AFS-DESIGN - AIRBUS A350 for V4

[glider_uk 17]

Just released, is it any good. Only 20 euros on simmarket.

 

[ErichB 3,642]

Pass

[Chock 17,769]

It's not likely to be very sophisticated. AFS stuff is most definitely on the 'cheap and cheerful' side of flight sim add-ons, some of which are okay, others not quite so great. And whilst I personally think simpler add-ons have their place, some developers are definitely better than others when it comes to putting that ethos into practice, so one has to be careful to sort the wheat from the chaff where such budget offerings are concerned. Thus I would read some reviews of it and examine screenshots carefully.

Most add-ons of this nature tend to be aimed at sim users who want to just 'jump in and go' with an aeroplane which looks pretty nice on external views, but which can be cranked up with a simple Control+E keypress and which will fly a default flight plan utilising the sim's GPS. That might be what you want and in fact many flight simmers do, but where more recent airliners such as the A350 and the B787 are concerned, much of what makes them of interest, is the increased sophistication of the avionics on such modern wonders, and in particular, the use of larger and more numerous PFDs which can display EFB-like information, such as airport charts, checklist menus and SOP manuals.

If one compares for example, the (XPlane 11) Flight Factors A350, the developers of that add-on have had a decent stab at including that kind of increased PFD functionality, whereby one can read the full and very extensive manual for the aeroplane whilst actually in the virtual cockpit and display charts on those PFDs, tickable checklists etc, and so the experience it offers is a bit more like the real thing. By comparison, the AFS A350 can only have the very basic info of a typical PFD or GPS on those screens, but then of course one is paying more for the FF A350 than the AFS one, so more functionality is part of what you are paying for. Having said all that, generally speaking, simpler add-ons do have the virtue of usually getting pretty good frame rates, and if you are inclined to indulge in a bit of DIY, they can usually have some more sophisticated avionics shoehorned into them with the likes of add-ons such as Intergrated SimAvionics etc, but out of the box they are what they are - cheap and cheerful lookalikes with basic avionics functionality more or less on par with default sim aeroplanes.

So if you just want a lookalike of the A350 in your sim which flies much as you'd expect a typical airliner of that size to fly, then for 20 quid it will do the job, but if you are looking for something which replicates how the real A350 is operated, it is unlikely to be what you want. As with everything in life, you tend to get what you pay for.

[Piotr007 166]

Haha.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

Has anyone actually bought it/flown it yet? Flying VR so I have a newly-developed interest in high-performance, pretty-on-the-inside aircraft, systems depth not crucial in this role. 

[YukonPete 586]

5 hours ago, glider_uk said:

Just released, is it any good. Only 20 euros on simmarket.

 

You shouldn't need to even ask if its any good! The price says it all.

[Ian McPhail 55]

Pointless if not built for P3Dv4 and, yes, XP11.  Just a WOFTAM.