Autotrim/elevator failure on A320?
Hiya,
This is something that has been needling me for a while. Last Oct I had a 2 hour session in a fixed base A320 simulator in Berlin. The simulator is not certified for real world training. During my full flight - EDDF to EDDT, and established on final at around 1000ft, I disconnected the autopilot in preparation to fly a manual landing - and the aircraft proceeded to fall out of the sky like a stone. The inevitable accident was, at least for me, unrecoverable! The explaination given by the instructor was that they had been experiencing problems with the autotrim of the simulator and he had forgotten to adjust the trim in readiness for the autopilot disconnect (he forgot to tell me about this also!). There were no warnings on the ecam of any kind to indicate a fault. I have flown the same flight on my home sim a number of times (microsoft FSX and wilco A320 Evolution) and set the elevator to fail, as unable to set an actual autotrim failure, and again got no indication on the ecam. The difference on my home sim was that there was some indication of a problem in the behaviour of the aircraft whilst on autopilot and with the elevator failed - a kind of meandering approach and a high nose up pitch developing. On disconnecting the autopilot at home, the aircraft again headed for the ground but not as suddenly as in the Berlin sim. I manage at home to land, with difficulty.
Therefore, my questions are, on the real aircraft, if there is an autotrim failure, is there any sort of warning on the ecam or an aural warning sounded? If not, and the autopilot is disconnected at a similar altitude as mine in the Berlin sim, would the aircraft fall as suddenly, and would it be recoverable? I recoginise that there will be differences in the Berlin fixed based sim, my home sim, a certified simulator and the real aircraft!
Sorry for the long winded post, but I'm genuinely curious to know the answer.
Regards,
Rory