AVSIM Commercial Aircraft Review A320 Pilot in Command

Every so often a product comes along to the market that completely boggles the mind. Some do it in a positive way, some in a negative way. Take a package like Eric Ernst's 767 Pilot in Command. When that package came to market, it completely boggled the mind in terms of its realism and accuracy in recreating the Boeing 767-300. The PSS products all boggled the mind in how well they recreated the flying experience for their respective aircraft. And there are many more groups out there that provide top notch products, some for free, some for a nominal charge.

And then you have the other side of the spectrum. You can have products that completely boggle the mind and make you ask yourself "What were they thinking when they released this?" Although there are not many out there, there are some. And it seems that one more is headed in that direction. When I heard that A320 Pilot in Command was in the works, I pounced on the opportunity to review it. After all, the product was expected to carry on the legacy that started the "Pilot in Command" series. And with features such as the world's first fully integrated 3D panel, and the ability to "see for yourself that the pilot's view will move during turbulence or heavy turn—something no other simulator can deal with," could this be the next big thing? Will this be the package to which all future releases would be compared? Well, let's find out.

Test System AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Asus A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard 512MB PC2100 RAM Sapphire Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB Video Microsoft Sidewinder FF Pro Joystick Panasonic SL9019" Monitor Windows XP Professional Flying Time: 30 hours over 2 weeks The PFD and ND. Zoom in close and it looks great. The upper ECAM and glareshield. Again, looks great when you zoom in. The lower ECAM The MCDU. You actually use it like this, or by using the keyboard shortcut to get a top-down view. The Center Console I used this angle the most when I was flying. It gave me a good view of everything I needed. The overhead panel. What you'll also find are working windshield wipers. Just don't do what I did and turn them on when the windshield is dry. Seasoned veterans of the PSS Airbus will feel right at home when they see this MCDU. After all, how much can you change it? Advancements here over the PSS one is that the SEC FLPN button actually works. You can copy your active flight plan into reserve and activate it when needed. Want to fly as the co-pilot? Wish granted. Boy does that feel weird. A better shot of the co-pilot's office. As you cycle through the keystrokes to give you a better view of certain areas of the flight deck, this is the center console. Certainly gives you better access to everything that fooling around with the HAT switch. The top-down view of the MCDU. The jump seat view. As mentioned in the review, areas where we have come to accept detail are bare. Also, why are the wings painted dark color when in the real world, they're not?

Installation and Documentation

As with all products that come out these days, installation is as simple as putting the CD in the drive, following the instructions of the auto-install program and waiting.

And as with all new programs, documentation comes in the form of six PDF files that are installed during the installation. A Quick Start manual is included in the jewel case that explains configuring Flight Simulator so the program runs properly.

The PDF files contain a great deal of information along with pictures. You will find one guide devoted solely to the Fly-by-Wire system and how it works. You will also find a detailed guide on getting going in the A320 from firing up the APU to programming the FMC and handling the aircraft during various phases of flight.

The Aircraft

The Airbus family of aircraft is a very technologically advanced. The newest versions of the aircraft coming off the assembly line have many advancements when compared to the original versions. In the newest Airbus aircraft, you'll find enhancements like LCD displays in the flight deck as opposed to the older CRT screens, or digital in-flight entertainment systems that use hard drives as opposed to tapes to store movies, allowing any passenger to view any movie at any time, thus reducing the number of tape decks and maintenance related problems. And speaking of maintenance, the aircraft has gotten "smarter," giving technicians more information to help them in troubleshooting and correcting problems.

That's the real aircraft. While flight simulation doesn't allow us to replicate the aircraft down to the nuts and bolts (or at least not yet), it has given us a lot more freedom to add systems and replicate failures. From a visual and flight model standpoint, we're approaching near realistic. A320 PIC gave me a sense of going back to FS2000. You get nine airline liveries, the house Airbus colors, and a Wilco Publishing paint scheme. The aircraft look pretty good. The attention to detail is what you expect to see with Gmax aircraft. However, this only applies if you view the aircraft from close up. Zoom out and the quality of the textures diminishes pretty quickly, making you think you just went back to the FS98/early FS2000 era. That may have been somewhat acceptable, considering flying is done mostly with the panel. But there are other glaring problems with the paint scheme. Looking at the Air Canada livery, the tail section is actually a dark blue instead of the dark green that it should be. With Lufthansa, the grey portion on the underside of the fuselage is way too dark. Even the top surface of the wings, a surface that is supposed to be a really light grey, is near black. Areas where detail is now expected, such as underneath the spoilers, in the wheel wells, and the wing aft spar are just plain and bare, similar to those of the FS2000/early FS2002 days.

The stock A320. Personally, it looks a little aged.	Notice the dark blue tail instead of a dark green
Air France. Again, looks pretty old in terms of the quality of the paint job.	Lufthansa's colors don't even look like the real world livery. And what's with the dark paint job on top of the wings?

The aircraft does fly the way you would expect it to. Takeoff speeds, typical cruise speeds, approach and landing speeds are all pretty much by the book. During the "acrobatic testing," I found I could not rotate the aircraft around a particular axis. If I did an extreme bank to the left or right, the flight model wouldn't let me go past a certain point, mimicking the control limitations of the flight control computers. If you kick the rudder in the same direction as the turn, the aircraft will enter a dive but is easily recovered, simply by banking the aircraft in the other direction and kicking in opposite rudder. Likewise, if you pull back, the aircraft will reach a certain point and stop. You simply cannot make it enter the flight realm that is out of bounds for the aircraft.

Engine sounds are the type that suffice for a package like this. They are not the same as the real aircraft. They lack that distinct Airbus groan, something that you can hear if you're a regular plane spotter, fly the aircraft in the real world, or use the PSS A320 package which includes the Airbus sound files from Mike Hambley.

The Panel

With the release of FS2002 and now FS2004, the virtual cockpit is here to stay. It gives a level of realism that hasn't been seen before on the desktop. Using the virtual cockpit mode, you can now fly the aircraft like it's done in the real world. You can now see out the window like real pilots do. Provided it's implemented properly.

When I first read the media hype when Wilco Publishing announced A320 PIC, I was excited at the thought of the "first ever 3D active cockpit created in civilian flight simulation. No more 2D flat panels—use the virtual cockpit to fly, pan and zoom to see unique views from all around the cockpit." What's more, now you'll be able to "see for yourself that the pilot's view will move during turbulence or heavy turn—something no other simulator can deal with." But when I installed it and flew it for the first time, I found that it didn't quite follow the media hype.

Prior to jumping in and taking off, there are certain configuration changes that have to be made to FS2002. The first one involves disabling your joystick. Why? The explanation the manual gives is that if you don't, the right commands won't be fed to the program which in turn won't give you the true feel of a fly-by-wire aircraft. In all honesty, I couldn't tell the difference in flight characteristics whether my joystick was enabled or disabled. What I could tell though was the program paid absolutely no attention to what you programmed into the Assignments section of FS2002. How could I tell? Every time I pressed or moved my throttle wheel, nothing happened. At first, this grew very frustrating because essentially this technological marvel I have on my desk called a joystick was nothing more than a stick that could move the aircraft up or down and bank left or right. No rudder, no throttle control, no buttons. It took some time and patience to go through the Setup program and re-program my joystick just so this one program could work properly. Something I didn't particularly like and something I'm sure you won't either.

Once you do jump into the flight deck, you'll be greeted with a "No 2-D Panel Available" message where you would expect to see a regular 2D panel. Right off the bat, you're thrown into the 3D world and presented with the "first ever 3D active cockpit created in civilian flight simulation." Just looks like a virtual cockpit to me, similar to what I saw flying the PSS Airbus.

The 3D cockpit. This is how you'll be doing all your flying, unless you prefer VFR flight.

Welcome to the world of 3D. Instead of providing a 2D panel, they give you this statement.

Like most airliner packages available today, you can undock the main screens for better viewing.

What you see here is the bread and butter of this package. This is how you'll have to get used to flying the package. For someone like me who still prefers the good old 2D panel for certain phases of flight, not having one is a real bummer. After flying the package for roughly 30 hours, I still couldn't quite get the hang of it and longed for my 2D panel. For one thing, everything is not quite easily discernable at a glance. It involves a lot of monkeying around with the hat switch and zoom buttons. During a critical and busy phase like the approach and landing, the last thing you want to be doing is monkeying around with the hat and zoom switches to make your flap selections or adjust your autopilot settings for speed and altitude. And that's exactly what I found myself doing. Trying to land was also a challenge. Compounded by the above problems is a weird feeling when coming in on the approach and not easily being able to judge your descent speed and your height. So if you're still a 2D pilot like me, landing will be a whole new ball game (again). However, if you own a pair of 3D glasses or something like the TrackIR tracking hardware, you may find it easier to use this package.

Overall, the panel is well laid out and represents a true Airbus flight deck. The color, screen placement and layout are just like the real thing. You'll find that all the ECAM screens as well as the MCDU screen can be detached from the panel and viewed with good clarity, regardless of the zoom setting. Wilco has programmed in key strokes that will take you to certain parts of the virtual cockpit quickly such as the glareshield, the MCDU, or the center console, thus hoping to reduce the amount of goofing around with the hat switch and keyboard. And with the keystrokes, you can also jump between the captain's seat, the first officer's seat, the jump seat, or the cabin, although I couldn't see the cabin all that well because quite frankly, there was nothing there. No textures, nothing. Not sure what happened.

The MCDU is also modeled well. Most of the buttons are fully functional and do something. If you have used the PSS Airbus package, this will be a walk in the park. Overall, it's well represented and should add to the overall realism factor.

In Conclusion

Wilco has made a modest attempt to push the bar a little further. But in trying to do so, they forgot to pay attention to other parts of the package. They should have included a 2D panel instead of going the straight 3D route. And while the virtual cockpit works, it doesn't work well during critical and busy phases of flight. Add to that aircraft that look like FS98/FS2000 era, and sounds that don't quite sound like the real thing, and you have a package that looks similar to what we saw a year or two ago. You can make your purchase at The Avsim Store or at the Just Flight website.