13 minutes ago, btacon said:

Friend, you are quite out of touch. The collective judgement on FBW and the FBW team of volunteers is that the FBW a320 and upcoming a380 are probably the most ambitious and successful freeware package ever created for a flight simulator. 

Now I’m curious as to what would have motivated you to provide such an uninformed comment?

-B

Wait! That is what I have heard and while I have not flown the FBW I have tended to hear very good things about it; which is why I was surprised by Nuno Pinto's comment that: "Some people actually believe the FBW resembles an A320 in operation." And I was asking why?

A likely reason is the FBW does not have failures. The level of verbosity in the general alerts is higher in the Fenix. For example, when flipping the engine cutoff on, there is alerting around making sure the throttles are idle. I expected the transition from the FBW to the Fenix to be fairly easy, but the number of "wait, what is beeping now?" is higher in the Fenix.

It does not help that even FBW admits the "stable" branch is very out of date. The experimental has at least the VNAV stuff. RNAV is not active in any FBW build. The problem with experimental build is it gets updated a lot, and can break things.

I like the FBW a whole lot. Even after flying the Fenix a lot lately, I stand by my general recommendation: if you can afford only one aircraft, buy the PMDG and use the FBW.

This forum post is going about as predictably as it could.

to the OP, glad you enjoyed your purchase. Fenix has really set the bar for modelling and texturing.

A likely reason is that the aircraft doesn't even have a (properly) working VNAV. And LNAV. And predictions of any kind which can be trusted. And the engine model is wrong if i want to start picking on visual things. Oh and the cockpit 😑

I don't like talking about FBW's 320 because it's like opening a can of worms, people love the aircraft because it has an electronic flight bag and it's free, and will completely go out of their way to defend it, it's like pushing a boat with a rope, i already regret it.

Hopefully the A380 will be something to remember, we'll see.

3 minutes ago, Nuno Pinto said:

A likely reason is that the aircraft doesn't even have a (properly) working VNAV. And LNAV. And predictions of any kind which can be trusted. And the engine model is wrong if i want to start picking on visual things. Oh and the cockpit 😑

I don't like talking about FBW's 320 because it's like opening a can of worms, people love the aircraft because it has an electronic flight bag and it's free, and will completely go out of their way to defend it, it's like pushing a boat with a rope, i already regret it.

Hopefully the A380 will be something to remember, we'll see.

I think the FBW has a tremendous value for the community. The only other free, decent, airliner is the a310 which is an old airplane. The FBW is a fantastic way to get the feel for what is involved in flying a modern airliner. It was hands-down helpful for me to make the transition to tubeliners from GA aircraft.

2 minutes ago, BrammyH said:

I think the FBW has a tremendous value for the community. The only other free, decent, airliner is the a310 which is an old airplane. The FBW is a fantastic way to get the feel for what is involved in flying a modern airliner. It was hands-down helpful for me to make the transition to tubeliners from GA aircraft.

Well, in all fairness, it is the best free Airbus we've ever had, and each person has its own level of enjoying the sim. I was probably too hard on it.

The FBW is modelled from the default A320 NEO and it did improve it considerably, it's not a faithful representation of an A320 NEO, but it's not THAT far off either. I guess that if they keep on working on it and fix the issues with the systems and model as well, it might become a trustable NEO even for the more demanding simmers. Time will tell.

I didn't mean to take value away from it, but please don't compare it to the Fenix which is an entirely different thing.

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

To be honest, I have no idea if that is simulated on any platform.

It’s been years since I’ve flown the queen the majestic beauty that I miss…. But I recall the pmdg 747 having engine wobble. 
 

Also, I agree the fenix is a masterpiece and some work needs to be done, which is in the works. 

5 minutes ago, Ridvan Celik said:

It’s been years since I’ve flown the queen the majestic beauty that I miss…. But I recall the pmdg 747 having engine wobble. 
 

Also, I agree the fenix is a masterpiece and some work needs to be done, which is in the works. 

I know it’s not in the public’s hands yet but the FBW 380 has physics based engine wobble. So got that to look forward to.

Edited April 7, 20233 yr by Lucky38i
Grammar

1 minute ago, Nuno Pinto said:

Well, in all fairness, it is the best free Airbus we've ever had, and each person has its own level of enjoying the sim. I was probably too hard on it.

The FBW is modelled from the default A320 NEO and it did improve it considerably, it's not a faithful representation of an A320 NEO, but it's not THAT far off either. I guess that if they keep on working on it and fix the issues with the systems and model as well, it might become a trustable NEO even for the more demanding simmers. Time will tell.

I didn't mean to take value away from it, but please don't compare it to the Fenix which is an entirely different thing.

Fair enough .. 

I came from cobbling together panels and Project Opensky A330/747 models  where not much systems wise  worked ( whats a mcdu ?) took a long break since i could not happily run FSX and re started simming with MSFS 2020. 

For me learning how to properly fly the A320 was a careful and gradual process of learning the default A320 then moving to the FBW stable and then the Experimental with their "VNAV". In the quest of wanting to learn more i wholeheartedly jumped into the PMDG and FENIX offerings. 

But while the FBW may not be presently at the level of the Fenix i still appreciate FBW and be forever grateful to them for helping me along the road of being a more discerning simmer. Hopefully they will move the needle further along to the point where systems wise there is not much between the two. 

4 hours ago, jcomm said:

Have the Fenix already fixed the Steering disconnect button logic?

It's like that for a reason.

I think they're so close you can;t tell any difference. The FBW has a better EFB if you ask me, it's just simple and effective. Both planes are great.

42 minutes ago, carlanthony24 said:

It's like that for a reason.

Yeah and at the end of the day, it’s not simulated according to the real thing.

Like I said its for a reason just like FSLabs did it.

The FBW has better sounds.  Overall, the Fenix is a much more complete offering to me.  I could see things weren't modeled in the FBW after one flight and it bugged me.  Every add-on has some downsides to it.  I like the Fenix and don't see how anyone could complain.

There's four pages of opinions here.....I'll come back in 8 pages and see if anybody is closer to agreeing in which one is better. 

You only had to read the first post of this thread to know it was going to turn into another  "one is better than the other"