The A320 family — and the FlyByWire A32NX in particular — has the most engaged community in MSFS 2024. Its fly-by-wire law makes landing it almost easy compared to traditional control-cable aircraft: the aircraft does a lot of the protection work for you. The trick is knowing when to override and when to let the flight envelope manage the situation.
Landing technique
- Vapp = Vref + GS mini (5–10 kt added wind buffer). The FBW PFD shows this directly — use it instead of adding margin manually.
- Idle thrust at 30 ft RA when the auto-callout fires. Late idle prolongs float; early idle drops you in.
- Flare to about +5° pitch and HOLD. Airbus FCOM is explicit: 'flare and hold'. Don't pump the stick.
- Direct law (gear extended, flaps configured) changes the feel — small inputs feel proportional. Don't muscle the side-stick like you would a 737 yoke.
- After touchdown, push the stick fully forward to engage nose-wheel steering and load the gear for braking effectiveness.
Common mistakes
- Over-controlling the side-stick on flare — the protections do most of the work; lots of input creates pilot-induced oscillation.
- Reverse-thrust idle deselect too early — bleed off speed below 80 kt before stowing reversers, not at 100+.
- Late spoiler arming — should be done during the after-takeoff checklist or by the descent latest, not on final.
Aircraft data
- Manufacturer
- Airbus
- Model
- A320
- Variant
- neo
- FAA approach category
- C
- MTOW
- 79000 kg (174165 lbs)
- Vref reference
- 134 kt
- MSFS source
- Default Std
- FLARE matches
- Airbus A320 neo · A320 neo · A320neo
Related reading
- → How FLARE grades a landing — the composite formula behind every score
- → What "stabilized approach" actually means — the 1000-ft gate, four criteria, technique
- → Narrow-Body Airliner scoring thresholds — per-category curves applied to this airframe
- → Full scoring methodology reference — complete breakdown in the help docs