MCDU manuals

[Patrice_cesson 4]

Hi aerosoft team,

where can I find the MCDU manuals for airbuses (318 >> 321)?

Thanks.

Patrice

[ubersu 23]

You will have to search the web for whatever you can find. None of the manuals are freely available. If you are patient, however, you can find quite a bit of information.

DJ

[Patrice_cesson 4]

Note that presently I own the 4 airbuses from aerosoft. But no manual on MCDU in the packages.

 

[Tom A320 4915]

With the same argument you could ask for a complete manual for the engines, electrical systems, hydraulic systems, and so on.

Don't mistake Boeing with Airbus. While Boeing is open to license manual for example to PMDG this is not true for Airbus.

Aerosoft aims for the mid-price-range market for their buses. This makes it impossible to compile a complete MCDU manual by them self. 

Some quick Google search will bring the results you are looking for. A good start to look around is for example Smart Cockpit (http://www.smartcockpit.com/plane/AIRBUS/A320.html).

[Patrice_cesson 4]

Hi Tom A320

I am not asking about what you say. I am only asking (and I think this is legitimate), for some documents allowing me to use the product I bought.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Patrice.

[Tom A320 4915]

Hi Patrice,

then work yourself through the step-by-step guide. This one, along with the other 9 manuals is the official documentation of the Aerosoft Airbus.

From your reply I understood that you were asking for deeper and more detailed documentation on the MCDU. That's why I suggested to take a look on the Smart Cockpit website.

The bus comes with all documentation you need to perform successful flights and to get a good overview of it's systems.

 

[ubersu 23]

Patrice, every single thing you actually need to fly this aircraft is in the furnished documents, and especially in the 'step by step'.  If you want more, you will have to do what I recommended and search the internet, since the real manuals cost hundreds of dollars each and are only available to Airbus customers.  If you don't want to do that, there is an excellent book on the Airbus available here: http://utem.com/. I recommend the A320 volume.  Although it is for the A320, Airbus has designed all of the 'buses to be nearly identical in day-to-day operation.

DJ

[flyingfish55 0]

Patrice,

For clarification, the Aerosoft in-house manuals can be found in the main FSX folder under Aerosoft/Airbus A318_319/Documentation. There are 9 volumes and are well worth reading. I cannot comment on the location for the A320/321 but would assume it is in a similar location.

Happy flying.

John

[Tom A320 4915]

Hi John,

yes, they are  

And they are also linked via the Start menu:

Start | Programs | aerosoft | Airbus | Airbus A319-A319 | Documents
Start | Programs | aerosoft | Airbus | Airbus A320-A321 | Documents

 

[chesher 2]

Sorry Tom,  there is a big difference between the MCDU and an engine or hydraulic system.  In both the latter instances, one starts it and monitors it.  with the MCDU there is a massive amount of user interface and it hasn't been addressed in the documentation.  There is nothing more frustrating that getting a 'bad entry' response from the MCDU.  it could be bad format - but we don't know what the standard format is.  It would take someone in Aerosoft a couple of days max to put together a basic operating format document for the MCDU.   As one of the fundamental tools in driving the bus beast it should be explained.  The step by step is great and I can fly from LOWI to LFMN with the best of them.  But what is the format for inputting a location not in the nav data base.  What about anything that is non standard...  One needs to understand how to use a tool not just ape the processes someone does for a limited application of the tool. 

 

[chesher 2]

You are right Tom.  Smart cockpit does have an answer.  the link below takes one to the Flight management guidance system manual.  A tidy little thousand page document. 

http://www.smartcockpit.com/aircraft-ressources/A319-320-321_FMGS.html

Why not include it in your documentation or at least as a directed information source.  One shouldn't have to go hunting for an outcome. 

 

regards

 

[EDIT: direct download deleted]

[mbchatter 3]

Patrice and chesher:  You might also want to see my post #8 of "Left MCDU Flight Plan - Changing Stock Speed or Altitude" in this forum, information that is also not readily available.  John       

[Tom A320 4915]

Hello chesher,

I have deleted the PDF from your post. The file is property of smartcockpit and should only be linked here.

In regard to your question of why not putting PDFs like into the Airbus package: 

The AS buses are commercial products. AS needs a license for everything that is included. The things that have been done by AS (the bus, all manuals) are not a problem at all, but external 3rd party resources are something else. AS simply can't sell smartcockpit stuff as they don't have any license to do so.

But honestly, nowadays with Google & Co it is only a question of minutes to find the manuals one is looking for. I really don't see the need that AS includes everything.

Plus: if they do so they wouldn't be able to keep the price of the bus at such a low level. They would either have to license the manual or write it by them self. Both is connected with money, lot's of money...

[mbuto 0]

Hi Tom,

I understand that sourcing an entire FMS programming guide is problematic. I would be quite happy with one or two graphs that tell me how to clear a flight plan discontinuity. For example, I have a SID and a transition point, and I also have the next waypoint. In reality there probably is some procedure to link the two points, but at our level, often that's not readily available. So the next best thing would be to be able to put that next waypoint in, and the DISCO goes away. As long as your not asking the plane to climb 20,000' ft in 1/4 mile :-). This gets us going, and we can then continue to learn an improve our techniques.

 

Thanks,

 

Mike

[DaveCT2003 2553]

Mike,

 

First, please forgive me, but I don't know your background so please bare that in mind in regards to the text below.

 

First let me say that a guide, graph (not sure how that would work) or matrix really isn't the best way to approach this topic. (clearing DISCOs). Instead, I recommend taking an indepth look at and learning flight planning. This would help one to understand the two specific types of discontinuities and when they should be cleared (if ever).  Once you firmly understand the different segments of a commercial flight plan you'll be able to operate any FMS including all the Airbuses, all the Boeings, Dash 8, MD-11, Citation X, and others.  Anyone who understand flight plans and flight plan segments will be able to breeze through the FMS on the aircraft I listed, and plenty more.

 

There are MANY websites available which cover flight planning in various detail, and that's the resource I recommend. After gaining a complete understanding of flight plans, I would re-fly the tutorial, and when you do I can promise the light will come on for you, big and bright!

 

The time you invest in learning flight planning will save you far more time over the years and lead to increased enjoyment of higher level flight simulation.

 

Best wishes, and happy flights!

 

 

 

[mbuto 0]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your response. My background is that I was a fairly active simmer on a 767, but then moving to real life VFR. I've come back to MSFX along with my iPad and ForeFlight as a porcedural trainer now, but being an airliner guy at heart, I decided to add on a jet. So once I ran through the tutorial a few times to get the basics, I tried a local flight, trying to build a flight plan based on my real ForeFlight charts. (I find a lot of online simmer material was often pretty stale). However the database on the sim isn't quite complete and/or up to date, so I was trying to fix things by putting in what I could and trying to delete any discos. The result may not be 100% realistic, but it would get me from A to B. That wasn't working for me, so that's why I was looking for some basic instructions. In the mean time, I've been able to figure out how to put enough info into the flight plan to deal with this.

(BTW, 'graph' is shorthand for paragraph. My bad for assuming that was standard!)

Blue Skies,

Mike

[DaveCT2003 2553]

Hello again Mike.

 

Sounds like you're well on your way.  One thing you might wish to do is update the NAVDATA for the aircraft. This should result in the NAVDATA for the aircraft and Foreflight being in sync (using the same NavData cycle).

 

By the way, I'm not sure what Flight Sim information you found to be stale, but there are many websites which provide highly detailed, accurate and up to date information free of charge. 

 

Best of luck!