Wilco Feelthere Airbus Vol 2 - First Impression

[twasono 3]

I just bough this product 4 days ago...Generaly speaking.. as Airbus fans, I eagerly want to fly these birds immediately after I downloaded it.I installed it on FS2004 - win XP - Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz - 2GB Ram - nVidia Geforce 8800 GTX.The first bird that I wanna fly is A330-300 RR... but when I selected this bird... It's very disapointing because of several "major" visual bugs on it's model...1. A330-300 RR External Model error at the front & rear gear bay door. The door position and animation are not correct (bug)2. All A330 VC model have incorrect rudder pedal positions... it should be balanced when rudder is stright...3. Other than visual model, I noticed that there's also a flight management flaw. Using A330-300 RR, when the plane in managed descent, the maximum V/S only around -3.5 fpm... so the plane is always unable to catch the right descent path....Honestly.. I really disappoint with this quality of released product. The bug or error that should have been noticed when in Beta testing (is there any?), still faced by customer in the released version.I'm sorry to post this issue in this forum, since Feelthere Airbus forum is still closed. I hope the developer read my post...Cheers,Tri WasonoAirbus Fan

[G7USL 117]

If you had took the trouble to check this forum earlier in the week you could have saved your money?I haven't read a good word yet.

[EngineRoom 205]

Just took my first proper flight with this aircraft last night, flying the A340-600 from EGLL to KBOS.First of all I'll say that I have swapped out the original aircraft model for the Overland models, as I think they are better, and there are some excellent repaints available for them in the library here. I don't really care for VCs in airliners so the loss of the VC isn't an issue for me.The flight done was using ActiveSky 6.5 and default ATC. Not very scientific by any means, but the problems noted are:i) Passing Ireland heading west into the NAT, the FMCGU cycled to the next waypoint, but the autopilot wanted to fly me to the previous waypoint? I think it tries to fly a track between two waypoints, and if it thinks you haven't crossed the first waypoint it will try and fly you back to the start of the track. It may have been something to do with having the sim set to accelerated time (I have seen similar behaviour with some other aircraft in the past). I worked around the problem by using the DIR function to go directly to the next waypoint.ii) The flight I made was approximately 2900NM, at FL340, and according to FSBuild reading the weather from ActiveSky, the average wind correction for the entire route was the equivalent of a 54kt headwind. I put the relevant data into the supplied fuel planner and it told me I needed around 71,000KG of fuel for the journey (including reserves). However, my A340-600 had to engage in a little in flight refuelling over Nova Scotia :) I'll have to try another flight to confirm, but it looks like the A340-600 fuel planner and flight model are reading from different pages...iii) Also noticed the destination EFOB reading doesn't update? It was stuck on the same value for the entire journey, even when some way out over the Atlantic my FOB dropped below the calculated desitnation EFOB.EDIT - just had a thought about this problem - I left a discontinuity in my plan, between the last planned waypoint and KBOS, the intention was to check the weather later in the flight and select a suitable STAR for KBOS. It may be the EFOB calculation is thrown off if you have a discontinuity in your plan? Having said that, the EFOB still didn't update even after I selected a STAR and cleared the discontinuity.iv) Not quite sure if I am reading it wrong, but the optimal cruise FL in the FMCGU was "FL-224"? Not quite sure what that means? 22,400ft below sea level?v) The night lighting for the chronometer in the 2D panel does not match up with the rest of the panel when the floodlights are turned on.No real showstoppers, just annoying little things. On the plus side, other than the problem with the managed heading mode, the autopilot seemed to be pretty well behaved (within the contstraints of the default MS ATC's instructions... I'll try another flight with RC4's better ATC handling which should give the managed climb and descent profiles a better workout), and the aircraft flies pretty nicely. I was particularly impressed with the landing, as I always felt the PSS Airbus used to slam itself into the runway on autoland :) It's still the only show in town if you want to fly a half decent rendition of the Airbus heavies...

[guidos 2]

Hi thereI bought the product since I am an Airbus fan. I advise people to wait until a service pack is out or dont buy it. One example is that you cannot pushback the aircraft!? Has anyone encountered this. There are also texture problems. I had purchased Vol 1 a while ago and it was not perfect but still fun to fly, but Vol 2 feels like a rushed out unfinished product.

[Bigmack 29]

You people never seized to amaze me. With all the terrible issues concerning FeelthereWilco, you still spend your money on thier products and the complain. For gods sakes, read the forums and keep your $$$ in your pocket.Or if you feel you must spend your money on this product, you got what you paid.Bill M

[EngineRoom 205]

I don't see anyone complaining here, just reporting issues they have found.As for "terrible issues" well to be perfectly honest, I just flew a transatlantic hop with the A340-600 and didn't find any "terrible issues". A quick look at the FeelThere forums shows that the developers are aware of the problems and are looking into them. FeelThere have generally been pretty good in getting service packs out, and as I said in another post as long as they continue to do subject matter I am interested in that nobody else will do I will continue to support them.Nobody put a gun to my head and forced me to buy a Wilco/FeelThere product. I knew I would be getting a product that would very likely require a patch or two. Considering I am very interested in the subject matter, and the total lack of interest from other developers in doing this aircraft I have decided this particular product is one I wish to have.I do read this forum and others, but unfortunately most attempts to promulgate useful information or exchange ideas is often met by very unhelpful responses such as yours. If you are offended that I have purchased a Wilco/FeelThere product then that is YOUR problem, not mine. I actually quite enjoy my new Airbus, but then maybe I'm just a simpleton?How many threads are started in an attempt to share useful information or exchange ideas, but end up locked because of completely unhelpful replies from people who have no other desire than to bash whatever developer? In the end everyone loses out because forums such as this cease to be a useful source of reliable information.

[Guest monsoon]

You know what the most frustrating part of this whole thing is? Is when people with years of experience flying real airliners tell you that this product is crap and then have people that have zero hours of expereince tell you there is nothing wrong with the product. How many people have said that the consumer has become a beta tester on this particluar product. If I only had a penny for each one I could upgrade to a 5000 dollar computer. TRUST ME. THIS PRODUCT IS NOT WORTHY OF THE MONEY YOU SPEND. Just because you do not know the plane well enough to search for the bugs doesn't mean they don't exist. You said you did a flawless flight. Well that doesn't mean a heck of a lot. Lets say I found a bug in the fuel crossfeed system. Well did you crossfeed fuel on your particular flawless flight. Probably not. So therefore the bug wwnt undetected on your flight. Now imagine hwo many other scenerios I can come up with that you enver tested.

[Bonkster 1]

>You know what the most frustrating part of this whole thing>is? Is when people with years of experience flying real>airliners tell you that this product is crap and then have>people that have zero hours of expereince tell you there is>nothing wrong with the product. How many people have said that>the consumer has become a beta tester on this particluar>product. If I only had a penny for each one I could upgrade to>a 5000 dollar computer. TRUST ME. THIS PRODUCT IS NOT WORTHY>OF THE MONEY YOU SPEND. Just because you do not know the plane>well enough to search for the bugs doesn't mean they don't>exist. You said you did a flawless flight. Well that doesn't>mean a heck of a lot. Lets say I found a bug in the fuel>crossfeed system. Well did you crossfeed fuel on your>particular flawless flight. Probably not. So therefore the bug>wwnt undetected on your flight. Now imagine hwo many other>scenerios I can come up with that you enver tested.Why are you busting HIS chops over this? He obviously enjoyed his experience with the product.. so leave him alone! If you don't like the product, then that's fine too! To each his own...all he said is that he liked the product.Not everyone who uses MSFS is the anal, "it's gotta be 100% perfect" sim freak that you appear to be! Some people just enjoy getting in, starting up, flying and landing! They could care less whether the EFOB calculation is dead on the money.. or if the CG .1% off the mark. Those people don't usually encounter the kind of bugs that you are so vehemently insisting are there.You wanna gripe about the product, then do it to Wilco/Feelthere.. not to someone who bought it and, for the most part, seems to like it!

[EngineRoom 205]

Thanks Bonkster :)What I find a little incredulous is how some people get so worked up because someone else actually gets a little enjoyment out of a product they don't like.As for Mr Monsoon and his vastly superior knowledge and experience ;)...well I just refer you to my point about unhelful replies :)Have a nice day everyone, and I hope you enjoy your next MSFS flight, WHATEVER aeroplane you choose to fly and WHOEVER made it :)

[WAD3 0]

That Monsoon has been in every forum message about the AirbusV2 telling people that they wasted thier money. Cant understand why he cares about other people's money. You know what I do when I see a thread I have no interest in? I skip it.

[Guest monsoon]

Well its a simple economics things gentlemen. If people keep supporting this crud they keep creating it. You are supporting this crud. Thats what bothers me. In return people like me that like realism keep getting ripped off. Sure if they want to keep distributing this kinda software then quit charging premium price for it. If you think I a minority int his matter think again. I am just one of the few that is expressing thier opinion. Many people have hid theor credit cards when they hear the name Wilco/Feelthere. Gents I understand wehre you are coming from. A lite version is good enough fro your enjoyment. Thats is completely fine. PMDg has lite version of products and they charge a REASONABLE amount. I am sure you will agree. But please understand where people like me are coming from too. You cant deny that if the money keeps coming in to wilco/feelthere they will think they can get away with the crud they are producing and keep producing it. If this were ANY other product, video card, joystick, vehicle, I KNOW your attitude would be exactly like mine. You dont think?

[out 769]

>you cannot pushback the aircraft!? Has anyone encountered this. What exactly do you mean by pushback problems? I've been using three methods to p/b my FT bigbus:- default Shift+P- a freeware Pushback addon from the Avsim library- The Copilot's pushback optionAll working fine. :)>There are also texture problems. What exactly? I've seen none, though I may have missed some.To be clear:I am neither FeelThere's proud supporter not basher.I have been flying their ERJ, CRJ and 737 with great pleasure till today.I have bought their vol.1 and enjoyed it ever since.Yes, there have been bugs and we (people who cared to do something) have worked on them on their forum.I don't feel a beta tester and as long as I am concerned. I am kind of proud to take part in making things better. What's more, I spent my fairly earned money - this is my own business.True that closing the FeelThere Support Forum was not a good idea.True Victor doesn't always give informative answers.True that sticking to Wilco as the publisher is not a good idea.But I do care about the AIRCRAFT itself and I like it.I won't protest ideologicaly since I do have more serious problems in my day-to-day life. If some of you there don't: lucky you!Now I'm using the bigbuses (vol2) merged with CLS excellent models and I must say I'm having a lot of fun with them. A great rest break to my Level-D and PMDG usual yoking. ;)As it was said above: no stopovers. Each flight I had was succesful. Surely I have found things to fix. But this is something I have got used to for my looong years of simming. I am waiting even for some Level-D improvements (like the chaotic AP values setting)I don't expect perfect aircraft for 30E and this is my desicion what I do with my money.I would like to kindly ask people like mr "monsoon" to keep their frustrations for themselves. As someone wrote before, if you don't like it - don't buy and use it (and I guess you didn't purchase it). I also find some FS payware to be of poor quality, but I won't pick my words into every thread to keep simmers updated to my feelings about them. So, let us have at least one constructive thread without your "it's junk" stuff. Thank you in advance!Coming back to the topic itself:For me there is no better A330/340 simulation now. How about you, guys? Even with some bugs. And it doesn't look like there's any other coming soon.Since I love these birds in reality and I am fed up with years of PSSing, I consciously bought this product and use it. For me this fun is worth the 30E.It is also very nice to hear that Richard Stefan came back to supporting FeelThere Airbus series with his excellent AIRACs.That has convinced me to go for vol.2 (I care about navdata due to my VATSIM and procedure flying).Let's keep our posts in peace.Best regards,RafalFT/CLS A340-300 captain at the moment

[Guest monsoon]

>I would like to kindly ask people like mr "monsoon" to keep>their frustrations for themselves. As someone wrote before, if>you don't like it - don't buy and use it (and I guess you>didn't purchase it). If you are insinuating I pirate my software I will take that very personally. I would put money on it that I have spent more than 3000 bucks on my FS software. I am a sucker for new releases. SHow me how many people have spent that much on just addons. Read my bottom post and you will see why I feel the way I do. Usually I am pretty happy with my purchases but this time it has crossed the line. This product was criticised from day 1. The first being what wilco said all the features it has and when we finally get it, we find Wilco lied to us about what features it has. Now i dont care how many time you say "It my money and I can do what ever I want with it". Well congratulations for you. But when I am lied to I take it VERY personally. And when you go spend your money on a company that will think they can get away with lying to me and all the other hard core simmers YOU are supporting them by sending you money to them. So you are wondering why people like me get upset when people support companies that lie to us? Give your head a shake man.

[EngineRoom 205]

Well, "crud" is a very subjective thing! It's not up to the standard of some other developers, but it's a #### of a lot better than any other A330/A340 currently available.Would you care to explain exactly how YOU are getting ripped off? Have you purchased the Airbus Volume 2? Has Wilco forced you to buy it? You are free to choose NOT to purchase this, just as I am free to choose to purchase it. Free market, capitalism, and all that stuff!Now I am aware of the shortcomings of these products. I don't like the fact that FeelThere closed their Airbus and Citation Support Forums and force their customers to go through Wilco. I don't like the fact I only get 3 downloads of the product (although I know from experience Wilco will reset the counter if you have problems downloading). I know there are bugs in their products when released. I know the documentation with their products is poor. However, if you can point me in the direction of a better Airbus family for FS that is available right now, then I'd be happy to check it out. It's as simple as that - I want an Airbus family to fly in FS9, and Wilco/Feelthere can supply that albeit in a rather imperfect form at the moment.Attacking the product and the people who have purchased it at every opportunity is not a particularly bright idea. Especially so when it appears you don't even own the product, and as such do not have any first hand experience of it.

[EngineRoom 205]

Hi Rafal, glad to hear someone else is enjoying the big Busses :)I see you have merged the panel/flight model with the CLS model. I've done a similar thing with the Overland model. I believe the CLS and Overland models are the same. Would you mind sharing the "lights" section from your A346 aircraft.cfg? I've got some floating lights with the A340 and I'm a bit too lazy to sort it out :)