A320 Normal Law Protections

Today we take a look at some of the flight envelope protections the A320 has available in normal law. We will look at the protections in the following order:
00:15 Bank angle protection
01:35 Load factor protection
01:35 Pitch attitude protection
02:20 High speed protection
03:15 High angle-of-attack protection clean
04:30 High angle-of-attack protection in landing config

Acronyms used in this video:
PFD - Primary Flight Display
TOGA - Takeoff - Go-Around thrust.
VLS - Lowest Selectable Speed
VMO - Maximum Operating Speed

Trivia:
Pitch trim on the Airbus is mostly automatic!
In normal law movement of the sidestick controls the elevators to demand a load factor (a level of G) proportional to sidestick deflection. This is also true of degradation into 'alternate' law. The aircraft requires further system degradation for 'direct' law to result in a direct stick-to-elevator relationship such as in a conventional aircraft which requires the pilot to trim in the normal manner.

Interesting Stuff / Further Reading:
You may note that these manoeuvres were flown without the use of the Flight Path Vector aka the ‘bird’. During dynamic manoeuvres the bird is directly affected by aircraft inertia as it is computed from IRS data and static pressure information. It thus has a delayed reaction making it less suitable as a flying reference for these sorts of manoeuvres.
Degredation of protections from Normal to Alternate law - no pitch and bank angle protections are provided. Load factor protection remains. High speed protection is replaced by a high speed stability. Angle of attack protection is lost and replaced by a 'low speed stability'. Alpha-floor is no longer available.

Manual references
A320 FCOM/Aircraft Systems/Indicating/Recording Systems/Indications on the PFD/Flight Path Vector
A320 FCTM/Aircraft Systems/Bird
A320 FCOM/Aircraft Systems/Flight Controls/Flight Control System
A320 FCOM/Aircraft Systems/Auto Flight - Flight Augmentation/Flight Envelope Function/Alpha-Floor Protection.
A320 FCOM/Aircraft Systems/Flight Controls/Reconfiguration Controll laws/Alternate Law

Note: This video is published for familiarisation purposes with our simulator only and any views expressed within this video are our own. Some calls and checks have been omitted for brevity. Always refer to your company documentation or appropriate flight crew manual as the primary reference.

For bookings, further information and to learn about our simulators visit http://manchesterflightsim.com/