A330-900neo weight problems

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Hello, I’d like to talk about some weight issues I’ve been experiencing with the A330-900neo.

Today I planned to fly from Heathrow to Seattle Tacoma Intl. using Delta’s A330-900neo. Everything was going smoothly—I had about 11 hours of fuel, carefully planned with SimBrief, especially since a few days ago at Gatwick I had to stay airborne for an extra hour before landing.

I took off at 157 knots, and right after calling “positive rate, gear up,” I noticed the aircraft wasn’t climbing as expected. Eventually, it stabilized, but once I passed 30,000 feet, climbing at about +2300 feet per minute, the speed started to drop strangely. The engines, which were set to Mach 0.82 to try and recover speed, suddenly shifted to TOGA. I tried to stabilize the aircraft by decreasing the vertical speed, eventually going down to +1000 feet per minute—which felt ridiculous. The speed dropped to around 210 knots, and I realized those missing knots weren’t coming back—unless we’re talking about just 5 knots or so.

Frustrated and knowing I didn’t have enough time for another full flight, I exited Infinite Flight without completing the route.

P.S. This had already happened to me a few weeks ago with a Condor flight from KLAX to EDDF during an event. That time, I did manage to complete another flight from OMDB to EDDF using the A380.

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This is too high a VS for that altitude (for most aircraft, not just the A330). The A330 in Infinite Flight is also rather underpowered - it is however manageable.

From my experience with the A330 (both the -300 and the -900neo) is that unless you are really light - it’s a slow climb. Above 25000ft or so, it’s max 1000fpm, sometimes even lower. You want to keep your throttle from maxing out - and to also not climb too high.

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Ok, benny Thanks for the advice.

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It’s the Vertical Speed.

I had the same issue with the 777-200ER. To regain control, I disconnected the autopilot and flew manually. I descended to a lower altitude, levelled off to stabilize, increased my speed to Mach 0.84, and then reengaged the autopilot. Before activating the Vertical Speed mode again, I set it to a more reasonable value (I think ~ 700fpm) and everything went smoothly from there until I reached my cruise altitude.

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uh, why? (10 char)

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I havent had that issue on any of my 777 flights and ive done a fair few of 90%+ load flights.
What happened there?

As for rhe A330 i find it so that the neo is slightly more underpowered than its predecessor.

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I chose not to complete the flight because, once we reached cruise altitude, what was initially a nine-hour flight—depending on the winds—ended up taking 12 hours and 30 minutes, and due to the time difference I didn’t have enough time to finish it since I’m in Europe.

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My rule of thumb when I’m lazy is as follows:

3500 up to FL100
3000 up to FL150
2500 up to FL200
2000 up to FL240
1800 up to FL280
1600 to to FL300
1500 up to FL320
1400 up to FL350
1200 up to FL375
1000 up to FL400
500 up to FL430

With the method above, I get a climbing curve like this.
The method I mentioned above works for almost all aircraft in the game

image
image759×474 42.1 KB

When I’m really going for realism, I focus on my N1 rather than the V/S.

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Honestly, I’ve been having an excellent experience with the 777 family and have never encountered issues like those I had with the A330.

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Ok, thank you.

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That’s because the 777 has a ton of excess power at altitude and the A330 doesn’t (at least in IF)

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Everyone is correct, it’s the V/s. BUT compared to most bigger planes the A330 is a slow climber on IF.

What you experienced is normal for it. Needs to be climbed at a much lower v/s and step climbing, as you probably won’t make it up to your cruise altitude comfortably until a few hours into a long haul :saluting_face:

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