Airbus A380. Published by Abacus. Reviewed by Matt Kirwan.
The inaugural flight of the Airbus A380 was something that most, if not all of you reading this looked forward to with great excitement. This aircraft is longer than man's first flight and the flightdeck is higher than the altitude reached on man's first flight……the ability of the human animal is alive and well it seems. The big day arrived and indeed it was an awesome sight. The Rolls-Royce Trent 900 powered monster departed Toulouse Blagnac's 3,500m runway 32L on 27th April 2005. Water ballasted to a take-off weight of 927,000lb or 421t, returning safely to mother earth 3 hours and 54 minutes later. I was therefore delighted to take up Terry's offer to review the first of what I assume will be quite a number of Airbus 380 simulations.
Installation
This is a simple process which involves entering a serial number when prompted and then choosing to install some, if not all, of the options. I installed everything, namely Virgin, Thai, Singapore, SAS, Qantas, Lufthansa, Korean, KLM, China Southern, British Airways, Airbus House Colour 1, Airbus House Colour 2, Air France and enhanced scenery for the Airbus Industry home base at Toulouse Blagnac (LFBO).
Manuals
The package comes complete with a small handbook and a 48 page 'Pilot’s Guide' in PDF format, which is well laid out and easy to understand. It gives an interesting history of the aircraft, all the usual checklists and some tips about the characteristics of flying the "Super Heavies".
The Panel
I have not seen any photographs of the real Airbus 380 main panel, so it is difficult to gauge [pardon the pun] the accuracy, but first impressions were not great. It looks more like an FS2000 vintage panel and is far from the high standards of other programmes. Text on the panel overlaps adjacent switches in places and the overall sharpness of the graphics is poor. The overhead panel is very basic and includes switches for Exits and Stairs, that appear around the aircraft once activated - an interesting idea. The Virtual Cockpit is of a similar quality, though to be fair, I am not and probably never will be a fan of Virtual Cockpits
Sounds
The engine sounds are the default B737-400, which is rather disappointing. I can appreciate real recordings of the aircraft were hard to obtain whilst this product was in development but perhaps an A340 or similar sound file could have been deemed more appropriate.
External Model
The sheer size of this aircraft comes across in the external views, especially when on the ground in close proximity to smaller Airbus and Boeing aircraft. Even on large runways, the huge wingspan extends well beyond the edges. All the usual lighting, flaps, spoilers, ailerons etc. work well and the undercarriage is very well modelled. One rather annoying thing I found was that the reverse thrust was modelled on all four engines, whereas on the real aircraft at present, only uses two engines.
FMC
Included is the Abacus Flight Management Computer, which allows you to load a flight plan generated in the default FS Flight Planner. An excellent FMC Guide is included and gives a very good explanation of the basics of this sophisticated navigation tool. Also included are flights from New York to Paris, Chicago to Amsterdam, Singapore to Munich and Los Angeles to Tokyo.
Toulouse Blagnac
This is a rather clever aspect of the package. The scenery enhancements include a new airport terminal, Airbus Industries manufacturing plants, AI Traffic, including Airbus A380s performing touch and go landings and scheduled arrivals and departures. It's amazing to hold short of the active runway and watch these monsters approach and land.
Flying The Monster
I started with a fully loaded aircraft and even with the thrust available, it took an age to reach rotation speed. Initial acceleration was so slow but 500t + is not easy to move. The climb was steady but slow. I then switched to a light load and it handled like a Vulcan bomber. Climb rate in excess of 3,500 ft a minute was no problem. Like all heavy jets, you have to constantly keep ahead of it. The autopilot system works fine and the manual recommends its use rather than hand flying. That said, despite its weight and the enormous power available, it is a rather docile aircraft to handle - virtually of course. Landing is really challenging because you must remember how high up you are. I had a few "unexpected arrivals" before I got used to the cockpit height.
Summary
I was disappointed with this package. The panel and sound are a very important aspect of any Flight Simulation package and in my opinion, neither were up to scratch. That said, the external modelling is very good and just to fly one of these monsters is almost justification enough for purchase. In my opinion, it will take a while, but more enhanced and accurate versions of this aircraft will be in big demand before the real Airbus A380 finally gets to work.
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