Hello,I saw that Abacus just introduced their A380. Did I read that correct, "fly before you buy" and it's only $10. for the download? I'm skeptical of Abacus ever since my last purchase several years ago with "Sky Ranch", this was after several other disappointments with them.I wonder what that little program is they want to install to try other products when you go for the "fly before you buy" deal. I'll let someone else take the first leap. I am curious as to how good it can be for only $10. Maybe they're finally charging what they're worth.Sincerely,Hans Groenewold

No offense to Abacus, mostly because I cannot model worth ####, but the model doesnt not look very good, I would not pay for it at all.

If I would be able to demo it before purchasing it that only sounds good to my ears :).Anyway since they charge 10$ they are probably not aiming on the same market as those 50$ addons even though most of these are quite heavily over priced :)Anyway amazing how many A380 addons they are spewing out so quickly and so few of the smaller airbuses :(

Hello Hans,I have never bought anything from Abacus in the past but I've heard horror stories about the quality of their products.And after I saw the pictures of the A380 on their webpages, I guess I'm letting it be still the same way - I won't probably spend a buck on that. The panel rather looks like freeware and there are better freeware models here in the AVSIM library.I'm more curious about the upcoming A380 from Wilco, though I'm a little sceptical since A320PIC was a disaster (IMO).Well, I would rather see if the developers focus on existing aircraft though. I can't image that Airbus will share A380 data with anyone at this moment.Bye

I've bought Abacus planes years ago for FS2000. At that time they were considered to be pretty decent. It might buy this A380 - just for fun. It's only $10, and you'll probably get exactly what you paid for. They do offer a free trial before you buy. ricardo

Yeah a free trial I will definiatly give it ;)

Heh heh, the try before you buy routine works best for musthaves. This poor thing will never stay in your harddisk for more than 7 days, so the only use you can have for it is to get an idea of the size of this aircraft. The model is ... well ... ok, but the panel really takes you back to fs98-days. And the fact that you can litterally switch it on and fly is not the challenge you look for if your'e an mildly advanced simmer.Let's hope that some serious company (Phoenix???) will make a 380, I'll wait :)brEagle

Abacus' Corporate and Private Pilot were enjoyable programs with very decent planes. Sky Ranch sucked, and I've had mixed feelings about some of Abcus' overall quality with all the good freeware and payware out there. I REALLY WANT A GOOD AIRBUS 380 WITH EXCELLENT PANEL AND SOUNDS. I just don't know if this is it! The panel looks funky, but the outside view of the model doesn't look half bad. I just can't wait for some reviews on this plane. If they're good, I might buy it for $10, and get a panel in the future.

I don't mean to sound negative, but it doesn't even look like good freeware. I'm just spoiled I guess.

Thanks for reminding me, I also had the Wilco A320, another sound investment. I had almost forgotten about that slideshow.Hans

Judging by it's price, I wouldn't expect much, but then again, if it's 66% of PMDG's Beech 1900D then it might be priced just right.I would not expect the same level of detail as a PMDG or other high end add-on plane, but judging from the photo in flug review (flug-revue.rotor.com/FRheft/FRHeft04/FRH0401/FR0401c.htm) (add www. to the front) it looks "reasonably" close (although I could do without the baby blue color of the panels). (Note that the 2d panel on Abacus' website has a bunch of 2d windows overlayed to show throttle quadrant and overhead view)Remember this is not designed to be a big systems simulation, so you probably get what you pay for, and for $10.00 and a free trial period, it's hard to go wrong. (that is unless it's totally broken)

I take it all back. 5 minutes was all I needed. 1. Cockpit Fonts are horrible. 2. Frame rates are a joke. This plane is the worst frame rate hog I have ever flown. Other planes, including FS default and Opensky airbus with default 777 panel have 20+ frames in Honolulu. This plane it 14 max with the average being 12.3. Unoptimized cockpit caused texture loading pauses when switching views in the 2d cockpit.4. Altimeter fails to show "thousands" only hundreds are visible.5. When changing between planes, FS9 crashes to desktop. This may be caused by the module loaded to keep reminding you it is a trial plane and needs a key. Otherwise, if you switch from this plane to another and back to this plane, you get an "error" and are forced to restart FS9.I used to like Abacus, but it's clear that the improvement in freeware has left this company in the dust. It's a shame, but a tribute to the quality of fine freeware authors we have available now. In a word, thank goodnes for DSL because I would of hated to think I blew 3 hours downloading this in dialup.

This company IMO is targeting folks that don't know much about this hobby. FS "newbies" are probably thinking that this trash is great. When I first started out, the idea of anything resembling a "real" airliner was enough, until I found sites like AVSIM and FS.com. There are probably thousands of new FSimmers that are thinking that this is as good as it gets......How can we spread the word?

I can handle faulty flight models, since I could not tell a "realistic" flight model if it bit me in the hind end. I can even handle some sophmoric panel graphics. But there is no excuse that this "plane" performs so poorly. I don't have a "model" system, but there is not enough to the A380 to make it perform this bad. That's the unforgivable sin. Now if I can only delete this abacus "registration" module. I thought they would delete it when I "uninstalled" the plane. No such luck.

Yes, that's true. I remember when I was starting with flight simming in FS2000, I have flown default 7x7 aircraft and I thought it's really cool. It has never gotten boring to me and if I got something like this Abacus A380, I would just say "wow, that rooocks!". But then I was looking for more information about FS and found these pages where were some reviews of commercial add-ons. So I tried to buy one and then I said "what a piece of garbage are the default airplanes!". I also think Abacus is focused to less experienced flight simmers and after all 10 USD is OK.