Narrative:

As I lifted off on takeoff; my flight director blinked then disappeared. Auto thrust did not engage. I manually flew the aircraft to the initial level off altitude of approximately 3000 ft. The captain attempted unsuccessfully to engage autopilot two then one; and reengage the auto thrust system. We determined that even with these systems inoperative we could continue the flight to destination provided we stayed below rvsm airspace. We leveled off at 28000 feet and notified dispatch. They sent new projected fuel burn numbers confirming we had enough fuel for the trip. We then navigated using manually tuned navigation radios; airways and radar vectors. Enroute we discovered that we were unable to access any portion of either fmcg. The captain wrote the discrepancy up and alerted maintenance. We completed the flight with an uneventful landing.[prior to the flight] while awaiting transportation to the hotel at the airport; scheduling called indicating that there was an airplane on mechanical that we would be taking instead of our originally scheduled flight and plane. The reason given was that the original crew was running into a crew duty day issue and would operate our flight while we would wait for the broken airplane to get fixed. Scheduling asked me to notify the captain; stay at the hotel and call back for an update. About thirty minutes later scheduling called indicating that maintenance said the airplane was ready and to come to the airport. Arriving at the airport; passengers were applauding our arrival and the gate agents started making preparation for passenger boarding. I briefly looked at the log book which indicated that the navigation data base was out of date; and on MEL. I then completed my walk around. Upon my return to the cockpit I observed that the mcdu was displaying a message to the effect that there was an incomplete navigation data upload and that the FMGC was in separate operations. I was unable to align the INS and called maintenance. Passenger boarding was almost complete. The maintenance tech aligned the INS using the overhead panel. I queried the tech as to what if any other malfunctions would be impacting our flight and specifically would the autopilot and autothrust work. He indicated that they should work. The captain and I reread the MEL; discussed manually tuning navigation aids; got out the enroute charts and high lighted the route and discussed the flight. When we took the runway for take off; I felt that we were in compliance with the MEL and would not have any difficulty in completing the flight. At no time had anyone; scheduling; maintenance or station supervisor (who came down to check on us) indicate that the previous crew had refused the aircraft. Upon reflection of the events; I believe that the MEL was misapplied. We were working way too hard to safely accomplish what should have been a simple flight. It now appears that not only was the data base was out of date but that there was no navigation data base at all and that we had we had a more serious problem. While I had received some clues that there was something else wrong; (nav data upload incomplete; unable to align INS normally; FMGC separate operations; autopilot and auto thrust 'should work') at that time I was unable to determine what the bigger problem might be until after level off at cruise altitude. In my eleven plus years with this company; I have never encountered a situation where maintenance or operations has tried to hide the actual status of the aircraft from me. My honeymoon now appears to be over. On a better day I may have had the clarity of thought to ask the right questions and get a truer picture of what was wrong with the airplane before taking off. [Suggest company] not shop for another crew to take a broken airplane. Don't hide actual aircraft status from the crews. As an aircrew member maintain a healthy skepticism of operations and maintenance actions.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A320 First Officer reported events leading up to being assigned an aircraft with one FMGC on MEL. On takeoff autothrust and autopilot cannot be engaged. The flight was continued to destination using manually tuned NAV radios and Radar vectors.

Narrative: As I lifted off on Takeoff; my flight director blinked then disappeared. Auto Thrust did not engage. I manually flew the aircraft to the initial level off altitude of approximately 3000 ft. The captain attempted unsuccessfully to engage autopilot two then one; and reengage the auto thrust system. We determined that even with these systems INOP we could continue the flight to destination provided we stayed below RVSM airspace. We leveled off at 28000 feet and notified Dispatch. They sent new projected fuel burn numbers confirming we had enough fuel for the trip. We then navigated using manually tuned NAV radios; airways and radar vectors. Enroute we discovered that we were unable to access any portion of either FMCG. The captain wrote the discrepancy up and alerted Maintenance. We completed the flight with an uneventful landing.[Prior to the flight] While awaiting transportation to the hotel at the airport; scheduling called indicating that there was an airplane on mechanical that we would be taking instead of our originally scheduled flight and plane. The reason given was that the original crew was running into a crew duty day issue and would operate our flight while we would wait for the broken airplane to get fixed. Scheduling asked me to notify the Captain; stay at the hotel and call back for an update. About thirty minutes later scheduling called indicating that maintenance said the airplane was ready and to come to the airport. Arriving at the airport; passengers were applauding our arrival and the gate agents started making preparation for passenger boarding. I briefly looked at the log book which indicated that the NAV data base was out of date; and on MEL. I then completed my walk around. Upon my return to the cockpit I observed that the MCDU was displaying a message to the effect that there was an incomplete NAV data upload and that the FMGC was in separate operations. I was unable to align the INS and called maintenance. Passenger boarding was almost complete. The maintenance tech aligned the INS using the overhead panel. I queried the tech as to what if any other malfunctions would be impacting our flight and specifically would the autopilot and autothrust work. He indicated that they should work. The Captain and I reread the MEL; discussed manually tuning NAV aids; got out the enroute charts and high lighted the route and discussed the flight. When we took the runway for take off; I felt that we were in compliance with the MEL and would not have any difficulty in completing the flight. At no time had anyone; scheduling; maintenance or station supervisor (who came down to check on us) indicate that the previous crew had refused the aircraft. Upon reflection of the events; I believe that the MEL was misapplied. We were working way too hard to safely accomplish what should have been a simple flight. It now appears that not only was the data base was out of date but that there was no NAV data base at all and that we had we had a more serious problem. While I had received some clues that there was something else wrong; (nav data upload incomplete; unable to align INS normally; FMGC separate operations; autopilot and auto thrust 'should work') at that time I was unable to determine what the bigger problem might be until after level off at cruise altitude. In my eleven plus years with this company; I have never encountered a situation where maintenance or operations has tried to hide the actual status of the aircraft from me. My honeymoon now appears to be over. On a better day I may have had the clarity of thought to ask the right questions and get a truer picture of what was wrong with the airplane before taking off. [Suggest Company] not shop for another crew to take a broken airplane. Don't hide actual aircraft status from the crews. As an aircrew member maintain a healthy skepticism of operations and maintenance actions.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.