this time we will try something different to learn new things. we will fly from LOWW (vienna) to LOWG (graz) with austrian airlines. i chose this route, not only because it is fast but because it has something special: we will not have any discontinuities in the flight plan. also, the flight will begin around 6 in the morning, local time. it will be dark outside, so we will use lights etc. vienna airport has also gates. finally, we will not get electricity by the apu but from the ground power. start the simulator with the plane parked at gate 35c.
gate
1. depending on the version of the airport or utilities you are using, connect the gate to the plane. the ground power will connect automatically. then, go to the fmc and hold the brt key pressed (1a). after 3-4 seconds the fmc will come to life. open the front left door by going to options, doors and click on open left fwd key, up left on the screen. press return and then ext ctrls. there we check that the gpu is connected (it is written disconnect, so if it is not connected, just press on connect). also notice that the gnd chocks are connected. if you want, you can release the parking brakes to relief them from stress.
keep the brt key pressed till the fmc screen gets light. then options key 
press on doors key 
press the left fwd door key to open. then press the return key 
press on the ext ctrls key 
verify the gpu is connected and gnd chocks are connected too (in case you need to release the brakes)
electricity
2. overhead panel: press the bat 1 and bat 2 buttons (a). instead of starting the apu, just press on the ext pwr button which has the avail sign. electricity will come to the plane from the ground power and some tests will begin
press the bat 1 and bat 2 buttons (a) then press the ext pwr button (b) 
the aircraft has electricity from the ground power
note: if you have your monitor in normal brightness, probably you will see nothing. it will be too dark. real pilots (or personnel who gives power to the aircraft) have flash lights with them. prepar3d does not offer a flash light like xplane does. there is a tool, called lorbyflashlight, which is free to download from https://www.lorby-si.com/downloads.html. by using this flash light, we give light to the overhead panel, and
overhead panel
3. the usual suspects: dome brt (a), now you can switch off the lorby flash light and close the program, emer exit lt arm–no smoking on–seat belts on (b), nav logo 1–strobe auto (c), the three irs nav (d), the six fuel pumps on (e), pack 1, pack 2 on (f) they will remain to fault-don’t mind it, crew supply on (g).
load
4. fmc, options, fuel: we put 4000kgr by using the fmc keyboard and press return
at the options menu, press the key next to fuel 
type the amount of fuel you want and press the key next to it to load it. then press return
5. payload: we put 1321 to cargo cp1, we type 2/4 with the fmc keyboard and we insert it to the crew, and we put 21 passengers in each class to take their seat. of course you can make your own combinations.
select payload 
fill the plane as you like. then press return
fmc
6. init page: depending on the options for the irs align time, we will not have to wait much for the gps to be ready. as you can see in our example, we have the gps primary sign, already. press clr to clear it. then we fill the init page. from/to is loww/lowg, init request, and irs init (just verify the gps is ready). at wind page, we press wind request and the system needs some time to update the winds. so we return back to the init page. flt nbr a21, cost index 99, crz fl 150.
press INIT. note the gps primary message. press clr to clear it. 
in the iris init page we just verify the coordinates 
fill the from/to field, cost index and crz fl. press the wind key 
after we press the wind request key, we get empty winds. press return to exit the page
note: when the winds will be ready, we get a wind data uplink on the fmc screen. then we go to the wind page to verify the winds are loaded
the wind page has been updated 
wind page is ready
7. we press the left or right cursor keys on the fmc keyboard and we enter the weight page. we press the key next to zfw/zfwcg to get the values and we press again the same key to insert it to the fmc. the same we do for the block (fuel) below. as always we note the 23.5 cg value to get the trim later on the perf page.
press the key next to zfw/zfwcg to get the value. same, press the key next to block to get the fuel value 
the weight, the cg and the fuel have got their values. write down the zfwcg value as always
9. f-pln page: we choose the runway 11 for departure and the rupe1a sid. arrival to ils 35c and we choose the rupe2m star. when we check our flight plan for discontinuities, we will find out that there are none. this is because we set the plane on departure to go to rupet and on arrival to come from rupet.
press the f-pln key to access the flight plan page. we complete it, as shown in the airbus fmc tutorial 
the flight plan is ready
10. perf page: cg 23.5 corresponds to up1.2 trim value so for flaps 1, we type 1/up1.2 and insert it to the flap/ths field. we get the three v speeds by pressing the key next to them and we insert it by pressing the seconds time the same key for each one of them.
the trim value, for cg 23.5 is around up1.2 
enter the flap/ths value by typing 1/up1.2 get the v speed values by press the keys next to them
apu
11. time to depart and disconnect from the ground power, so we go to the overhead panel and start the apu: master sw on (a), we wait for 3-4 seconds and start on (b). after a while, the apu will be available. we can monitor the apu start on the lower ecam panel. when the apu is ready, we disconnect the external ground power by press the ext pwr button (c). the sign will show avail. turn on the apu bleed (d)
press the master sw button (11a) 
the master sw sign goes to on. wait for 3-4 seconds and press the start button (11b) 
both the master sw and the start sign go to on. 
in the lower ecam we can watch the apu start 
when the start sign goes to avail we can press the ext pwr button (11c) 
the ext pwr sign from on goes to avail. press the apu bleed button (11d)
12. check if the parking break is on, if it is not, then move it to on position. fmc, mcdu menu, options, close all doors. at the lower ecam, you can verify all the doors are green, closed. disconnect the gate and automatically the ground power will disconnect. go back to options menu, then to external controls and verify the ground power and the chocks are disconnected. in our case the chocks are still connected, so press the disconnect key.
verify parking brake is on. if not, move it to on position 
go to the fmc, then press the mcdu menu key (12a) and then select options(12b) 
go to doors 
press the left fwd door key to close it. 
at the lower ecam check all doors are closed (green) 
the a320 is free from the gate 
go to options menu, then ext ctrls 
verify the gpu and the gnd chocks are disconnected. if not, press disconnect 
the ground chocks are disconnected
13. upperhead panel, switch beacon on. ask for pushback. because we are at a gate we need it. the pushback crew will tell you when to start the engines.
14. as the pushback procedure goes on and till we get the confirmation to start the engines, we can adjust: the altitude, 15000ft in our example. use the radio to contact the atis to get the baro value. the radio frequency knob has 2 levels as usually, but in the fslabs a320 the upper one change the first 3 digits and the lower one, the last 3 digits. i use the 122.000 frequency to get the baro value from active sky. you can use any local atis frequency depending on the scenery you are using. then insert the values (1016) to the Efis and the Isis baro fields by turning the knobs there. also we turn on the transponder, set it to ta/ra, press twice the clr key on the transponder keyboard to clear the default value and insert our value. 2121 in our case.
set the cruise level by adjusting the knob 
set the radio to the desired frequency by the two level knob 
switch on the transponder, set it to ta/ra mode and type the squawk code 
set the baro value at the efis and isis by turning the knobs
15. we assume we got now the permission to start the engines. ignition knob to start, upper ecam indications turn from orange to green.
before engine start the upper ecam indications are orange 
turn the ignition knob to start position 
the upper ecam indications become green
16. eng 2 lever up to on. to do this, put your mouse cursor over the lever, hold the right key and use the mouse wheel up to move the lever. we watch the engine no 2 values go up on the upper ecam screen. after a while engine no 2 is ready. then engine no 1 lever up to on. again, we watch the upper ecam for the engine start, till the engine 1 is ready.
move engine 2 lever up 
engine 2 indications start increasing 
after a while engine 2 is ready 
move engine 1 lever up 
engine 1 indications start increasing 
engine 1 is ready
17. after the engine gets ready, we move the ignition knob back to normal position (a) and we go at the bottom of the radio panel and we move the pws switch to the auto position (b)
18. we go to the upperhead panel to turn off the apu. first the apu bleed (a), then the master sw (b). the start switch will have the avail sign on it for sometime but we don’t mind about that (c).
19. taxi switch to taxi (a) and because it is night and we need to see better, we move the rwy turnoff switch to the on position (b)
20. at the left side of the captain’s side stick, there is the tiller for steering the plane while on taxi. it has a push button on it (a). we push it (b), so the plane will be able to turn as much as possible.
move the mouse on the tiller and left mouse click 
the tiller stays down and you can steer the plane during taxi
note: the tiller functionality can be arranged in the options menu. depending on the hardware you are using you can adjust it as it is better for you
21. release parking brake, taxi to the entry of the runway and stop there. parking brake on
22. we continue to the upper ecam, turning the blue messages to green: a. auto brk max, b. spoilers arm, c. flaps at position 1, and d. press the to confing button. verify everything is green on the upper ecam.
complete the blue tasks on the upper ecam checklist 
press the max brake button (22a). the max indication on the upper ecam will turn green 
arm the spoilers (22b) and set flaps at position 1 (22c) 
note that the arm and to indications are green now 
press the to config button (22d) 
we have no more blue indications
23. release parking brake, take position on the runway to takeoff. set parking brake to on.
24. upperhead panel: a. runway turnoff switch to off position, b. both landing lights to on and c. taxi lights switch to take off position.
25. press again on the tiller to turn off the taxi steering
26. everything is ready at the cockpit
27. have a good and interesting flight !!!!!
