A380 cruising altitude flaps

When they A380 is at cruising altitude as it climbs higher the nose pitches high and the place decreases speed and ends up being a stall but if I put flair 1+F or 2 it stabilises the plane. Any advice on what I’m doing wrong or right because I’m not sure

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Hey there! Welcome to the Community!

Flaps shouldn’t be used at cruise. By the sounds of it you were either climbing too fast and therefore losing speed and/or cruising too high for your weight. What was your aircraft load %, cruise altitude and vertical speed during climb?

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Never use flaps at cruise altitude it’s not meant for that.

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What altitude, speed and load of the aircraft do you have this issue at? Perhaps you are trying to climb to high with high load. Try to do step ascent. Start from 28-32’000 and then when your aircraft will become lighter, you can climb to 35,38,40’000ft.

The a380 usually starts from FL340 but 32 winds and similarly east FL330 and 31 for ultra long haul.

This really depends on a lot of factors.
Here is one flying right now below FL320

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The quartering headwinds for flights heading east hence all flying at lower altitude than normally would.

Hello,

Did you know some lovely community members have put together a guide on flying the A380? You should take a look when you get a chance! It’s rich with information and profiles!

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You can also find this useful!

Hey there :waving_hand: Just wanted to add my input. If your aircraft is stalling or nearing a stall, your AoA is too high and you’re losing airspeed—meaning you need to adjust your speed and/or altitude for your current configuration. Flying lower reduces AoA since denser air requires more speed to maintain the same Mach. For the A380 specifically, it’s not great at higher Mach speeds—anything above Mach 0.85 demands too much power and adds excessive drag. If flaps are somehow fixing the issue, that’s a red flag. It suggests you’re flying inefficiently, as others mentioned, but also possibly highlights aerodynamic flaws in the A380’s sim model that aren’t often discussed. In some cases, full flaps might even seem to “help”—but that’s a problem. Flaps should never be efficient in cruise—ever. They create massive drag and kill fuel efficiency at high speeds. In reality, they could even overstress or damage the wings. Since IF lets flaps help in cruise, it’s likely a physics modeling issue. You did the right thing by pointing it out. But needing flaps in cruise means something’s off with how you’re flying. Either follow what others suggested—or just fly like a menace if “realism” isn’t your goal and you’re not weighed by your guilt. I won’t judge. I’d fly “realistically” too, if the sim actually punished “unrealistic” behavior like the real world does.

Nothing really, it just has better performance with flaps down while cruising. One of those oversights/easter eggs in this game.

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Sorry but this is a bit fast. The OP might well have done something not quite right : altitude? Weight? IAS? :slight_smile:

I read it as “am I doing something wrong to cause flaps to help the plane’s performance” to which from what I understand I think the answer is no because it helps in a really wide variety of situations. If you read it as “why am I stalling in the first place” yes probably just climbing too fast for the altitude/climbing too high overall.

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I can prove my point

as many have said already, flaps should only be used for early stages of takeoff and approaching landing, never in flight. if you’re stalling at altitude it’s a sign you were too high or too heavy, if mach .85 is set into the autopilot speed control, then perhaps cruising lower (32 or 34 thousand) rather than high up like 38 or 41. as you get lighter as below MLW then higher climbs can be achieved without damage to drag or lift inflight

Oh hi there, I’m pretty sure the plane was heavy on full fuel and Normal cargo and passenger load as I climb after 28,000 feet the plane gets even slower and pitches up I’m usually set the speed to Mach 0.89 but it struggles to maintain balance and speed

Mach 0.89 is too fast for the A380 typically. You should cruise around .85

Thanks but is there any problem with the load

No, I don’t think so. For such a heavy load you’d want to do the “step climb” method, where you go 31k then a few hours later up to 33k etc. Simbrief makes these for you, and it’s very helpful. You should also lower your VS as needed

Thanks, this thing only happens when flying the A380 particularly but it happens on the 747 aswell and the a350 but on the big jets I try to get to more than 35,000 ft but it’s fine in the 777 but I’ve not flown it higher than 35,000 ft