QW 787 or FS Labs a-320x

[bjablonka8120 29]

I have to make a choice between those 2 planes, which one do you recommend. The more complicated and realistic the better for me. I would appreciate your opinions.

 

Thanks

[klamal 282]

I don't have the QW787 yet(since it doesn't exist for P3Dv4) so I can't completely comment on it first hand...but, I think I can safely say that the FSLabs A320X is THE current most realistic simulation of an aircraft that we have in flight sim overall, not just against the QW787.  The A320X has raised the bar!

[Nuno Pinto 1,397]

They're aimed at completely different things. If you only fly smaller legs (~2000nm) and care for fidelity, A320 without a doubt. If you don't care about systems fidelity that much, then it's up to you to decide depending on value for money and leg length.

[Nyxx 6,993]

They simply is nothing on the market for any sim thats is as complex as the FSL A320.

If you want long Range

PMDG 777 or 747

[ms2 184]

22 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

If you want long Range

PMDG 777 or 747

+1

[Chock 17,769]

I have both, and of them, the FSL A320 is by far the more realistic of the two, and that's not because the QW 787 isn't any good, it's great, but the FSL A320 is the most realistic airliner you can get for either FSX or P3D, nothing even comes close to it.

But be careful what you wish for in terms of realism, don't expect to be leaping into the FSL A320 and knowing it completely in five minutes with a quick tutorial flight, because it is damn near an exact replica of the real thing systems-wise. This is great if that is genuinely what you want, and certainly rewards anyone who takes the time to study it properly, but this means you pay for what you get, which is why it is twice the price of the QW 787, so be sure you are going to use that stuff you are paying for, otherwise you might find the 787 will do what you need if you are wanting a simulation of a new and modern airliner.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

A lot of Airbus fans around here! FSL, PMDG and Majestic all produce high level simulations of the respective aircraft, to say that the A320 is unequivocally better/more complicated/superior to the PMDG and Majestic offereings is a very bold call. They all model complex systems, it comes down to the type of aircraft you want to fly. 

I don't have the Majestic Q400 - only because it isn't available in P3D v4 yet. I have the PMDG 737,747 and 777, and the FSL A320 in P3D v4. Of these planes, I'd personally go with the 747 QOTSII. All four aircraft have their own strengths and weaknesses, but the QOTSII is just a wonderful plane to fly.

I imagine that I'll get the QW787 when it becomes available, I think it would be interesting to fly that type, but the timeframe for P3D availability is a bit of an unknown, hence my comments on the currently-available (or very-soon available, in the case of the Q400) planes mentioned above.

[Chock 17,769]

34 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

A lot of Airbus fans around here! FSL, PMDG and Majestic all produce high level simulations of the respective aircraft, to say that the A320 is unequivocally better/more complicated/superior to the PMDG and Majestic offereings is a very bold call. They all model complex systems, it comes down to the type of aircraft you want to fly. 

Yup, they do all model complex systems, but none model those complex systems quite to the obsessive level which FSL did with their A320. Some of that is because the A320 is an inherently more complex aeroplane than most others, what with it having five different flight control systems and an operational ethos which sees it use more automation and system monitoring than most airliners. Which is among the reasons why it took ages for any developer to pull it off successfully to that level of detail, but a lot of it is down to the minutiae too, which FSL also went mental on, taking that stuff way past where they needed to in order to have an acceptable product.

However, that's not necessarily all a plus point. Complexity at any cost was not always the wisest choice in terms of VAS management for FSX, and we've seen wonders in that regard with PMDG's 747-400, which has the management of VAS down to a masterful level, which could well be seen as the smarter move and certainly was when we were stuck in 32 bit land, but the fact that FSL were perhaps less concerned with that does now mean FSL have done the bulk of the work necessary to enable a port over to a base platform where that virtual address space allocation is less of an issue, at least in terms of not potentially crashing the sim. It is worth bearing in mind however, that although complexity won't crash your P3D V4, your sim will still be handling more data with that A320 than it would be with any other flight sim add-on, and much of that stuff is simulating things which a pilot might never notice or ever really need to be concerned with.

In actual fact, I prefer the 737 and always have since I like having a steering wheel instead of a something which looks like it is off an Atari console from 1987 to drive the plane, and will never be a fan of being forced into using my left or right hand depending on which seat I'm in on the real thing (thank you Boeing 787 for not going with that), but I have to acknowledge that the FSL bird is the present pinnacle of managing to pull off a realistically simulated airliner on an ESP platform nonetheless, simply by virtue of how obsessively far they went with the notion when doing that, I'm just glad it has made it to P3D V4, where we might actually be able to use it without the sim exploding when we throw a couple of other complex add-ons into the mix too lol.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

It's 2017, VAS is not a consideration for a simmer ever again, unless you're into retro stuff! :)

i know its popular in some quarters to claim that the A320 is the most advanced. It's hard to prove, and I think that the other companies I mentioned above could mount a convincing counter arguement.

the A320 for v4.1 is also still very raw. VR crashes it, cockpit shadows dont work and the performance is decidedly sluggish.

 

[skelsey 765]

2 hours ago, Chock said:

and will never be a fan of being forced into using my left or right hand depending on which seat I'm in on the real thing (thank you Boeing 787 for not going with that)

People keep saying this about the A320, but it makes absolutely no logical sense. 

Given that any time you are hand flying you ought to have one hand on the thrust levers, it's pretty awkward to fly a B787 from the LHS with your right hand on the yoke, or indeed a B737 from the RHS with your left hand on the yoke. I went flying with a friend today in a three-axis microlight with sticks between the knees: I still had to use my right hand to fly it from the RHS so my left hand could be on the throttle and vice-versa for my mate in the LHS.

The whole left hand/right hand thing is a complete red herring IMHO; and of course the massive advantage of the sidestick is that you get a lot more room and a nice table to do your paperwork/eat your dinner off!

[Chock 17,769]

1 minute ago, skelsey said:

People keep saying this about the A320, but it makes absolutely no logical sense. 

Given that any time you are hand flying you ought to have one hand on the thrust levers, it's pretty awkward to fly a B787 from the LHS with your right hand on the yoke, or indeed a B737 from the RHS with your left hand on the yoke. I went flying with a friend today in a three-axis microlight with sticks between the knees: I still had to use my right hand to fly it from the RHS so my left hand could be on the throttle and vice-versa for my mate in the LHS.

The whole left hand/right hand thing is a complete red herring IMHO; and of course the massive advantage of the sidestick is that you get a lot more room and a nice table to do your paperwork/eat your dinner off!

Sadly, the advantage of having somewhere nice to eat your croissants, courtesy of that little foldaway table, is somewhat offset by the disadvantage of not being able to tell when your co-pilot is hauling back on his sidestick all the way to the stop and keeping it there in spite of the stall warning sounding 75 times. Nor being aware that he is cancelling out your correct stall recovery procedure sidestick inputs by doing that, which you cannot see because you can't see his control sidestick, so cannot know that it is being held all the way back, that is until a few seconds before impact with the ocean surface, when it finally occurs to the co-pilot to mention to you, just in case it might be important that: 'I've had the stick back the whole time.'

[Anxu00 176]

6 hours ago, Nyxx said:

They simply is nothing on the market for any sim thats is as complex as the FSL A320.

If you want long Range

PMDG 777 or 747

Or use the PMDG 777 or 747 Cargo.  That's what I do.  As for the FSL A320, if I want an AirBus that what's I would go for.  

[vhufo 35]

You beat me to it Chock.

 

[sultanofswing 57]

QW 787 has better textures but the FSLabs A320 is more realistic.

[skelsey 765]

11 hours ago, Chock said:

Sadly, the advantage of having somewhere nice to eat your croissants, courtesy of that little foldaway table, is somewhat offset by the disadvantage of not being able to tell when your co-pilot is hauling back on his sidestick all the way to the stop and keeping it there in spite of the stall warning sounding 75 times. Nor being aware that he is cancelling out your correct stall recovery procedure sidestick inputs by doing that, which you cannot see because you can't see his control sidestick, so cannot know that it is being held all the way back, that is until a few seconds before impact with the ocean surface, when it finally occurs to the co-pilot to mention to you, just in case it might be important that: 'I've had the stick back the whole time.'

If only someone had thought of an accepted aviation convention for ensuring that only one guy is flying at a time (oh wait -- "I have control"). If only Airbus had thought of a way to remove the other guy's inputs from the equation any time you take over control? (Oh wait -- that's what the priority takeover pushbutton is for). Etc...

A discussion of AF447 is beyond the scope of this thread, but suffice to say that I am far from convinced that interconnected sidesticks or yokes in front of the pilots would have made an iota of difference (after all, everybody said how terrible it is that the thrust levers don't move, but they didn't make a lot of difference on EK521). There are many issues around AF447, but IMHO it had much more to do with attention tunnelling, inappropriate focus on the unhelpful FD commands that kept disappearing and reappearing, the unhelpful way in which the stall warning operated (let's face it, if you make an input that causes the stall warner to operate and reversing that input stops the stall warner, what conclusion are you going to reach?) and a complete lack of communication and assertiveness from the crew than it did the flight control configuration. Aircraft equipped with yokes have been stalled in to the ground with the control column full back as well.

In any case, I still don't really see how Airbus force you to use a particular hand any more than any other manufacturer, unless Boeing have started installing outboard thrust lever quadrants?