FSLabs A320 Beta Test Applications

• • Aircraft, Payware
FSL-A320

An Airbus fan with a little time on your hands? You might wanna get on over to FSLabs and put in an application for their Beta test team, looks like its gonna be a great product assuming they ship it before everyone’s already bought from the competition?

It’s hard to believe that it’s now been a good four years since we started developing our A320-X for Flight Simulator – time flies! Every day that goes by, every time we check a new piece of code into our source control system, every new piece of 3d modeling that fits into place, we are a tiny step closer to finally giving you the fruits of our labor, so you can also enjoy what we believe will bring flight simulation to a new level. For that to happen, though, we need your assistance – you’ve been consistently asking for this and we believe that we are now at the point in development where it’s necessary to expand our beta test team.

see the forum post

A350 visits Auckland

• • Aircraft, Aviation News
A350 XWB ON THE GROUND - ROUTE PROVING - TRIP 2 - SINGAPORE

Plane spotters have really had a good run lately in NZ. Sounds like an excellent turnout to see the lovely looking and briefly visiting A350 which was in Auckland this week. Mike Condon has posted some great shots of the machine on the tarmac and taxiing for departure. Was a 23L lift-off so a little trick to get shots I imagine. On the simming front, has been suspiciously quiet re the A350, there was an early announcement from AFS Designs who are known for models that are on the lesser detail end of the spectrum, surely there’s an announcement from one of the big guys soon?

As “Airbus 305″, F-WWYB lifted off Auckland’s runway 23L at 1658 into a strong (and cold!) southwest breeze for its direct flight to Santiago, Chile following LAN’s Airbus A340 over the same route which had departed around 20 minutes earlier. It was great to see such a large number of aviation enthusiasts braving the elements to catch its departure!

see MRC blog post for more pics

Sharklets for the Project Airbus A32x

• • Aircraft
TCXshark

Good news for Bus fans, and especially for those who don’t fancy forking out for a payware model. Project airbus have released some work in progress shots of their A32X series complete with winglets/sharklets (ala some of the Jetstar and AirNZ models)

Here is a sneakpeak of an update for the A32X series.. And yes.. The whole series will have sharklets. From A318 to A321 More previews will come in this topic! First out is two A321’s.. Still WIP

see: http://talk.pafs.wf/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2981

A320 NEO options for flightsim

• • Aircraft
A320-NEO

Given the NEO has only recently rolled out the hangar door it’s pretty cool to think we can already fly a simulated version right now. There are two options available to the simmer at present, no doubt these will receive service packs over time once the real world performance figures and cosmetic details settle in as the aircraft approaches delivery and enters service with clients. All of these are running a CFM56 engine but the initial production release of the NEO appears to be a P&W powered machine so re-engining is on the cards too.

The other players potentially with NEOs in the works I assume will be Blackbox Simulations and their AirbusXtreme and the FlightSimLabs A320 which has yet to see the light of day but promises to be nicely done given their track record.

Airbus’ first A320neo reaches completion

• • Aircraft, Aviation News
A320_NEO_REVEAL

Good news for Airbus PR wise (despite the recent A350 cancellations) as the first NEO rolls out the hangar door. Looks like the machine is set to start test flights in September. Air New Zealand recently announced an order for 13 new NEOs which will be serving on trans-Tasman routes so we’ll see them soon enough down-under as well.

The assembly of Airbus’ first A320neo has been completed following painting of the aircraft and the mounting of Pratt & Whitney PW1100G-JM engines. MSN6101, which will be the first A320neo to fly, will soon start its ground tests to prepare for first flight

see the Airbus press release

iOS A321 Gauge By PositionGames

• • Addons, FSX
screen568x568

Interesting looking new iOS app from Position Games here. Imagine it’s quite usable as a general Airbus gauge set and probably across various Sim models. You need a free client installed that I guess works with SimConnect to make the actual calls to the Sim. Be an interesting way to monitor your long haul flights from somewhere else in the house :)

more info at the Apple Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/a321/id886156967?ls=1&mt=8