AP1 engaged and approach armed (press APPR on the FCU):

• LOC captures first as you intercept the extended runway centreline — the PFD shows LOC in green.
• G/S captures as you cross the glideslope beam, typically 4–5 nm out — the PFD shows G/S in green.

The aircraft then tracks the ILS beam automatically, descending and following the centreline.

BTV — Brake to Vacate

If you pre-selected an exit in Chapter 4, BTV is now ready. After touchdown it applies the brakes automatically to bring you to taxi speed exactly at your chosen exit. No manual brake input needed. BTV disengages automatically once you vacate the runway.

Manual landing technique

Disengage the autopilot at any point — many pilots disconnect around 500 feet AGL. Auto-thrust can remain on.

• At approx. 50 feet — begin the flare: gently raise the nose by 2–3°
• At approx. 30 feet — reduce thrust to idle
• On touchdown — ground spoilers deploy automatically (if armed); apply reverse thrust; use normal braking

Go-around

If you decide not to land at any point during the approach:

After landing & shutdown

After a long flight, the shutdown process is straightforward. The main steps are parking safely, shutting down the engines, and optionally returning to cold and dark.

Clearing the runway

• BTV disengages automatically once you clear the runway
• Apply parking brake briefly if you need to stop and configure before taxiing
• Retract flaps to 0 using the flap lever
• Confirm taxi clearance with ATC if on a network

Taxiing to the gate

Taxi at 10–15 knots on straight sections, slower on turns. Select ETACS on the ECAM for the belly camera view — especially useful for judging clearance near the jetbridge and ground equipment as you enter the stand.

Engine shutdown

APU shutdown

Full cold & dark

To leave the aircraft completely powered off:

1. Turn all three ADIRS / IRS knobs to OFF
2. Turn off BAT 1 and BAT 2

All screens go dark. The aircraft is cold and dark again.

Quick reference — full flow

A condensed checklist covering all nine chapters in sequence. Use it as a reminder once you know the procedures.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions answered in plain language. Click any question to expand it.

First steps

Flight planning & setup

The map (ND)

ECAM pages (SD)

Autopilot & auto-thrust

Approach & landing

Crew, aircraft & failures

Advanced systems

Deeper dives into the automation behind the A380. Where the Beginner guide tells you which buttons to press, these pages explain what the systems are actually doing — so you can read the aircraft instead of just operating it. Best tackled once you are comfortable flying a full route.

Flight Mode Annunciator (FMA)

The FMA is the single most important read-out in the cockpit during automated flight. It is a narrow strip at the very top of the PFD that tells you exactly what every automation system is doing at any given moment. Misreading it — or ignoring it — is the root cause of most unexpected automation behaviour.

What is the FMA?

Every time you press a button on the FCU, move a knob, or the aircraft transitions through a flight phase, the autopilot and auto-thrust change their active modes. The FMA tells you what those modes are in real time. Real-world Airbus doctrine requires pilots to call out every FMA change — "Speed, Climb, Nav" — to confirm the automation did what was expected and nothing unexpected.

As a simmer, developing the habit of glancing at the FMA after every FCU input is the single biggest upgrade you can make to your scan.

The 5 columns — anatomy

The FMA strip is divided into five columns by thin vertical divider lines. Reading left to right:

Colour code

Every text element on the FMA has a specific colour with a specific meaning. You should recognise these without having to think:

Column 1 — Auto-thrust modes

The leftmost column tells you what the auto-thrust system is commanding. There is a crucial distinction between thrust law (A/THR is controlling engine output directly) and speed law (A/THR is maintaining a target speed by adjusting thrust continuously).

Column 2 — Vertical modes

This column shows how the autopilot is managing pitch and altitude. Vertical modes fall into two families: managed (the FMS chooses the target) and selected (you dialled a target on the FCU).

Column 3 — Lateral modes

Column 4 — Armed modes

Armed modes appear in cyan. They are not active yet — they are waiting for a condition to be met, at which point they automatically transition to active (green). This column can show both a vertical armed mode and a lateral armed mode simultaneously.

Understanding armed modes is key to understanding why the aircraft sometimes does something you didn't explicitly command — you armed it earlier and it just triggered.

Column 5 — AP/FD status

The rightmost column shows which guidance systems are physically engaged. Unlike the other columns it doesn't describe what the autopilot is doing — it shows what is on.

Phase-by-phase FMA states

Here is what you should expect to see on the FMA at each phase of a typical flight. If your FMA shows something different, something is either wrong or you have selected a mode you did not intend to.

Common mistakes & misreadings

1 — Not checking Col 4 after pressing APPR

Pressing APPR on the FCU arms the ILS approach. You should immediately see LOC and G/S appear in cyan in column 4. If they don't, the approach is either not programmed in the CDU or the aircraft is too close to the beam to arm. This needs to be caught before you are in the intercept — not after.

2 — Confusing THR CLB (thrust law) with SPEED (speed law)

In THR CLB the thrust is fixed — the autopilot adjusts pitch to fly a speed. In SPEED the thrust is variable — the thrust adjusts to maintain a speed while pitch is managed separately. If you see the nose pitching significantly in climb, that is normal THR CLB behaviour, not a malfunction. The aircraft is adjusting pitch to hold speed against fixed thrust.

3 — Ignoring mode transitions at level-off

As the aircraft approaches the FCU altitude, you will briefly see ALT* flash green — this means the capture has begun. If ALT* appears but never transitions to ALT, the aircraft has missed the level-off, which usually means you dialled in a new altitude before the previous one was captured. The old target was erased before the aircraft reached it.

4 — Assuming AP is on because the aircraft is flying itself

The Flight Director can fly the bars on the attitude indicator even when the autopilot is off. The FD bars guide your manual flying but do not fly the aircraft. Always confirm AP1 appears in column 5 before assuming the autopilot is in control.

5 — Not noticing when A/THR drops out

If A/THR disappears from column 5 and you do not notice, the engines freeze at whatever position the physical levers are. In cruise this typically means the thrust stays where it was — briefly fine. In descent at idle it means thrust stays at idle after level-off. Speed control is gone. The aircraft will pitch down to maintain speed unless you intervene. The FMA disappearance is the only warning.

6 — Expecting G/S to capture before LOC

The sequence is always LOC first, then G/S. The aircraft intercepts the localizer centreline, then once established on LOC it begins tracking the glideslope from below. If you see G/S armed but LOC has not yet captured, G/S will not activate yet — this is correct. Attempting to hand-fly the glidepath before LOC is captured is a common reason for unstabilised approaches.

FMS / CDU deep dive

The Flight Management System is the brain of the aircraft's automated flight. Everything the autopilot, auto-thrust, and ECAM use for predictions — speeds, altitudes, times, fuel — comes from the FMS. The CDU is the interface to that brain. Understanding what happens behind the scratchpad changes how you read the aircraft's behaviour.

What the FMS actually does

The FMS is not just a moving-map route planner. It is simultaneously doing four things at all times:

CDU anatomy

The CDU face has three distinct zones. Understanding the zones tells you how to interact with it without hunting for keys.

Colour code on the screen

The scratchpad workflow

Every data entry on the CDU follows the same pattern, no exceptions. Understanding this prevents 90% of CDU confusion:

1. Type your value using the keypad — it appears in the scratchpad at the bottom of the screen. The rest of the screen is unchanged.
2. Press the LSK or RSK adjacent to the field you want to fill. The value moves from the scratchpad into that field.
3. The FMS validates it — if the entry is valid, the field turns green and the scratchpad clears. If invalid, the scratchpad shows an error message like NOT ALLOWED or FORMAT ERROR.

INIT page — the cascade anchor

The INIT page establishes the fundamental parameters that every other calculation in the FMS depends on. Enter it wrong and every downstream number — predicted fuel, ETAs, managed speeds — is wrong.

FUEL & LOAD — the weight foundation

Every performance prediction in the FMS is weight-dependent. The FUEL & LOAD page is where you define the weight. Get this wrong and V speeds, managed climb speeds, VAPP, EFOB, and even the optimal FL will all be wrong.

F-PLN page — how the route is structured

The F-PLN page is not just a list of waypoints. Each entry is a leg with a specific type, and the type determines how the autopilot flies it. The page also hosts constraints, pseudo-waypoints, and the discontinuity — all of which behave differently from normal waypoints.

The TMPY F-PLN system

Any modification to the flight plan — inserting a waypoint, changing a SID, adding a direct-to — first creates a temporary copy of the plan. You are editing the TMPY plan, not the active one. This lets you preview changes before committing. The yellow TMPY F-PLN prompt at the bottom right of the CDU appears whenever a temporary modification is pending:

• INSERT (RSK6 on most pages) — the TMPY plan replaces the active plan. Autopilot immediately follows the new route.
• ERASE (LSK6) — the TMPY plan is discarded. Active plan unchanged.

Discontinuities

A discontinuity appears in the F-PLN when the FMS cannot connect two consecutive legs automatically — typically after inserting a SID that ends at one waypoint and a route that starts at a different one, or after a DIRECT TO creates a route gap. It is shown as a yellow -DISCONTINUITY- line.

When the autopilot reaches a discontinuity in NAV mode it does not stop — it flies direct to the waypoint immediately after the discontinuity. Depending on the geometry this could be directly ahead, or it could turn the aircraft 180 degrees. Always check the ND map after any plan modification to see what the magenta line does at the discontinuity.

To remove a discontinuity: on the F-PLN page, press the LSK next to the discontinuity line. This connects the two surrounding waypoints with a direct leg.

Altitude and speed constraints

Constraints come from navdata and define what altitude or speed the FMS must achieve at a specific waypoint. They appear in magenta on the F-PLN page and as magenta circles on the ND. The FMS respects these in managed descent — it builds the DES path to satisfy every constraint. In OP DES it ignores them.

PERF pages — phase by phase

The PERF key cycles through performance sub-pages matching the current or next flight phase. Each sub-page contains the performance data relevant to that phase. They do not need to all be filled in advance — the FMS activates each one when its phase begins.

FMS operating phases

The FMS transitions through a defined sequence of operating phases. Each phase changes which managed speed is active, which PERF page is current, and which constraints the FMS respects. Understanding the phase prevents surprises when managed speed changes unexpectedly.

Pseudo-waypoints — what they are and why they move

Pseudo-waypoints appear on the F-PLN page in parentheses — (T/C), (T/D), (DECEL), (S/C). They are not in the navigation database. The FMS computes them continuously from your current weight, wind, speed, and altitude. Because the inputs change constantly, the pseudo-waypoints move.

Cost Index — what it actually does

The Cost Index (CI) is the FMS's instruction for how to balance time against fuel. It is not a fuel-saving switch — it is an economic input that shifts the entire speed schedule across all phases simultaneously.

Mathematically: CI = time cost ($/hour) ÷ fuel cost ($/kg). A CI of 30 means your airline values one hour of flight time the same as 30 kg of fuel. A higher CI means time is relatively more expensive, so fly faster. A lower CI means fuel dominates, so slow down.

Common CDU mistakes

VNAV & the vertical profile

VNAV — vertical navigation — is the FMS managing the aircraft's altitude and speed along a computed path, instead of you dialling vertical speeds by hand. It is the most misunderstood part of the automation, because the path is invisible until you learn to read the three places it shows up: the FMA, the PFD vertical deviation symbol, and the Vertical Display.

What VNAV is — and isn't

On takeoff and climb the FMS builds a vertical path up to cruise. In descent it builds a path down from the T/D to the runway that satisfies every altitude and speed constraint on the arrival. VNAV is the autopilot flying that path. The key distinction that governs everything:

The descent profile

When you program the arrival, the FMS works backwards from the runway: it starts at the destination, applies the approach gradient, then each constraint, then an idle-thrust geometric path up to cruise altitude. Where that path meets your cruise level is the T/D. The profile has two characteristic segments:

DES vs OP DES — the two ways down

Vertical deviation — the PFD symbol

In managed descent the PFD shows how far you are above or below the computed path. On the A380 this is a small symbol on the right side of the altitude tape — sometimes called the "bird" or the VDEV donut. It is the single most important VNAV instrument.

Why you end up high or low

The profile is a prediction. When reality differs from the prediction, the deviation grows. The usual culprits:

• Wind — a tailwind stronger than forecast pushes you along faster than the path assumed, so you arrive at each point high. Headwind does the opposite.
• Late arrival programming — entering the STAR or approach after the profile was built moves the constraints and recomputes T/D, often after you have already passed where you should have started down.
• ATC altitude holds — being held high by ATC past T/D means the path runs away below you. The deviation symbol pegs at the bottom.
• Speed intervention — selecting a faster descent speed than the managed schedule flattens the achievable idle gradient, putting you above path.

The Vertical Display (VD)

Below the ND, the A380 can show a Vertical Display — a side-on view of the terrain, your altitude, the computed path, and the constraints ahead. It is the clearest way to see whether the descent is going to work out, because it draws the profile and your position on the same picture.

Common VNAV mistakes

Auto-thrust in depth

Auto-thrust (A/THR) on the A380 behaves unlike the throttle on most aircraft, and the single fact that trips up every newcomer is this: the physical thrust levers do not move when A/THR is working. You set them in a detent and leave them. The lever position becomes a limit and an arming switch, not a direct command. Understanding that one idea explains almost every A/THR surprise.

Speed law vs thrust law

A/THR is always operating in one of two laws. The FMA column 1 tells you which (see the FMA page), and they feel completely different:

The four detents

The thrust levers have physical notches. With A/THR active, the lever you rest in sets the maximum thrust A/THR is allowed to command, and it arms A/THR engagement. From idle forward:

Active vs armed — and how the levers control it

A/THR has two states that the FMA distinguishes. Active (green A/THR in FMA column 5) means it is moving thrust right now. Armed (the levers are out of the active range) means it is ready to take over but the lever position is currently commanding thrust directly.

• Below or in the CL detent, A/THR active → A/THR commands thrust up to the CL limit. The levers don't move.
• Push a lever above CL → that lever commands thrust directly (manual), A/THR goes to armed. This is how you'd add thrust manually if needed.
• Idle thrust levers fully back with A/THR off → fully manual thrust at idle.

Alpha floor & TOGA LK

A/THR includes a stall protection that overrides everything else. If angle of attack exceeds a threshold, A.FLOOR triggers and commands TOGA thrust regardless of lever position or mode — shown amber on the FMA. It is one of the strongest protections in the aircraft.

Managed vs selected speed targets

In speed law, A/THR holds a target — but where the target comes from depends on the FCU speed knob:

Common auto-thrust mistakes

Approach modes

The A380 can fly several kinds of approach, and the automation behaves differently for each. The job on final is to know which one you've armed, confirm it captured in the right order, and understand exactly what the aircraft will and won't do for you down to the runway.

The three approach families

The APPR button & capture sequence

Pressing APPR on the FCU arms the approach. For an ILS that arms LOC and G/S together — they then capture in a strict order. Getting the order right is the difference between a stable approach and a scramble.

1. Arm — press APPR. LOC and G/S appear cyan in FMA column 4. (If only one appears, the approach isn't fully set up.)
2. LOC capture — intercepting the centreline, LOC* flashes then goes steady green. The aircraft turns onto the runway heading.
3. G/S capture — established on LOC and approaching the beam from below, G/S* flashes then green. The aircraft starts down the glidepath.

Autoland & CAT levels

An ILS approach can continue to a fully automatic landing. Autoland needs both autopilots engaged (press AP1 and AP2) so one monitors the other. The FMA then arms the landing sequence:

Approach phase & managed deceleration

Separately from the AP modes, the FMS enters its APPROACH phase (see the FMS phases). This is what drives managed speed down through the flap schedule to VAPP. It auto-activates within ~7,200 ft of destination elevation while tracking NAV/LOC, or manually via PERF → ACTIVATE APPR PHASE.

• At the (DECEL) pseudo-waypoint, managed speed begins stepping down as you extend flaps.
• Each flap setting unlocks a lower managed target: clean → S → F → VAPP.
• A/THR (in speed law) holds each target as you configure.

Go-around

A go-around is initiated by pushing the thrust levers to TOGA — the one time in the flight you move them out of CL deliberately. The aircraft transitions instantly:

Then it's the standard sequence: positive climb, flaps to CONF 3, gear up, follow the missed-approach. The full FMA picture for this is the sixth phase card on the FMA page.

Common approach mistakes

ECAM system pages

ECAM — the Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitor — is the system that watches every part of the aircraft for you and tells you, in plain text, what to do when something goes wrong. It lives on the two centre screens. Most of the time it manages itself; learning to read it (and when to override it) turns a wall of symbols into a clear picture of the aircraft's health.

The two screens: EWD and SD

ECAM information is split across the upper and lower centre displays:

Auto-display logic

The SD chooses a page automatically based on what the aircraft is doing. You rarely need to select one by hand — but knowing the logic stops it feeling random:

The system pages

Every ECP button calls up one schematic. What each one is for:

Warnings, cautions & the alert workflow

When something goes wrong, ECAM classifies it by severity and presents it on the EWD with an audible and visual cue:

ECAM lists the failure title, then a procedure: the actions to take, line by line. As you complete each action the line clears. The workflow buttons sit on the ECP:

Common ECAM mistakes

Operations

The Beginner guide teaches you to fly the aircraft. This section is about everything around the flight: a live crew who talk to you, an aircraft with a history and its own mechanic, and failures you can practise or leave to chance. It all runs from the EFB tablet. Use as much or as little as you like — every feature here is optional, and each one starts switched off.

How the pieces fit together

Think of an airline day. You fly a flight with a crew; something sometimes goes wrong; what went wrong is written into the aircraft's logbook; a mechanic repairs it or defers it; and that decides whether the next flight can leave on time. The three parts of this section walk through that whole loop.

LiveOnboard — your crew

AIRCRAFT — your airframe

FAILURES — practice and consequences

Where to start

LiveOnboard — your crew

An A380 is never flown by one person. LiveOnboard fills the other seats. Switch it on and you become the Captain of a full crew: a First Officer who works the panel and answers your checklists, a Purser and cabin crew who welcome and brief the passengers and secure the cabin, a ground crew on the headset for pushback, and — on long flights — a relief pilot to spell you in the cruise. The passengers have opinions too, and will tell you how the flight went. It all runs from one page on the EFB tablet, and every part of it is optional.

Who is aboard

The flight is judged on two meters, each running from 0 to 100:

See LiveOnboard — flight, score & events for what moves them.

Getting started in five steps

Crew on is not the same as crew talking

The crew stay quiet until the flight begins. Any of these starts it: pressing START BOARDING or LOAD NOW, an instant load, GSX boarding, being airborne, or asking the First Officer for a checklist. Once started, it stays started for the rest of the session. Sitting cold and dark at the gate before any of that, you won't hear a word from the crew.

If you load the aircraft with an engine already running — typically a runway spawn — LiveOnboard treats it as a "ready" start. There's no boarding, door, safety-demo or pushback calls, since there's nothing left to board. The crew still wait for the flight to start: press LOAD NOW, which also puts the passengers and cargo aboard, or ask for a checklist. After that, the cabin gets secured for takeoff as normal.

The six tabs

A rail on the left of the page switches between six tabs — a short label on the rail, and the full name in the header above it.

A small cluster in the corner of every tab shows the flight at a glance: a schedule pill (NO STD SET, ON TIME · 11:45Z, LATE +n, OFF ON TIME, IN ON TIME, ON BLOCKS), the current CABIN and CREW scores, and, in MANUAL, a chip such as 1 PA WAITING. The scores read about 75 and 95 once the crew is on — a bare -- only shows for a moment as the page opens. Tap the cluster to open the REPORT.

AUTO or MANUAL?

On the SET tab, CREW SIMULATION is either:

There is no OFF here: that is the CREW switch on the SECT tab.

The status-bar chip

In the middle of the EFB's top bar, on every page:

• LIVEONBOARD OFF — crew off.
• LIVEONBOARD AUTO or LIVEONBOARD MANUAL — crew on. Turn on CABIN MOOD IN THE STATUS BAR (SET tab) and it also names the cabin's mood, for example LIVEONBOARD AUTO · SETTLED, coloured mint, amber or red.
• LIVEONBOARD SILENCED — this tablet's switch is ON, but the other tablet's is still OFF, so the crew stay silent. Nothing on screen explains this. Turn the crew ON on the other tablet too, or press OFF then ON again here. (Each tablet has its own CREW switch.)

The SET tab

Everything on SETTINGS saves automatically, applies at once and is kept between flights. Defaults are shown in bold.

Who is flying today

How much you hear

The operation

Common questions

LiveOnboard — sector & boarding

The SECT tab is about this flight: what it is, when it leaves, who is aboard, and when it ends. LiveOnboard calls one gate-to-gate flight a sector, and everything on this tab belongs to the sector you're flying now — its own footer says so: "This flight only. Everything here resets when the next one starts." From the top, the cards are CREW, FLIGHT, SCHEDULE, BOARDING, CABIN SERVICE, LOADSHEET and FLIGHT DECK.

CREW — the switch and the stand

The crew switch (OFF / ON) belongs to this tablet and is never saved: it starts OFF every time the aircraft loads. Underneath it, the card tells you exactly where you stand. With the crew off: "The crew are off. The aeroplane behaves exactly as it does without LiveOnboard — loading, ground services and audio all unchanged. Turn them on and they will be ready when boarding starts." With the crew on but the flight not yet started: "The crew are on, in AUTO, and waiting for the sector to start — they come alive when boarding does."

The stand row — CHOCKS, GROUND POWER, AIR COND, JETWAY, STAIRS — repeats the same controls as the Ground Services page, so you never have to leave this tab to connect the stand. JETWAY and STAIRS both open door M1L and switch each other off; withdrawing either shuts the door again. CHOCKS always works. The rest are greyed out until the parking brake is set (or the chocks are in) and every engine is near idle — the card explains why: "Ground crew need the aeroplane stopped: set the parking brake or leave the chocks in, and shut the engines down…"

A red banner shows up here only when the First Officer wants you back from your break: THE FIRST OFFICER WANTS YOU BACK, followed by the reason — The ride is deteriorating, Approaching top of descent, Injuries in the cabin, Emergency on board or Medical diversion.

FLIGHT — what the crew know about this sector

Read-outs: FLIGHT NO, ROUTE (origin → destination), AIRLINE, ABOARD (for example BUSINESS · CALM) and TOUCHDOWN (your landing rate, and how it's judged). A summary line tells you what the crew will do — "The crew will work this sector as <airline> <flight no> into <city>." — or tells you what's missing: no destination means the Captain can't name the city or read out the arrival weather; no flight number means the flight is logged unnamed; no airline means a generic welcome. It ends with "Set what is missing on the CDU INIT page, or import a SimBrief plan."

SCHEDULE — when this flight leaves

LiveOnboard needs a departure time. It uses it to judge punctuality, announce delays, quote a flight time to the cabin and size the mechanic's turnaround time. It is never invented — you always set it:

Type something that isn't a valid time and you get "x" is not a time — type a Zulu departure like 1455 or 14:55. Once you're off blocks, the schedule locks itself: "Off blocks — the schedule is locked for this sector. Estimates stay open." — though the TOLD CABIN fields stay editable. The page will warn you, but never stop you, if the simulator clock is three hours or more past your STD, or if the scheduled block time is an hour or more off from what the route would actually take.

BOARDING — START BOARDING

The card's buttons are ACCEPT AIRCRAFT (only shown if you've switched on Simulate arriving aircraft — see AIRCRAFT), START BOARDING, STOP, LOAD NOW, DEBOARD NOW (only while deboarding) and BOARD ANYWAY (only during a temperature hold). Below them is LOAD TIME: 5 MIN, 10 MIN, 15 MIN, 20 MIN or REALISTIC, the default, which the tablet remembers.

What START BOARDING needs

1. The aircraft accepted, if you've switched on Simulate arriving aircraft. (With the crew ON, you get the full narrated boarding described here. With the crew off, see the tip below instead.)
2. A forward-left door open — M1L or M2L (Ground Services page, or JETWAY / STAIRS above). "Nobody can board through a closed door — open M1L or M2L on the Ground Services page first, then press this again."
3. A departure time (STD), plus either an arrival time or a route. If either is missing, the card tells you what to set: "This sector has no departure time, so nothing can be early or late — … Set STD on the SCHEDULE card: SIMBRIEF pulls it from your OFP, or use NOW +30 / +45 / +60, or type it."
4. A payload. Your load comes from the Dispatch page's PLANNED column, or from SimBrief if this flight is synced. With nothing planned, the status line says "Set a passenger load on the Dispatch page, then start boarding here and the crew will work it in real time."
5. A comfortable cabin. If a passenger deck sits at or above 29 °C or at or below 17 °C for 30 seconds, boarding is held. START BOARDING is refused while the hold is active, and a boarding already running pauses at the point servicing turns into boarding — until the cabin cools or warms back into range, or you press BOARD ANYWAY (below).

If the CDU's INIT page has no destination or flight number, the card just warns you — it won't stop you.

What happens

1. Fuel is drawn down to a low figure and the pax and cargo stations are emptied, ready to be filled.
2. First a servicing phase (fuelling and catering), then a boarding phase, with cargo loading throughout. The status line narrates all of it: "Fuelling — n% of the uplift, and catering the cabin…", then "<b> of <n> aboard — <l> still to come, about <m> minutes.", and finally "All <b> of <n> aboard. Holds closed."
3. The whole thing takes your chosen LOAD TIME. REALISTIC works out to 8 minutes of servicing plus roughly 18 passengers boarding a minute, capped at 45 minutes in total — about 36 minutes for a full 500 passengers. Expect a small last-minute change too, a few passengers or a little cargo either way.
4. The Purser reports boarding complete, runs the safety demonstration and reports the cabin secure. The next page shows the timings.

GSX. If GSX owns the ramp, LiveOnboard skips the last-minute change, the chocks and ground power it would otherwise connect on deboarding, and the Purser closing the door — GSX's own boarding drives the ramp instead, and the crew still narrate it. (Parking is different: AUTO stand services still connect chocks, power and air under GSX, and only leave the jetway or stairs to GSX.) GROUND SERVICES (AUTO, GSX, BUILT-IN) decides who runs the ramp.

CABIN SERVICE

Buttons: AUTO (default), NO SERVICE, SNACK, FULL MEAL, 2 FULL MEALS. AUTO picks for you, based on the planned flight length:

You can serve less than the flight earns, but never more — anything above what's allowed stays greyed out. A line underneath confirms your choice, for example "3h 20 planned — the cabin will serve one full meal." A meal starts about 20 minutes into the cruise, a snack a minute after the seat-belt sign goes off, and the descent ends whichever is running. Each service earns a little Warmth and Comfort.

LOADSHEET

The card is titled ESTIMATED LOADSHEET until boarding finishes, then FINAL LOADSHEET. Before boarding it shows PAX n · FUEL n t · CARGO n t — as planned. and EST ZFW n t · EST ZFWCG n% · EST TOW n t. Afterwards, it shows how boarding actually went against the plan — n no-shows., n extra late. or No change since the estimate. — plus the final GW · ZFW · CG. SEND TO CDU sends ZFW, ZFWCG, passenger count and block fuel straight to the CDU, and confirms with ESTIMATE SENT ✓ or FINAL SENT ✓.

FLIGHT DECK — the Captain's break

On a flight long enough for a relief pilot, the card is titled FLIGHT DECK — HEAVY CREW. The button reads TAKE A BREAK, or RETURN TO FLIGHT DECK while you're away.

• When. Only when you're airborne, above 15,000 ft, and flying. "Available in the cruise, above 15,000 ft. A break is not offered in a phase of flight that needs both pilots."
• The relief pilot. Set RELIEF PILOT to ALWAYS, or leave it on AUTO for a flight of six hours or more, and the relief pilot rings the door camera when you step away. Otherwise, the Purser asks to come in twelve seconds later, and it's up to you to open the door.
• While you are away. "The First Officer has control. He will set the signs if the ride turns, and call you back if he needs you." He turns the seat-belt signs on if the ride gets rough, and switches them off again after two minutes of calm.
• Being recalled. The red banner calls you back for 30 seconds of real turbulence, when you're 25 minutes from the destination, or for injuries, an emergency or a medical diversion.
• Coming back. Press RETURN TO FLIGHT DECK, or you're counted as back automatically the moment the gear or flaps change, the speedbrake moves more than 10%, the autopilot switches off (if it was on when you left), or the descent begins. The break itself is never scored.

Ending the flight — and flying a second one

A flight ends in one of two ways: deboarding finishes (or you press DEBOARD NOW), or you confirm END FLIGHT. Nothing else ends it — not landing, not parking, not shutting down, not the logbook closing.

• Deboarding starts by itself once you've flown, stopped, set the parking brake, opened a forward-left door, and have a payload aboard. Passengers leave at about 24 a minute (45 minutes at most), and the cargo holds keep unloading for around nine more minutes: "Passengers leaving, about 24 a minute. The holds keep going for a few minutes after the cabin is clear." Unless GSX owns the ramp, the chocks and ground power connect for you automatically. Doors still shut? The card tells you: "At the stand with every door shut. Open a forward left door — M1L or M2L — so the passengers can get off." When it's all done: "Cabin clear and the holds are empty. That sector is closed — the next one starts fresh."
• END FLIGHT asks you to confirm: the first press turns the button amber and shows CONFIRM? for six seconds, and the second press shows ENDED. This closes the flight, switches the crew back ON, and — if you actually flew — has the First Officer give his spoken debrief. It doesn't remove any passengers. If you've landed but haven't closed the flight, the card reminds you: "Landed and parked. Press END FLIGHT above to close this sector — until you do, the next flight inherits this one's checklists, announcements and reminders, and the crew will not run a departure again."

Second flight without reloading

1. Park with the brake set and the engines shut down. With STAND SERVICES ON ARRIVAL on AUTO, the chocks, power, air and jetway or stairs connect for you automatically — under GSX, everything except the jetway or stairs.
2. End the flight: let deboarding finish on its own, press DEBOARD NOW, or press END FLIGHT twice.
3. Set up the next flight: accept the aircraft if you use that step; set a new departure time (plus arrival, or a route in the CDU); sync SimBrief again if you're using it; put the flight number and destination on the CDU INIT page; and set the load on Dispatch (deboarding empties the aircraft, but your PLANNED column stays as it was).
4. Open M1L or M2L and press START BOARDING or LOAD NOW.

A new sector resets almost everything about the last one: the schedule, your announced arrival estimates, both scores, the report graph, the transcript, every checklist and flow's "done" mark, the First Officer's reminders, which PAs you've already said, the SimBrief link, whether the aircraft was accepted (so the welcome popup returns), and the worked-out arrival time. What carries over: the crew switch, everything on the SET tab, your LOAD TIME, your CABIN SERVICE choice, the planned load, and your last twenty logbook entries.

Common questions

LiveOnboard — checklists & announcements

There are two ways to talk to your crew. On the PROC tab you ask the First Officer to do flows — the panel work he does before a checklist is read — and to run checklists with you. On the PA tab you speak to the cabin. Neither needs your voice or the keyboard: you just tap the tablet, and the crew answer out loud.

PROC — flows and checklists

The tab's subtitle is "The flows the First Officer runs, and the checklists that confirm them". A real Airbus procedure works the same way: first the flow, setting the panel up, then the checklist that confirms it's done right. The tab has both.

Flows — ask the First Officer to work the panel

The first card, ASK THE FIRST OFFICER TO DO FLOWS, has nine tiles, in the order a flight actually needs them. Tap one and he works that part of the panel himself:

"Landing lights" here means the LAND switch. Only the TAXI and LINE-UP flows touch the nose light — nothing else does.

• He works one step every 2.5 seconds, silently — there's no "flow complete" call, and he skips anything already set. A finished tile turns mint.
• Each flow runs once per flight, and pressing it again while it's already running does nothing. If the aircraft leaves the ground for more than three seconds during a ground flow, he stops and the flow doesn't get marked done. AFTER LDG and PARKING can be run again after your next landing, but the four departure flows can't — they're only offered before you've flown.
• A tile that doesn't fit the moment is dimmed, but you can still press it — the status line explains why ("Not available — this aeroplane has not flown yet.", "… — already done this sector.") and the press is simply ignored, not saved for later. One message is misleading: "Not yet — wrong moment for …. He will take it when the aeroplane is where it belongs." He won't — you need to press it again yourself once the moment is right.
• The tile itself doesn't say what it will do — use the table above for that.

Checklists — RUN A CHECKLIST

The second card has nine tiles, each labelled with a code: BS BEFORE START, AS AFTER START, BT BEFORE TAKEOFF, TC AFTER TAKEOFF / CLIMB, AP APPROACH, LD LANDING, AL AFTER LANDING, PK PARKING and SA SECURING THE AIRCRAFT — plus SKIP ITEM and SKIP LIST.

• Stuck items. Leave an item unset for two minutes (the clock pauses while the crew are actually talking) and he drops it and reads on — each item you leave him hanging on can cost another two minutes. At the end he says "That's the checklist - we've still got items open, Captain." The list gets no done mark, and it costs 1 Discipline. He won't repeat himself if he's already offered or nudged you about a list, but he will still give you whichever of the two he hasn't done yet.
• SKIP ITEM counts the current item as done, so the checklist can finish. SKIP LIST abandons the whole thing: it stays unfinished, and he stops reminding you about it. Skipping itself is free — but once he's nudged you about an unfinished list, or you've pressed SKIP LIST, or the flight started on the runway or in the air (leaving earlier checklists undone), your Discipline meter sags a little, and CRM a bit later, until that list finally gets finished.
• Re-pressing. Tapping a checklist that's already running does nothing — it's ignored for ten seconds after it starts, and after it finishes it stays ignored until you leave it alone for 90 seconds (each extra tap resets that wait). Tap a different checklist and it takes over. Note that MANUAL mode doesn't hold checklists back the way it holds PAs.
• He offers them himself. At the right moment he says "Ready for the Before Start checklist." — every checklist except Securing the Aircraft gets this offer, early ones first and later ones as the flight goes on. If it's still open a minute later, he nudges you: "Before Start checklist isn't done yet, Captain." Each offer and nudge only happens once per flight. Silence his nudges by setting FIRST OFFICER — VOICE to NO REMINDERS.
• Every done mark clears when the next flight starts.

The third card shows whichever checklist is running, item by item — the current row highlighted, finished rows dimmed, and the item he's stuck on shown in amber. It's empty when nothing is running.

What he checks in the aircraft

An item marked ✓ is checked against the real aircraft — if it's not set, he holds. Everything else he takes on your word, and any sensor he can't read simply counts as set.

The three APU switch items — APU MASTER OFF, APU START and APU OFF — check whether the APU has actually been started, not just whether the MASTER pushbutton is on. So a MASTER left ON but never started will still pass APU MASTER OFF. The two APU BLEED items check the bleed switch itself instead.

PA — announcements to the cabin

The tab's subtitle is "Your voice to the cabin — what is waiting on you, and how long since they last heard it". Its cards, from the top:

WHAT TO SAY NOW

INTRODUCE YOURSELF offers three versions: "Introduce yourself, the flight time and the cruise", "Introduce yourself and welcome them to the A380" and "The full welcome" (any part it has no data for is simply dropped). RECOMMENDED NOW lists up to twelve announcements that fit the moment, most urgent first, each with the actual words and why it's suggested: "You have not spoken to the cabin yet this sector.", "Departure is running N minutes behind.", "The flight deck is ready — time to secure the cabin." (only once the BEFORE TAKEOFF checklist is fully complete — not after SKIP LIST or a timed-out list), "You are in the hold and they can feel the turns.", "Warn them if you are expecting a rough ride." Tap one and it plays at once, in your voice, jumping any queue. If the First Officer is your announcer, a recommended line goes to him where he has a matching recording, is dropped where he doesn't (welcome, destination, flight time, cruise level, forecast), and otherwise still goes to the Captain — the crew-seating call, for instance. The INTRODUCE YOURSELF lines always stay yours either way. If the crew are off, or not yet active, tapping does nothing at all.

WAITING ON YOU (MANUAL)

Each waiting announcement shows how many sentences it has, a countdown timer (amber under 30 seconds), and its text. SAY speaks one sentence; SAY ALL n speaks the whole thing; NOT NOW (or NOT NOW · ALL) declines it entirely. A header reading SAY ALL n WAITING shows up once two or more sentences are held — note that this counts sentences, not whole announcements, so a three-sentence PA alone reads 3 PAS WAITING. The card sums it up: "Yours to say. Turning one down is a decision like any other, and the cabin will notice if it was one they needed. Held lines expire on their own — say them while they are still true."

• Expiry. Gate announcements — welcome, flight time, destination, delays — have no clock while you're on the ground, but disappear once the takeoff roll passes 40 knots or you're airborne. "Flight attendants, prepare for departure" and "be seated" both end at the roll; the call to prepare the cabin ends at touchdown. Once airborne, most announcements have about three minutes to be said (four for the longer descent and arrival ones) and weather announcements up to four. The Purser's sign and turbulence calls are never held back — they always play at once, in either mode.
• Nothing chimes to remind you. That's deliberate — the First Officer's nudge is switched off in MANUAL. Watch the PA WAITING chip in the corner (1 PA WAITING, 2 PAS WAITING…), or the count on this tab.
• Only interior views. Switch to an external, chase or drone camera and no new line starts — the queue just waits, while its entries keep ageing toward expiry.

What it costs

The point values below are the base numbers — the airline you fly for scales them up or down, and on the passenger meter the cabin's mood and the flight length do too (see the next page).

• Declining an announcement the cabin actually needs — delay, weather hold, turbulence, medical, injury, diversion, return to gate, tail strike — costs 1 Trust (the REPORT calls it Declined an announcement the cabin needed) plus a little temporary unease. Declining anything else is free.
• Silence slowly erodes Warmth once you're airborne, if the cabin hears nothing at all for about 25 minutes. The Purser's calls and the crew's own PAs count just as much as yours toward breaking that silence.
• Too many words. Counting every announcement the cabin hears in one phase of flight, the first two count in full, the third about 60%, the fourth 25%, the fifth nothing — and from the sixth on, it actually costs you. Half an hour of quiet forgets one of those announcements.
• Being honest earns credit — Told the cabin something good and Kept the cabin informed both raise Warmth and Trust; being straight with them about bad news raises Trust, at a small cost to Comfort and Warmth.

Common questions

LiveOnboard — flight, score & events

This page follows one flight from gate to gate: what the crew do and say at each stage, what they expect of you, and how it's all scored. In AUTO mode this all happens on its own — you just fly the aircraft as you normally would, and the crew respond to what you do. The tables below give the crew's actual recorded lines, and your part in each stage.

Gate to takeoff

Climb to parking

How the flight is scored

Two meters, each made of four axes, and each running 0 to 100. On screen, the number itself is colour-coded: 90+ bright mint, 80–89 mint, 65–79 white, 50–64 amber, below 50 red. There are no letter grades.

• PASSENGER PULSE — made of Comfort (the ride, the landing, the temperature), Punctuality (the schedule), Trust (being told the truth) and Warmth (how long since they last heard from you). It starts at 75. The overall score is weighted by who's aboard: a business cabin cares most about punctuality, an anxious one about comfort and trust.
• CREW CONFIDENCE — made of Precision, Discipline, Composure and CRM (crew resource management). It starts at 95 and only ever gets marked down — a simple average of the four.
• Each axis combines earned events, which are permanent, with a live mood that swings up to ±10 (±22 with CABIN MOOD set to EXTREME) on the passenger axes — on the crew axes, mood can only ever subtract. Mood drops fast and recovers slowly.
• The point values below are base numbers. Premium airlines grade harder: passenger gains are worth ×0.75 and losses ×1.2, with crew losses also ×1.2. On the passenger meter, the cabin's mood, the flight length and fatigue scale things further — a very short flight sharpens both gains and losses by up to twice over, a long one softens the losses instead. Budget-tier carriers (Skytrax three-star, such as Delta, United and American) instead weight Punctuality ×1.4, Comfort ×0.7 and Warmth ×0.85 on the passenger meter.

What earns and what costs

Ignoring an ECAM message is judged like this: the First Officer says "Captain, we've got an ECAM I'd like you to see" two seconds after the master light comes on. Clear it or act on it within twenty seconds and nothing happens; leave it longer and a warning costs 8 Discipline and 5 CRM, a caution costs 4 and 2 (airborne cautions only). Exceeding VMO, a flap or gear speed limit, or stalling the aircraft all cost Precision and Trust too.

The REPORT tab

Its subtitle is "How the cabin and the flight deck rate this sector, and what moved it". It refreshes once a second while you have it open.

Turn on CABIN MOOD IN THE STATUS BAR and a single word describes the cabin's mood — anywhere from DELIGHTED and HAPPY, through SETTLED and RESTLESS, down to FED UP, BATTERED, FURIOUS, FRIGHTENED and ABANDONED.

The LOG tab

Its subtitle is "Your last twenty sectors, recorded automatically on shutdown" — really it's recorded when you park with the brake on after landing. CAREER HISTORY shows a summary line (N sectors · Xh logged · best pulse P · average A) plus one row per flight, newest first: date, flight number, time, PULSE, CREW and event count. Flights flown with the crew off aren't kept. Below that, THIS FLIGHT — WHAT THE CREW SAID is a full transcript of what the crew said this flight (FMA readouts are left out), timestamped and tagged CAPTAIN, F/O, PURSER or GROUND, with a LATEST button to jump to the end. It clears when the next flight starts.

Events

Common questions

AIRCRAFT — logbook & dispatch

The AIRCRAFT app on the EFB turns "an A380" into this A380: one specific aircraft with its own flight history, its own checks coming due, and its own list of defects — the same idea as an airline's technical log. Every leg you fly gets recorded automatically, and before each departure the aircraft is judged GO, GO IF or NO GO.

Where to find it

Tap the Aircraft tile on the EFB home screen, or its icon — the second one — in the sidebar on any other page. The page has four tabs:

The header above the tabs tells you at a glance:

Which aircraft is this?

The logbook belongs to an airframe — a tail number plus its engine type. So the RR and GP versions of the same registration count as two separate aircraft, each with its own history. The A380 works out which one it is in this order:

1. A registration you've chosen yourself on the FLEET tab, if you've picked one.
2. Otherwise, the ATC ID (tail number) set in the simulator's aircraft settings — an empty ID, 380 or XX-XXX is ignored, since none of those actually name an aircraft.
3. Otherwise, the livery — the folder or name on FS2024, the title on FS2020. So with no tail number set, each livery you fly counts as its own separate aircraft.

For about 30 seconds after loading, the header reads IDENTIFYING AIRFRAME… while it works this out. The dispatch pill and most buttons only appear once it's settled on an answer.

Dispatch status: GO, GO IF, NO GO

The aircraft's status is re-judged all the time. You'll see the result as a pill on the AIRCRAFT header, and as a chip in the middle of the EFB's top bar whenever it's anything other than a plain GO.

GO IF means at least one item is validly deferred — the aircraft can fly with it out of use — or a DAILY or WEEKLY check is overdue but still within its 24-hour grace period. NO GO means at least one of these:

After every flight: the transit check

The moment you push back, the aircraft is marked as owing a transit check before its next departure. So a minute or two after you park, expect to see NO GO · 1 with the reason TRANSIT CHECK NOT DONE. That's completely normal, not a fault — once the aircraft is properly parked, the mechanic starts the check (30 minutes at the default speed) and the status goes back to GO on its own. It stays hidden while you're taxiing or flying, so it never nags you mid-flight.

The LOGBOOK tab

The left column holds a summary of the aircraft; the right column holds its full history.

On the right, two sub-tabs list the history, newest first:

• FLIGHTS — one row per leg: DATE · FLIGHT · ROUTE · BLOCK · FLT · LDG, ten to a page. Small chips flag anything unusual: REAL WORLD, NO GO (departed NO GO), DIV, RETURN, INTERRUPTED and UNIDENTIFIED legs. Tap any row for the full detail — off-block, take-off, landing and on-block times, block and flight time, go-arounds, rejected take-offs, exceedances and any defects raised.
• TECH LOG — a running journal: DATE · ENTRY · BY, where BY is MECH (the mechanic), CREW (you), SYSTEM or ADMIN. Repairs, deferrals, night stops and hangar visits all get logged here.

The logbook keeps roughly the last hundred legs and tech-log entries for each aircraft.

Receiving the aircraft — ACCEPT AIRCRAFT

A real captain "accepts" the aircraft at the stand before pushing back. You do the same thing here, at the gate — and it lets you decide how the aircraft arrived: fresh out of the hangar, or just off a long-haul flight with hot brakes and half-empty tanks. There are two places to do this.

The RECEIVE THE AIRCRAFT popup

Once the aircraft has identified itself, a popup covers the tablet whenever you're at a gate and this flight hasn't been accepted yet. It reappears for every new LiveOnboard sector, not just when you first load — but after you press DISMISS, it stays away until the EFB restarts. Its sections:

Then choose ACCEPT AIRCRAFT, which confirms with AIRCRAFT ACCEPTED, or DISMISS — SET UP LATER ON AIRCRAFT. The switch DON'T SHOW THIS POPUP ON STARTUP turns it off for good; bring it back under Settings › GENERAL › Aircraft Welcome Popup.

The ACCEPT AIRCRAFT block on the LOGBOOK tab

This does the same job, with more control over the details. The block is headed "Simulate this leg as an arrival, at the gate before push":

Set both the gap and the prior flight length, and the aircraft is treated as though it had just made that flight: one imaginary leg gets added to the totals (though never to FLIGHTS), the engines and APU have burned a little oil, the brakes start hot — around 180°C, cooling over the gap — and the tanks have burned fuel at roughly 11 tonnes an hour. Leave either one at AS-IS / NO CHANGE and ACCEPT just logs that you've taken the aircraft over, with nothing else changed.

• ACCEPT only works at the gate, before pushback. On the tablet that keeps the logbook, the button greys out anywhere else, and LiveOnboard's own ACCEPT button explains why: Not allowed right now — this only works at the gate, before push. On the other tablet, it just passes the request across, which the keeping tablet then refuses. You only need to press it once per flight.
• Being "accepted" only lasts until LiveOnboard's sector ends — deboarding finishing, or you confirming END FLIGHT — which is why the popup comes back at your next gate.
• With two tablets, press ACCEPT on whichever one's header reads LOGBOOK KEPT ON THIS TABLET. From the other tablet, the logbook totals and oil change do apply, but the brake heat and fuel burn don't — and if ARRIVE WITH A RANDOM MEL ITEM is on, the whole ACCEPT is refused outright.
• With SIMULATE ARRIVING AIRCRAFT ON, that tablet's LiveOnboard START BOARDING and LOAD NOW both refuse until you accept: This aircraft has not been accepted yet — press ACCEPT AIRCRAFT above, or on the AIRCRAFT page, before boarding. LiveOnboard's own BOARDING card has its own ACCEPT AIRCRAFT button for exactly this. See LiveOnboard.

Aircraft State — save and restore a parked aircraft

A separate EFB app — the Aircraft State tile — saves a named snapshot of the parked aircraft, so you can pick up later close to where you left off. Type a name (the field suggests e.g. Overnight KJFK; leave it blank and it just uses the date and time), press Save As, and later press Restore on that entry under SAVED STATES. Delete removes one you no longer need.

• Saved: fuel in all 11 tanks, brake temperature, whether the APU is running, external power, exterior lights, doors, the cockpit/cabin/cargo air-conditioning knobs, the seat-belt and no-smoking signs, and whether the IRS is aligned.
• Not saved: the battery switches.
• Requirements: on the ground with the parking brake set, and a few seconds after the EFB has finished starting up. A pill reads READY — on ground, parking brake set or NOT READY — until it's ready, Save and Restore stay greyed out.
• Snapshots are kept on the tablet you saved them from. Brake temperature comes back as one cooled value applied to all the brakes, adjusted for however much real time has passed since you saved.

Switching the AIRCRAFT section off

Don't want any of this? Use Settings › GENERAL › Aircraft Section, ON by default. Switching it OFF hides the Aircraft tile and its sidebar icon, and stops the aircraft sending maintenance messages to the company over datalink. The logbook, dispatch status, MEL holds and the welcome popup all keep running quietly in the background regardless. While REAL WORLD is holding the aircraft, the section stays visible no matter what you choose, with the hint OFF — showing because REAL WORLD is active.

Common questions

MEL, defects & NO GO

A real airline can dispatch an aircraft with certain items broken, as long as they're on the Minimum Equipment List (MEL) and the rules are followed. The AIRCRAFT app models that. When something's wrong, you have three choices: have the mechanic repair it, defer it under the MEL and fly on as GO IF, or — for the serious faults — leave the aircraft NO GO. This page covers the MEL tab, and, once REAL WORLD is switched on, the NO GO banner, the parking-brake hold and OVERRIDE.

Where defects come from

• REAL WORLD failures — with that mode active (switched on, and the LiveOnboard crew on too), failures get written into the logbook as defects. See REAL WORLD failures.
• Inspections — with REAL WORLD active, flying beyond a limit (a hard landing, an overspeed) creates an inspection for the mechanic. The serious ones ground the aircraft — INSPECTION — HARD LANDING · 1:30 · NO GO, for example — while minor ones are just a quick data review that doesn't.
• Physical items — a flat tyre, an engine oil leak or a disconnected engine-driven pump gets recorded whether REAL WORLD is on or not.
• ACCEPT AIRCRAFT — the arrival MEL item described on the previous page.

The MEL tab

The tab has two lists. The one on the left is yours to fill in; the one on the right belongs to the aircraft itself.

ADD DEFERRED ITEM — your own MEL items

Use this to record a deferral of your own — and, if you name a system, to shut a pack or bleed for real, say to practise flying with a pack inoperative. Manual items are just your own paperwork: they never change GO / GO IF / NO GO, and show no INOP chip. The form is headed "MEL (Minimum Equipment List): manual items follow this aircraft, and so do logbook deferrals".

Your items appear under OPEN ITEMS, soonest-expiring first, with a live countdown (3d 4h left, EXPIRED or as specified). Clear removes one, with no confirmation asked. A category-A item never expires. And an expired item only reads EXPIRED — its system stays shut until you actually clear it.

LOGBOOK DEFECTS — what the aircraft carries

The right-hand list, "Deferred, open and pending items this aircraft carries", shows six rows a page — DEFERRED items first, then OPEN, then PENDING, oldest of each first. What a row says tells you exactly what to do about it:

Every row also has RETURN TO SERVICE, and an OPEN row that can be deferred also has DEFER.

The (o) and (m) letters on a row stand for the operational and maintenance procedures a real MEL deferral carries. The mechanic will often defer something for you automatically — if a deferrable repair won't fit before your departure, his plan defers it on its own (the tech log then reads DEFERRED … BY MECH).

How long a deferral lasts

Category B items last 3 days — only RAT FAULT and the four battery rows. Category C items, everything else, last 10 days. The clock starts the day you defer it, and that first day is free — so a category-C item deferred on the 15th is good until midnight at the end of the 25th (its tech-log line reads EXPIRES with the day it lapses, here the 26th). After that, it reopens as NO GO and can only be repaired, not deferred again.

What can be deferred

Only some faults can be deferred and flown with. They fall into three groups, based on what deferring them actually does:

Everything else stays NO GO until it's repaired: engine and APU fires, engine failures, cargo smoke, hot or hung starts, EGT OVER LIMIT, TANK and ENG FEED LEAKS, GREEN and YELLOW hydraulics, BLEED LEAK, CABIN PRESSURE LEAK, pitot/static blockage, LEG NOT LOCKED DOWN, ANTI-SKID, LEFT/RIGHT BRAKES and N/W STEERING. GPS jamming and spoofing never turn into defects at all.

A few combinations of deferrals are refused, because together they'd leave the aircraft unsafe: two or more IRs, both packs, two or more engine bleeds, or both the MAIN and STBY pumps of one feed tank.

What a deferred system does to the aircraft

• Packs and bleeds are really shut. Once a PACK or ENG BLEED deferral becomes valid — whether you DEFERed it here after its (m) task, added a manual item naming the system, or it was dealt to you by ACCEPT AIRCRAFT — the aircraft keeps that pack or bleed closed, no matter what the overhead pushbutton says. The SD valves and pack indications follow suit.
• ECAM STATUS lists it. The affected system shows in amber under INOP SYS — PACK 1, PACK 1+2 or ENG 1 BLEED, for example — even at the gate. With an engine running, the E/WD also adds AIR ENG n BLEED OFF.
• Other deferrals just show up as logbook records and INOP chips. With REAL WORLD on, the ones that cancel a caution — feed pumps, IRs, AUTO BRK, sensors, batteries — get raised again at every new flight with the caution cancelled, so you genuinely fly with the item failed each time. START FAULT and DRAGGING BRAKE deferrals are paperwork only, with no real effect.

REAL WORLD: the NO GO banner, the brake hold and OVERRIDE

The dispatch status is only advice until REAL WORLD is switched on and the aircraft's identified — though deferred packs and bleeds stay held shut either way. Once it's on, a NO GO aircraft is actively held at the gate.

Common questions

Maintenance & fleet

Between flights, your A380 has a mechanic. With the aircraft parked, he services the fluids, does the checks, and inspects and repairs on his own — while you get on with planning the next flight. The MAINTENANCE tab shows what he's doing and lets you steer him. The FLEET tab is where you choose which aircraft you're flying, and how worn a brand-new one starts out.

When does the mechanic work?

There's no start button — the MECHANIC block says "Works on its own while the aircraft is parked at the gate: nothing to start". It lists six conditions, shown as green ticks, red crosses or grey dashes:

Once every condition holds for 30 seconds, work begins. Start an engine, attach a tug, leave the gate or start moving, and he stops (INTERRUPTED), keeping whatever progress he'd made. The status line reads one of: WORKING, DONE — READY, NO PLAN, AUTO MAINTENANCE OFF, INTERRUPTED — …, WAITING FOR THE AIRCRAFT (he's idle while the leg is still away from the gate — on the taxi-in, or in the minute right after you park), WAITING — PARKED, WORK STARTS WITHIN 30 S, or WAITING — … naming whichever condition is still missing, for example WAITING — ENGINES RUNNING. Work interrupted when you left keeps showing INTERRUPTED — … until the leg reopens, and a runway or engines-running spawn instead shows WAITING — NOT AT THE GATE.

He works two lanes at once, one task in each: lane A handles servicing and checks, lane B handles repairs and inspections. The block shows both, for example A: WORKING — DAILY CHECK 42 % · 1:27 LEFT.

The controls

The task list

The TASKS list shows everything in the plan, up to 16 rows. A header line gives the totals, for example LANE A 3:15 · LANE B 2:00 · AVAILABLE 1:30. Each row shows the lane, the task (REPAIR · ENG 2 BLEED), its time and progress, and a status chip:

A red NO GO chip marks any task that will clear a reason the aircraft is currently NO GO.

• RUN / RUN ALL — with AUTO MAINTENANCE off, RUN on a row (or RUN ALL above the whole list) works through the plan once, exactly as it stands. With AUTO on, RUN only shows up on a deferred-MEL repair — which AUTO won't repair by itself — and on tasks a PRIORITIZE is holding back. Either way, a released task still has to wait for the 30-second hold and the power and brake conditions.
• PRIORITIZE — with AUTO on, a WON'T FIT repair (or MEL (m) task) tied to an open defect can be moved to the front of the queue. The button reads PRIORITIZED; press it again to cancel. Mandatory NO GO items never give way to this, and every other ordinary repair-lane task stops running by itself — each gets a RUN button instead — until the prioritised one is done or cancelled.
• HISTORY — the newest ten task results, out of the last 30 kept, each marked DONE, FINDING, INTERRUPTED, SKIPPED or FOLLOW-UP DONE. For example 15 SEP 11:40Z · A · DAILY CHECK · DONE or … · B · INSPECT · HARD LANDING · FINDING, with a trailing · NIGHT STOP or · HANGAR where it applies. It's recorded whether the tab was open or not.

How long things take

At REALISTIC speed:

The plan works to a priority order: grounding inspections and low fluids come first, then NO GO repairs, reconnecting an engine-driven pump, the transit check, GO IF defects, the DAILY and WEEKLY checks, non-grounding inspections, and finally routine servicing last.

Night stops

If the simulator's Zulu date and time has moved on by 30 minutes or more since you last flew this aircraft — you load with live time the next day, say, or pick a later date — the mechanic treats that whole gap as a night stop, and gets on with whatever fits into it, up to 30 days' worth. This only counts if the aircraft hasn't taken off and is either parked (engines off, stopped, brake or chocks, no tug, at the gate) or still on the ground at a runway or engines-running spawn — otherwise the gap is wasted with nothing done, and the tech log says NIGHT STOP NOT CREDITED: AIRCRAFT NOT PARKED AT SPAWN. When it works, the tech log records it, for example NIGHT STOP 11:40 — DAILY CHECK · ENG OIL ×4 · …. If you set the clock back, or always load the same fixed date, there's no real gap to credit — use SEND TO HANGAR instead. Spawning on a runway or with the engines running, with no real gap in the clock, credits nothing at all — except that with REAL WORLD on and the aircraft NO GO, it gets cleared as though it were fully serviced anyway.

The FLUIDS pane

Beside the task list, FLUIDS shows what the aircraft actually reports against the minimum for your next departure. Values turn red below their minimum (the APU oil row also turns red under 2.38 gal, though it never causes NO GO on its own). Everyone sees the fluid levels drop — the real consequences of running low, a starved engine, an APU shutdown, a hydraulic loss, only apply with REAL WORLD active. Even so, an engine that ran short of oil and was shut down undamaged (REAL WORLD off, or shut down within a minute) still leaves an ENG OIL LOSS inspection behind.

The oil hint explains a common puzzle here: the SD reads low until about 20 minutes after shutdown, because oil stays in the sumps. A FAULTS: line lists any active fluid faults, such as ENG 2 OIL LEAK · TYRE 7 SLOW LEAK.

The tyre grid mirrors the ECAM WHEEL page. Each cell shows the pressure corrected to cold ambient temperature (TYRES · PSI COLD AT −12 °C). Green means fine, amber means low enough to ground the aircraft, red FLAT means deflated, and a small IND 245 appears when the raw tyre-pressure reading (not temperature-corrected) differs from the cold-corrected value by 5 psi or more — typically just warm tyres after landing. Mains are nominally 217.5 psi, the nose wheels 205 psi. A tyre more than about 5% under nominal gets inflated by the mechanic; more than about 11% under, or an axle where the two tyres differ by more than 15%, or any deflated tyre, is NO GO. A tyre that's deflated, leaking, or more than 20% down is changed rather than inflated. For a deflated tyre the tab also reminds you of the FCOM limits — taxi at no more than 3 knots, nosewheel steering no more than 30° — though the simulator itself doesn't enforce them.

Once a servicing task finishes, the fluid resets to full and tyres go back to their cold target. Tyres are never deliberately let down.

The FLEET tab

Its subtitle is "Which aeroplane this flight is, and what a new one starts as". Three blocks sit on the left, and the fleet list on the right.

THIS AIRCRAFT

Shows the current aircraft, for example 9V-SKA · 30 120 FH · 4 002 CYCLES, and your CHOICE: line — CHOICE: SIMULATOR AIRCRAFT (ATC ID OR LIVERY) by default, or CHOICE: 9V-SKB once you've picked one. A choice takes effect while parked at a gate before pushback — right away if you're already at one, otherwise at the next gate — and the flight already in progress stays with its own aircraft regardless. Your choice sticks until you press USE SIMULATOR AIRCRAFT. While one is active, the tail number and livery you set in the simulator no longer change the logbook.

START AS — a preset for a new aircraft

An aircraft that's never flown can start with some history behind it, instead of "as delivered". Choose Operation, Hours and Condition, then press START AS PRESET — the first press asks START AS SHORT HAUL · MID LIFE · HARD WORKED? CLICK AGAIN, and the second confirms with PRESET APPLIED. This only works while the aircraft has never recorded a single flight (even a pushback and return counts, as does an ACCEPT arrival turn) and it's sitting at the gate — otherwise the block explains: "a preset would rewrite its history. Create a new airframe instead". Applying a preset rebuilds the logbook completely from scratch.

NEW AIRFRAME

Type a registration — the field suggests 9V-SKA — choose the same three preset options, and press CREATE AND SELECT. Registrations get upper-cased automatically, and can only use letters, digits and -, up to eight characters (LETTERS, DIGITS AND - ONLY, 8 AT MOST if you break that rule). If that tail is already stored, you simply select it and its own history carries on (STORED AIRFRAME, ITS OWN HISTORY KEPT). The new aircraft is actually created once the switch happens at a gate.

The FLEET list

Up to 20 aircraft are stored across both engine types, most recently used first — the header reads, for example, 7 of 20 stored on this tablet · GP engines shown, most recent first. Each row has one button:

Common questions

Failures — the basics

The FAILURES app lets you break the aircraft on purpose, so you can actually practise the ECAM procedures instead of just reading about them. Set a failure and it happens right away; arm one and it waits for a moment you choose; or let chance — or the aircraft's own maintenance history — do it for you. Most failures raise the same ECAM messages you'd see in real life and change how the aircraft behaves, so you really do have to fly the procedure.

Where to find it

Tap the Failures tile on the EFB home screen, or use the sidebar icon just above Settings. The page is titled FAILURES, and its subtitle sums up the four ways to fail something:

Tab labels carry counts: ENG/APU · 2 means two failures are active there, ARMED · 3 counts what's armed (a scenario counts once per step, an armed surprise as one). TRAINING · ON or REAL WORLD · ON show that a whole mode is running. Across the top you'll also see a result line, pills for NONE ACTIVE / n ACTIVE and NONE ARMED / n ARMED, the GO-TO picker, and Clear All Failures. Both tablets stay in sync, checking the same state once a second.

Setting and clearing a failure

• An on/off failure shows as a button reading NORMAL. Press it and it switches to FAILED; press again to clear it.
• A failure with modes shows as a drop-down instead: NORMAL plus its various modes — which engine, which tank, which door. Pick a mode to fail it, NORMAL to clear it.
• Everything takes effect immediately, with no confirmation asked.
• A new flight clears everything about two seconds after it loads, so failures never carry over into the next one — except for defects that REAL WORLD keeps in the logbook.

The GO-TO shortcut

Don't want to hunt through tabs? The picker in the header lists every failure and mode — 127 entries in all, for example GPS — JAMMING. Choose one, and the status text reads TAP TO TRIGGER: …; press Trigger / Clear to set it. Once active, it reads ACTIVE — TAP TO CLEAR: …. The tablet remembers your last pick for next time.

Clear All Failures

One press, no confirmation asked. Every catalogue row returns to NORMAL, experimental ones included, and everything armed, hidden or waiting gets cancelled too (see the training page). It leaves alone the RANDOM and HANDLING switches, the two commands below, REAL WORLD's own pending consequences, and — while REAL WORLD is on and has identified the aircraft — any failure that's a logbook defect (All failures cleared, except n logbook defects: AIRCRAFT > MAINTENANCE., with defect singular when there's only one). Those need the mechanic to fix, not a button press.

The catalogue

The catalogue has 58 rows across five groups. A SIM row genuinely changes how the aircraft behaves; an ALERT row only raises the warnings and lights.

ENG/APU

FUEL/AIR/HYD

NAV

L/G/BRAKES

DOORS/ELEC

Two commands that are not failures

Clear All Failures never touches these.

Experimental failures

Six rows are tagged EXP: CABIN PRESSURE LEAK, PITOT BLOCKAGE, STATIC PORT BLOCKAGE, ANTI-SKID, LEFT BRAKES and RIGHT BRAKES. These hand the failure off to the simulator's own failure system, so whether they actually work depends on your simulator build. (The aircraft also reacts to ANTI-SKID on its own: the autobrake is lost, and the ECAM shows a brakes anti-skid fault.) The row shows what happened — PENDING, APPLIED, CLEARING, OFF or NOT SUPPORTED — leading with a verdict like PROVEN WORKING or WAITING: A TAKEOFF ROLL ABOVE 60 KT.

The NATIVE SELF-TEST, at the bottom of the NAV tab, checks which of these your simulator actually supports. It needs the aircraft parked — on the ground, stopped, parking brake set — with no experimental failure already set. Press Run Self-Test and wait about half a minute: it tests anti-skid, pitot and the cabin leak, puts everything back the way it was afterwards, and stores the result with a date. Static and brakes read TAXI/FLIGHT ONLY, since they can only be checked while actually moving.

What you have to do: recovering

A failure is only useful if you actually handle it. The aircraft recognises the correct response, and a few failures clear themselves once you do the right thing — even ones you set by hand:

Common questions

Failures — training tools

Setting a failure by hand works fine when you already know what's coming. The ARMED and TRAINING tabs are for when you don't: failures that wait for a moment you choose, scripted FCOM drills, hidden surprises, failures by pure chance, and failures caused by how you actually handle the aircraft — with a debrief at the end that tells you exactly what happened and why.

ARMED — a failure at a moment you choose

The ARMED tab's left pane, ARM A FAILURE, fires a failure once, exactly when its moment comes. You can hold up to eight of these at once. It has five rows to fill in: SYSTEM (the five catalogue tabs), FAILURE, MODE (FAILED for on/off failures), WHEN, and a VALUE where the moment needs one. Then press ARM, and it takes the first free slot.

WHEN offers 22 presets:

A moment that's already passed in this flight simply waits for the next one, and the form tells you so (Takeoff already made — fires at the next takeoff). A moment held up by a guard condition for more than 30 seconds expires instead.

The ARMED (n/8) list underneath the form shows each slot: what will fail, when, a status chip and its own DISARM button. The chips you'll see: PENDING (waiting on the aircraft to confirm), ARMED, IN 04:59 (a countdown, for the two delay presets — DELAY AFTER TAKEOFF just shows plain ARMED until the takeoff is actually recorded), ARMED · RANDOM TIME, WAITING (a guard condition is holding it), FIRED T+hh:mm, EXPIRED, BLOCKED and REJECTED. Timers pause both in an ESC pause and in active pause. A fired slot is final — clearing its failure won't fire it again.

DISARM ALL is always available and cancels everything that hasn't fired yet — every slot, the surprise, a loaded scenario, waiting consequences — confirming with DISARM ALL sent: nothing that has not fired will fire. Failures already active stay active, and RANDOM keeps running regardless.

SURPRISE — hidden failures

The first right-hand sub-tab is described as "Hidden failures from the systems and failures you pick, at times you do not know". You choose a pool of possibilities — from the CATEGORIES and FAILURES sub-tabs together (POOL: 11 categories + 0 failures) — plus how many surprises and over what window of time:

Press ARM SURPRISE and the status reads, for example, ARMED — 2 surprises, window 10-60 min after takeoff. The times themselves are drawn once, the moment the surprise starts counting — at lift-off for FROM TAKEOFF (right away if you've already taken off this flight and haven't landed since; otherwise it waits for the next takeoff), or the moment you arm it for NOW — spaced at least two minutes apart. The actual failure is only chosen once its time arrives, picked from whatever makes sense at that moment: an engine failure needs a running engine, a cabin leak needs at least 15,000 ft. If nothing suitable is available, it retries every minute for ten minutes before giving up; landing before its time also cancels it. DISARM SURPRISE cancels; REVEAL names what was picked.

SCENARIOS — FCOM drills

The second right-hand sub-tab loads whole scripted sequences into free slots. Pick a SCENARIO, an ENGINE (RANDOM, 1, 2, 3 or 4 — greyed out for drills that don't need one) and a BRIEFING level: BRIEFED shows every step, UNBRIEFED hides them (showing only SCENARIO … · STEP k and HIDDEN) until you reveal it. LOAD arms the whole drill, UNLOAD removes it. A drill needs enough free slots or it refuses, with Not loaded: … needs n free slot(s). A random engine is picked once, when you load it.

TRAINING — chance and consequences

The TRAINING tab holds two mode switches, both OFF at the start of every flight — though your other tuning is remembered — plus the debrief.

RANDOM FAILURES

"Failures by chance, at the rate you choose; the debrief names them after reveal unless SHOW CONSEQUENCES". Switch RANDOM ON, then tune it to taste:

The status reads RANDOM OFF, RANDOM ON · 1 of 2 this flight or RANDOM ON · cap reached. Whatever failed stays hidden until the debrief reveals it — unless you turn on SHOW CONSEQUENCES first.

HANDLING-INDUCED failures

"How you fly has consequences: FCOM limits, a debrief of every exceedance". With HANDLING ON, the aircraft watches your flying against its own limits. Exceed one, and it's logged in the debrief; exceed one badly enough, and it can also cause a matching failure — a hard landing might leave a dragging brake, a gear overspeed a leg that won't lock, an engine held on TOGA too long an EGT over-limit.

A MONITOR: readout shows whether the aircraft is actually judging you right now (ACTIVE) or not (SETTLING, PAUSED, SLEW, SIM RATE, REPLAY…). It stays quiet for 30 seconds after a load, only judges at normal (1×) sim rate, and never while paused or slewing — so a spawn, a pause or a replay can never cost you anything.

The main things it watches:

The remaining items — over-weight taxi, taxi speed, gear extended above 21,000 ft, for example — are recorded for inspection but cause no failure. Brake overheat, hot-brake takeoff and tyre speed get logged too, but don't cause a failure yet either.

The DEBRIEF

Its subtitle is "This flight, newest first: what fired, every exceedance and what came of it". Each row reads T+hh:mm:ss · PHASE · TEXT, and exceedances add an outcome line like → INSPECTION ONLY. It lists every armed failure and scenario as it fires, every random and surprise failure, every handling exceedance with its consequence, and notes like TAIL STRIKE AT TAKEOFF 12.3° (limit 11.5°) — ECAM TAIL STRIKE. Anything you kept hidden shows as HIDDEN FAILURE or HIDDEN CONSEQUENCE until you press REVEAL, or until the automatic reveal at shutdown. Twelve rows a page, and the whole debrief belongs to this flight only — it isn't saved afterward.

Defaults at a glance

Common questions

REAL WORLD failures

Every other failure mode is a training exercise: you set it up, it happens, and it goes away with the flight. REAL WORLD is different — it behaves like a real airline fleet. Things break at estimated real-life reliability rates, each failure gets written into the aircraft's logbook, and it stays there until it's repaired (a deferral lets you dispatch with it but isn't a repair, and RETURN TO SERVICE clears it without one either). The aircraft may end up NO GO for its next departure, and how you actually handle the aircraft can cause problems of its own. It's off by default.

Switching it on — three things to know

The controls

Nothing here is ever greyed out, and there are no per-failure or per-category switches to worry about. If a change fails to take, it says Not changed: the aircraft did not answer, try again. These settings are one global preference, shared across every livery and every tail number.

How often will something fail?

The FREQUENCY multiplier scales every estimated rate at once. A ×1 rate matches the airline fleet average; the higher settings compress a whole career of flying into the handful of flights you actually fly. The screen quotes the result right next to the selector:

These are expected failures per 100 flights, for a 12-hour long-haul and a 3-hour short-haul sector at average wear, with FLUID FAULTS on and EXPERIMENTAL FAILURES off — not quite the same thing as the share of flights that get a failure. At the default ×10, a long-haul flight still comes out clean about four times in five.

• What tends to fail. Mostly minor systems — engine bleeds, the APU shutting itself down, IRs, start faults, packs and fuel pumps. Engine fires, engine failures and structural problems are extremely rare by comparison.
• A cap on chance failures. At most two randomly drawn failures per leg, spaced at least 15 minutes apart — one that the cap or spacing refuses is simply lost for good. Failures caused by your own handling, the standby pump that follows a failed main pump, and defects carried over from earlier flights all get counted separately from this cap.
• Wear matters. The more hours or cycles a system has racked up since the check that resets it, the higher its failure rate — starting at ×0.8 freshly checked, and rising toward a ceiling of ×4. Skipping that check never pushes a system above ×1.5, though. A system that was just repaired also gets watched closely — a repeat failure soon after counts double.
• Sensible timing. A failure is only ever drawn when it can actually happen — an engine failure needs a running engine, a start fault gets rolled at the gate before engine start, an EGT over-limit comes shortly after takeoff.
• Dormant faults. A few — the feed-tank STBY pumps and the RAT — never fail spontaneously on their own. They only turn up at the WEEKLY check, even with the crew off, logged as FOUND AT THE OPERATIONAL TESTS — or, for a standby pump, alongside a failed main pump in flight.
• Never a defect. GPS jamming and spoofing never become logbook items, whatever else happens.

The AIRCRAFT CONDITION pane

The right-hand pane, "Wear since the check that resets each system, and the failure rate it gives (×1.0 = fleet average)", shows all twelve wear groups, for example ENGINE 1 · 100 H SINCE WEEKLY CHECK · ×1.4 or GEAR & BRAKES · 24 LANDINGS SINCE DAILY CHECK · ×1.5 (CHECK OVERDUE). A REPEAT WATCH line names any systems repaired recently. Below it, a read-only LOGBOOK DEFECTS list mirrors the AIRCRAFT app — OPEN · ENG 2 BLEED, DEFERRED · ENG 2 BLEED · 7D 4H LEFT · (m) PENDING, INSPECTION · HARD LANDING · NO GO — with a hint that repairs and deferrals actually happen on AIRCRAFT › MAINTENANCE and MEL.

From failure to defect: the airline loop

1. It fails. The aircraft raises the failure exactly as a manual trigger would — you get the real ECAM messages and the real effects, no different from setting it by hand.
2. It is logged. The logbook records it as an open defect, with a tech-log line such as ENG 2 BLEED — FAULT (REAL WORLD). Failures caused by your own handling read like … ← HARD LANDING 880 fpm. A fluid leak itself reads … — FOUND (REAL WORLD), and whatever failures it leads to read … — FLUID LOSS (REAL WORLD).
3. Dispatch changes. The aircraft becomes GO IF if it's deferrable, or NO GO if it must be fixed first.
4. You or the mechanic deal with it. Repair it (the mechanic does this while parked), defer it under the MEL, or send the aircraft to the hangar. The mechanic will even defer a deferrable item himself, automatically, if the repair won't fit before your departure. A deferral lets you dispatch with the fault — it silences or isolates it — but it doesn't actually repair anything.
5. It comes with you. Until it's fixed, the defect follows the aircraft into the next flight. At the gate, before pushback, it gets raised again: CARRIED OVER, RE-RAISED AT THE GATE.

The details of carry-over:

• Open defects get re-raised once per leg, at the gate or during taxi-out. An engine fire comes back as ENG n FAIL DAMAGE, an APU fire as APU AUTO SHUTDOWN; tank and cabin leaks reappear 60 seconds after lift-off. Flameouts and cargo smoke aren't carried over at all.
• Deferred items whose caution is cancelled (feed pumps, IRs, AUTO BRK, and so on) get raised again with the caution cancelled and listed on ECAM STATUS. Deferred packs and bleeds are simply held shut, as always.
• An airborne spawn or a reload skips the carry-over step at the gate entirely.
• Switch REAL WORLD off mid-flight, and any failures already raised stay set — deferred cautions come back too.

Your handling counts too

While REAL WORLD is active, it also turns the HANDLING monitor on automatically, at REALISTIC strictness, watching speed, structure, engines, APU, brakes and tyres, and doors (icing only if EXPERIMENTAL FAILURES is also on). Flying beyond a limit gets charged as an exceedance, which turns into an inspection in the logbook — HARD LANDING — INSPECTION REQUIRED, NO GO, for example — and may cause a matching failure. The limits themselves are listed on Failures — training tools. Engine cool-down and starter duty-cycle monitoring stay off.

Three special events

Bird strike

Very rare, and it only ever means engine damage. At lift-off, and again as the approach begins, there's a tiny chance per running engine that a flock gets ingested 3 to 30 seconds later. You'll hear the flock hit the nose and windshield, then about a third of a second later a deep thump from the engine, followed by a rumble until you shut the master OFF or the fan stops. The ECAM shows ENG n FAIL — the engine can't be relit, and the logbook records it as ENG n FAIL DAMAGE. This defect is NO GO and needs a full engine change, about 16 hours.

Medical emergency

This one belongs to LiveOnboard, not to the aircraft's systems. It needs a sector planned at six hours or more, and you only hear the sequence with the crew on. LiveOnboard rolls once per sector, about 45 minutes after takeoff once you are above 20 000 ft (if you are still below it, the roll waits until you are above it, and is dropped 150 minutes in). With REAL WORLD on the chance follows FREQUENCY (0.25 % at ×1 up to 12.5 % at ×50); with it off LiveOnboard uses a fixed 12 %. If it happens, the Purser phones the flight deck, the Captain answers (the First Officer, if you are on your break — and he then makes the announcement himself), a doctor is paged, the Captain makes a PA and the First Officer asks ATC to have medical standing by. About one event in five is worse than the doctor can settle, if MEDICAL DIVERSIONS is on in LiveOnboard's SET tab: normal PAs stop, and the crew recommend turning back. Because this happens early in the flight that is nearly always the recommendation, and the flight is then marked as diverted (they only say press on if the event comes about 97 minutes or more into the flight). Nothing is required of you, and nothing forces a diversion.

Runway and taxiway excursion

Leaving the pavement gets judged when REAL WORLD is active with RWY/TWY EXCURSION ON — or, since TRAINING has no equivalent switch, whenever its HANDLING is on with BRAKES & TYRES. It's detected either when the aircraft is on an unpaved surface (grass, dirt, sand, coral, shale, forest or hard turf) at 3 knots or more, or when a runway gear point strays more than three metres past the edge at 12 knots or more (on runways at least 45 m wide, away from the last 150 m of either end, and roughly lined up with the runway). Snow, ice, gravel and water all count as pavement, and a tug, a pushback, a spawn already on grass, or simply being airborne are all ignored.

Every confirmed excursion is treated as a severe one. Once it's over — back on the pavement, or stopped off it for about ten seconds — and slowed to 30 knots or below, the parking brake sets itself. In TRAINING too.

• Possible damage. Up to three problems at once in REAL WORLD (TRAINING follows its strictness setting instead — one on LENIENT, five on STRICT), fewer if another handling consequence has already used up the flight's allowance: a dragging brake, a nosewheel steering fault (only after a fast excursion, more than 30 knots off the pavement), a gear leg that won't lock, an EGT over-limit, or, in TRAINING, engine damage from debris.
• In REAL WORLD, always a NO GO inspection — about 12 hours, or 17 if you had to be recovered from off the pavement — that finds real damage needing days of repair nine times out of ten, plus damaged or deflated tyres.
• Engine damage is certain, not a chance. The engines on whichever side left the pavement (all four, if the side's unclear) get logged at once as ENG n FAIL DAMAGE defects, each needing an engine change. The engine itself keeps running for this leg — the failure is only raised at the next flight's gate.
• In TRAINING you just get the failures themselves and a debrief note, without any of the above being certain.

No ECAM message ever names an excursion directly — the debrief notes it instead, for example Veered off the taxiway at N kt.

REAL WORLD and TRAINING

REAL WORLD effectively takes over what TRAINING does. While it's active — not merely switched on:

• TRAINING's RANDOM and HANDLING, plus the ARMED tab's ARM, ARM SURPRISE and LOAD, all get disabled, with the hint "TRAINING's RANDOM, HANDLING, ARMED, SURPRISE and SCENARIOS are held while REAL WORLD is active".
• DISARM, DISARM ALL, UNLOAD and REVEAL all keep working regardless, and the TRAINING tuning and debrief both stay usable.
• Switching REAL WORLD on turns the two TRAINING masters off automatically, and tells you so: RANDOM and HANDLING on the TRAINING tab switched off: REAL WORLD runs its own.
• Clear All Failures leaves logbook defects standing either way. With REAL WORLD off, it does clear the flag itself, but the tech log then notes … flag cleared by the crew with REAL WORLD off — DEFECT REMAINS OPEN.

Common surprises