Only comment is on the fde - big airplanes are not necessarily 'sluggish' as Abacus and many others typically represent. I am not a pilot, but to paraphrase one of the 380 captains "you would expect it to be like piloting a large bus but it's more like a Porsche" and again "it is like riding a bicycle, very easy..."Those comments and my own experience with the highly touted 744 QOTS tell me this old fs assumption that 'big equals slow/sluggish' is often quite false.Imho Abacus is probably way off in that respect as well.regards,Markhttp://www.dreamfleet2000.com/a320/custbanner2.jpgPC Power Silencer 470/3.2HT/2048mb/ATI X1950pro/SB Audigyp.s. - just woke up, what the heck, nothing better to do till the webs clear

That's true Mark, just because an aircraft is big does not necessarily make it sluggish. In fact, I was on a C-5 in 1997 landing at Holloman AFB into a major desert crosswind, and I found out just how manueverable a big aircraft can be. However, I only said that "I expected" it to be sluggish, not that the A380 is actually sluggish. I happen to be one of the nearly 6 1/2 billion people who have never flown a 380, so it was just what I was expecting. On a separate note, I'm glad that you thought the review was fair...I think so too.Brian Fletcher

Hi Brian,Thanks for taking the time :) - actually, to be honest, I just wanted to 'jook' (Jamaicanese for 'jab') good old Abacus, not your review. The comment 'it is indeed a sluggish slow to respond behemoth' tells me they are wrong in the handling department. Truth is Abacus is just plain not my thing, at all, under any circumstances, whatever, forever and ever...but I do sincerely wish their market to have their own brand of fun, really I do - something for everyone in this great hobby :)Look forward to more of your reviews - straight up honest unbiased impressions with lots of shots are exactly the kind of review most find useful. :-beerchugregards,Markhttp://www.dreamfleet2000.com/a320/custbanner2.jpgPC Power Silencer 470/3.2HT/2048mb/ATI X1950pro/SB Audigy

Hi Brian,Just wanted to say great review, and just what I needed as I'm looking to add an A380 of some kind to my hangar. I looked at the original A380 offering from Abacus a year or so ago, and remember then being put off by a the fact that it doesn't have tilting bogies - don't know if you mentioned this in your review but it was certainly noteworthy for me! As a result I looked very closely at the Wilco version, which is still vastly superior. I've no doubt that in time PMDG or Level-D will bite their teeth on the A380, and I'll look forward to that but in the meantime I think I'll stick with what I've got.Many thanks again for a great review,Regards,Tim F

I wanted to make essentially the same point that Mark just did. When the A380 (two of them, actually) made their recent promotional tours of various US airports, the Lufthansa captain kept telling everyone that the plane flies like a "sports car." Of course, it's hard to quantify exactly what that means, but caution may be in order before a developer includes a flight model based on assumptions that the plane should "feel" heavy. A related point has been made by a real-world 757 and 767 pilot (and flight simmer), Capt. Tony Valillo, who has written that the 757 has a paradoxically heavier "feel" at the controls than does the 767. Most people would intuitively think a smaller Boeing would feel more responsive than its larger brethren, but in this instance the opposite appears to be true. Brian's review seemed very fair to me. Fact is, only a handful of people actually KNOW how the A380 feels at the controls. Unless you're one of those handful of people, you're left guessing -- either as a reviewer or as a developer -- as to what's really accurate. I thought the overall approach of Brian's review was very informative for a potential buyer of this product. While I don't want to go off on a tangent, this approach seems to me a significant improvement over the earlier CS 757 review, which in my opinion was based far too much on speculation and wishful thinking to justify a "Gold Star" award. Anyway, it appears that the door is wide open for a "serious" developer to tackle the A380. Samdim, perhaps???