Hello everyoneI've been eyeing the A400M by Wilco for some time now. Does anyone have it, and if so, any feedback you can provide, good or bad? Particularly interested in a convincing flight model.Many thankserich

There is an Avsim review of it (that review is based on the FS9 version, but the FSX one is essentially the same):http://www.avsim.com/pages/1106/A400/A400.htmThere's a video of the thing on the simmarket page too:http://secure.simmarket.com/wilco-a400m.phtmlOf course, and as noted in the review, which dates from 2006, the real aircraft had not flown when the Wilco sim version was made, so there is an element of speculation similar to the FS B787s and A350s that came out before these too were finalised, i.e. FS developers go off projected performance figures and mock ups for a lot of (especially) appearance detail. In fact the real A400 was still two years away from its maiden flight at that point and even now the real A400 prototypes have still accumulated only around 1,500 hours total flight time in their test programme. In fairness, Wilco are up front about the fact that some features may not be 100 percent accurate in their A400, although they say that is because of 'security' as it is a military aircraft rather than owing to a lack of confirmed knowledge of what the finished real thing will be like. Frankly I could understand that if it was an F-35 fighter, but for what is basically a big truck with wings, that's a bit of flannel if you ask me, still, there you go.I happen to have a friend who works for EADS on the A400 amongst other things, and he was working on the design of the interior of the A400. I know that by the time the Wilco A400 was out, a lot of that stuff he was still actually working on and nowhere near being a final design, so clearly it could not be completely accurate in the interior aspect too, although the Wilco A400 does look pretty much like the current A400's interior to be fair.The bad news for the A400 was that when it finally did make it into a condition where it was able to be flight tested, it was a lot heavier than had been projected - well over ten tons overweight by most accounts - which means that it can't carry a lot of the things what it was supposed to be able to carry (i.e. big military AFVs and that kind of stuff). This problem has meant the project is delayed quite considerably and the development is now massively over-budget too. At one point they were considering scrapping the entire thing, but they were into so much money already spent that they decided it was better to push on and try to complete it so the investment wasn't a total loss, but that also means that they'll have to sell a crapload more of them than are currently on order, just to break even, although in fairness that may eventually transpire; a really good military cargo plane can be a big long-term moneyspinner as the C-130 has proved.What all this means to us simmers is that Wilco's A400 is what EADS hoped the A400 would be, and not what the real aeroplane currently is, so although the performance of the simulated version is reasonably accurate in terms of speed, climb rate and such in so far as it flies as one would expect such an aircraft would fly like, as far as payload capability is concerned, the sim version is going to be able to lift a lot more than the real thing can at present. That also means of course that the simulated version will probably have a much longer range than the real thing would have straight out of the box (or download). Keep in mind though that as far as we FS users are concerned that's not a big issue, we can tweak flight model numbers to adjust this kind of thing, so it's a lot easier for us to fix things than it is for EADS, and that means you could tweak the flight model figures to match what the A400 is today in terms of weight and performance, so you can still have something which matches the present A400 with a little bit of tinkering, because the 3D model itself is pretty good.This is the trouble with an FS developer getting in there first and going off optimistic projections with regard to performance figures bandied about by marketing departments in the hope that it will secure orders (of both a sim version and of the real thing). Of course it is easy to be critical of such things, but the same thing has occurred with the B787 Dreamliner and the A350 as well, with part of the problem being the fact that new composite materials were thought to be devoid of any problems that might lead to the requirement to beef things up a bit strength-wise when in fact they can actually be quite problematic until experience with their use in construction improves. The same thing happened with alloys when they were first used in pressurised airliner construction too until construction techniques were refined (see the DeHavilland Comet's troubled history with punched rather than drilled holes for rivets causing stress fractures for evidence of that). Knowledge of what happened with the Comet and the loss of Airbus A330 AF447 over the Atlantic in 2009 has dented the confidence designers had in composite materials to some extent, even though they are still not sure if that was a major factor, but the notion that it might have been is enough to give them pause and to start beefing components up, which is where the weight issues start.With all that said, the Wilco A400 is still a pretty decent add-on aeroplane and the Avsim review is a fair appraisal of what you get for your money, so if I were you I'd read that review and decide whether what you actually end up with on your hard drive and in FS is what you are looking for. As noted above, the nice thing about FS is that you can tweak the flight model figures and adjust them to match how the A400 is now (i.e. make it heavier for example or beef up the engines as will probably happen with the real A400's TP400s), so in spite of the speculative nature of Wilco's original, you will not be stuck with something you can't modify to be more like how the thing is these days.In short, if you want an A400, then it is worth having the Wilco one, and frankly, you do get a lot of bang for your bucks if you buy the download because it can be had for well under 20 quid.Al

Hello everyoneI've been eyeing the A400M by Wilco for some time now. Does anyone have it, and if so, any feedback you can provide, good or bad? Particularly interested in a convincing flight model.Many thankserich

I have it, bought it about a year ago - fsx version. The manual was so bad that I actually rewrote it and gave it to Wilco. Not sure what they did with it. Some really crappy FS2002 panels to go along with the some really nice ones. Sound is not so good. I changed out a lot of different sounds sets, not sure which one I settled on. It has a very unique CDU with a full database of all airports and approaches with all runways. Kinda handy to have in the cockpit with you. I think it flies OK, who knows for sure. It was built for FS9 before it was built for real. I asked one of the English superior repainters to do the show off paint from the big Farnbourough airshow last year. He nailed it in about 24 hours and has it at his site for downloading. A simple search will find it. It also needs the prop fix for the clouds.If you buy it, PM me and Iwill send you my manual.Ray

Al and Ray,Many thanks. I think I'll pass on this versionCheerserich