Greetings!
Before starting this topic, I want to make it clear that I'm not an expert and I don't know if my conclusion is correct, so feel free to add your knowledge to this thread.
Here we go... I was flying BAW248 between SAEZ and SBGL with the A35K. My planned cruising altitude was 41,000 ft. From the ground up to cruise level, the wind was around 2 kts. Once I leveled off at FL410, I remembered to adjust the wind speed according to the real flight plan from SimBrief. In this case, the forecast indicated a tailwind of 79 kts. Since Aerofly allows a maximum of about 39 kts, that’s what I set. I went back to the main menu and increased the wind speed to the maximum, as well as adjusted the direction to match the forecast. Then I jumped back into the flight and continued as normal...
A few minutes later, I heard the autopilot disconnect alarm. Along with it, there was an alert on the ECAM saying “ENG THRUST LOCKED,” and on the PFD it showed the aircraft had entered "A. FLOOR" mode (ALPHA FLOOR). This A. FLOOR mode is a stall protection that automatically activates to prevent the aircraft from losing lift.
Since A. FLOOR was keeping the aircraft flying, I decided not to address the loss of lift right away and focused first on the ENG THRUST LOCKED alert. I tried a few things based on my knowledge, but nothing worked. So I quickly searched ChatGPT about the ENG THRUST LOCKED alert, and according to it, this condition occurs when the aircraft loses the signal between the thrust levers and the FADEC. The recommended procedure was to move the thrust levers to idle for about 3 seconds and then move them back to climb or TO/GA. This should resynchronize the FADEC with the lever positions — but it didn’t work.
So I decided to exit A. FLOOR mode by diving to regain speed. After recovering, I climbed back to FL410 at the same planned speed, Mach 0.85. Everything was fine for a few minutes, but I noticed that the speed was gradually decreasing. I didn’t interfere — I just observed the aircraft’s behavior to try to understand what was going on. Eventually, the speed dropped enough for the aircraft to enter A. FLOOR mode again, and the “ENG THRUST LOCKED” alert showed up on the ECAM once more. I tried again to resynchronize the levers by moving them to idle and then to TO/GA, but it still didn’t work. So I dove again to exit A. FLOOR mode and climbed back to FL410. Since I was already close to TOD, the issue didn’t happen again. I began the descent and landed normally.
But I wasn’t able to solve the in-flight emergency or identify its root cause.
In discussion with a friend, we came to the following conclusion: the fact that I abruptly changed the wind speed and direction from 2 to 39 kts caused a “shock” to the aircraft when I returned to the flight, which made the FADEC lose synchronization with the thrust levers. And maybe due to some limitation of the simulator — after all, we’re talking about a mobile simulator — it was unable to resynchronize. Also, it’s worth noting that I was flying close to the aircraft’s maximum operational ceiling, which in itself puts the aircraft in a more sensitive flight envelope. Could we be right?
Another thought I had was regarding the lack of fuel consumption in Aerofly, which leads me to believe that the aircrafts have fixed and unchangeable weight and balance. If that’s the case, then maybe the A35K wasn’t designed with the correct weight and balance to remain stable during flights with strong tailwinds at very high altitudes, close to its operational ceiling. Please clarify if that’s how Aerofly works.
Thanks to everyone who reads and replies!
- new Brazilian liveries, but for that, we need them to launch new planes first, like the Boeing 737-800NG/MAX8 and Airbus A320-200neo so we can receive the Gol and Azul liveries.
