Gentlemen, let me explain a little about my situation. Having been flying the FSLABS A320 for the past five or so years I recently built a new system in anticipation of the FENIX A320 for MSFS. From all of your experiences, would it make sense to bite the bullet and try the FBW A320 (in the mean time) or does the FSLABS still hold supreme? My understanding from all the videos I have watched (a-la Blackbox711) the FBW A320 still has its bugs/developments to come but for normal day to day operations it is working fine. 

Can anyone else guide me further, is the FBW a stable replacement at this moment in time? I have begin a table below, feel free to copy/paste/add to it and I will update accordingly. 

Quote

 

FSLabs/Fenix/Fly-by-Wire Comparison Chart:

FSLabs:

Pros:

- Most up to date representation of A320 systems

Cons:

- Ageing and out of date simulation platform (P3D)

Fly-by-Wire

Pros:

- Beautiful visual model inside and out

- Released for MSFS

Cons:

- Systems still not up to date, but foreseen with time

- Crashes from time to time, again foreseen to be fixed with time 

Fenix:

Pros:

- Most up to date representation of A320 systems

Cons:

- Not yet released

 

 

Edited April 9, 20224 yr by Rusty

FBW is free so why not just try it? No, it's obviously nowhere near complete the ~$200 FSL series but only you can decide if it's good enough for your needs. 

That's for sure @Chapstick however I would appreciate your inputs as I am still working on getting MSFS together as a base simulator. (ie: Getting all the addons downloaded and working)

I just happened to do a quick circuit in the FBW yesterday.  It doesn't really compare for my money to the FSLabs at this point, especially with some systems that are really still experimental such as VNAV.  But it's still more than useable and a great way, while waiting of the release of the Fenix, to start spending time with the MSFS interface, which takes some getting used to if you have been using P3D.  I'm not sure what you are downloading in the way of add-ons, but I would suggest studying the MSFS forum here before adding a lot of utilities -- not including stuff like airports.

1 hour ago, Rusty said:

That's for sure @Chapstick however I would appreciate your inputs as I am still working on getting MSFS together as a base simulator. (ie: Getting all the addons downloaded and working)

You literally don’t need the whole world of add-one in MSFS to get it ready to fly, you can test FBW with out of the box MSFS. Once you are done installing MSFS, go to https://flybywiresim.com/ and download the installer. Choose the experimental version which includes their experimental vnav. 

P/S: I kinda think this thread will better asked in MSFS forums.

Edited April 9, 20224 yr by omarsmak30

Should be moved to MSFS forum.

Yes please move to MSFS should have thought about that! Admin is that possible?

Correct I will begin by purchasing only utilities in the sale. Any advice on those, GSX for sure.  Then maybe 3/4 airport sceneries to complete the package. 

1 hour ago, Rusty said:

Yes please move to MSFS should have thought about that! Admin is that possible?

Correct I will begin by purchasing only utilities in the sale. Any advice on those, GSX for sure.  Then maybe 3/4 airport sceneries to complete the package. 

GSX isn't available yet for MSFS. I know that Umberto is working on it but I don't think there's an estimate yet of when it will be released. Look for Ambitiouspilots toolbar pushback. It's a nice freeware\donationware pushback utility.

Huh bite the bullet on a free addon? Lol.... nah don't.

 

Edited April 10, 20224 yr by VBHB

You may be overthinking this a tad. 

Ditch the spreadsheets, install the FBW via the official installer and go have fun! 

Edited April 10, 20224 yr by gb09f

FSLabs - For P3D

Fenix - Not released

FbW - available for free NOW

Case closed. 

I actually like FBW a lot, but honestly use either Toliss or FSL for more serious Airbus playing.

I believe the major probem with any serious add-on in MFS will be the inconsistency in it's flight dynamics model and the incapacity of developers to be able to properly model the main aircraft flight characteristics, at least with the same success possible with the Legacy FM available for P3D.

It's all so far from being correctly / coherently put into the new FM that the aircraft will be difficult to fine tune, and their automatic flight systems will necessarily suffer from that, their last incursion into "CFD" being a total mess and many steps behind... IMO.

The same happens to the "rather simple" gliders, all so poorly modeled in MFS. 

But since it has such remarkable grahics, including weather display and scenery, with smooth performance, I was forced to use it to feel closer to what I see IRL than with other simulation platforms.

Honestly I believe the lack of support for proper aerodynamis and systems modelling ( like turbines ) is what prevents a project like Fenix to be made available. This is only me thinking !

Edited April 10, 20224 yr by jcomm

2 hours ago, jcomm said:

I believe the major probem with any serious add-on in MFS will be the inconsistency in it's flight dynamics model and the incapacity of developers to be able to properly model the main aircraft flight characteristics, at least with the same success possible with the Legacy FM available for P3D.

It's all so far from being correctly / coherently put into the new FM that the aircraft will be difficult to fine tune, and their automatic flight systems will necessarily suffer from that, their last incursion into "CFD" being a total mess and many steps behind... IMO.

You need to listen to the latest interview by Randazzo for PMDG. Randazzo said the flight model of the MSFS PMDG 737 is better than the P3D PMDG 737: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sG5IiTlD3Y&t=1891s

 

Edited April 10, 20224 yr by abrams_tank

I think the flight model of the A32NX is already very very good and it's probably better than some might even think of. I also think that the actual behavior of the fly-by-wire in normal law is very good, so is the behavior of the AP and ATHR (that's based on my personal experience in a Level-D sim). The LNAV is also on a quite good level in terms of guidance. There is a very good simulation of electric and hydraulics, but the potential of this hydraulic simulation is not fully used (i.e. impact of flight control surfaces is just visual).

Areas where the A32NX needs the most work:
- flight management (LNAV, VNAV)
- FWC
- abnormal / failure simulation
- ground friction model

Where I agree on the flight model is, that it's currently very hard to simulate jammed flight control surfaces or flaps with MSFS. There is just no interface for it. This means the simulation can only take place when simulating the visuals correctly and having base loop controllers to use the available surfaces on the flight model to provide you with the expected impact (i.e. reduced roll rates or pitch etc). The kind of the same could maybe be done with slats/flaps. But as you can already imagine, this is a ton of work and very touchy to changes in a sim. I personally consider it to be a wrong turn because it adds a kind of meta flight model on top of the flight model. I'm also not a big fan of custom flight model implementations because it's just not easy to do this and results are not always the best. The FSL for example flies like on rails. That's the reason why I created a request for MS/Asobo to support more control surfaces and to be able to control them individually (https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/idea/5779/proposal-to-support-individual-control-surfaces-fo.html). I think that should be the way to go, fix the flight model of the sim (so all can benefit from it) and not to create workarounds.

One word on the Fenix:
I'm always surprised how people can be sure that it's "Most up to date representation of A320 systems" when the plane is not released. We just don't know it, even for normal flying. We know it when it's released. Looking at the ProSim as base, I'm a bit concerned in some areas...and I hope the Fenix team will be able to fix those things.

Edited April 10, 20224 yr by AGuther

Thanks all some great answers, yes @jcomm lets see when PMDG/FENIX arrive what the state of the depth will be.

@abrams_tank thanks for the interview link!

@AGuther Thanks for the detailed response also! The thing with FENIX is that it runs with PROSIM in the background which is used on some Level D simulators (real world) or fixed based ones, so you can be sure  the depth and fidelity of the systems will be there. How it is packaged and presented in MSFS however remains to be seen. But I know people like Blackbox744 and others are on the BETA so we should be having some good inputs! 

Edited April 10, 20224 yr by Rusty