Yayyyyy!😁😁

I had the £40 set aside since the A319 and A321 were announced. I already asked my girlfriend for some sim time on release date. Had to take her to a weekend getaway, but well...

I'm on vacation next week with a few days of forecast rain...this would be a great way to spend those!

This is wonderful news...

I had a feeling most of the deep development work was done on the A320 and that it would probably not take long for the A319 and A321 to come out.  I thought I was wrong and was thinking Christmas if we are lucky but it looks like Christmas is coming early this year!

My wallet is burning up.  I think the PMDG 777F is dropping in a few weeks and I have a sneaking suspicion the PMDG MAX will come soon after!

3 hours ago, longhaul747 said:

had a feeling most of the deep development work was done on the A320 and that it would probably not take long for the A319 and A321 to come out.  I thought I was wrong and was thinking Christmas if we are lucky but it looks like Christmas is coming early this year!

And they already spoilered the sharklets, which apparently are not far away either. Eat that FSL!

1 minute ago, Fiorentoni said:

Eat that FSL!

Oh come on. Did they do you any harm? I hope FSL is surprising us in a positive way.

finally! some airbuses!

aren't these just longer/shorter versions of what we already have?

Fenix are an incredible developer, I'm a very happy owner of the 320, but it's very hard to get excited about this

I rank it up there with the bizarre fascination with sharklets

5 minutes ago, EGLD said:

finally! some airbuses!

aren't these just longer/shorter versions of what we already have?

Fenix are an incredible developer, I'm a very happy owner of the 320, but it's very hard to get excited about this

I rank it up there with the bizarre fascination with sharklets

Each to their own, it’s more of an excitement to experience these aircraft in a modern simulator. 
 

Even real world pilots get excited to pilot new planes in the sim that they can’t get their hands on irl. 
 

Bring on the a321!

50 minutes ago, EGLD said:

finally! some airbuses!

aren't these just longer/shorter versions of what we already have?

Fenix are an incredible developer, I'm a very happy owner of the 320, but it's very hard to get excited about this

I rank it up there with the bizarre fascination with sharklets

I thought the same too when we started actually! I was wrong. Very wrong. Even if the expansion is not your cup of tea, if you're an aviation enthusiast I did a rather detailed write-up of the differences between the A319/A320/A321 most of us simmers seem to miss, and why they require a different approach to flying:

https://fenixsim.com/blog/entries/2024-08-15_introducing_a319_and_a321/
 

Quote

Before starting this project, I naively figured the A319 and A321 were akin to the 737NG family; a bit of stretching, bit of cut-and-shunting, but otherwise the same. Turns out, there’s a heck of a lot of differences and compromises that all come together to make the piloting experience (mostly) seamless across the family. Mostly. More on that later…

Back in the 1970s, when everything was brown and yellow, and the A320 wasn’t even an Airbus, but part of the Joint European Transport programme, some bright sparks decided the 737 was outdated (I wonder what they’re thinking 50 years later) and needed some modern competition. Even this early on there were plans for 3 distinct variants: SA1, SA2, SA3. Small Aeroplane 1, Small Aeroplane 2, and Smal- what? Oh. Single Aisle 1, Single Aisle 2, and Single Aisle 3. After some faffing about with something called an A340, Airbus eventually took the reins and designated SA1, SA2, and SA3, the A319, A320, and A321 respectively.

Sensibly, Airbus hedged their bets and selected the A320 as their initial foray into single aisle aircraft. With an intended 150 seats, they figured most of their homework would apply to the 125 seat A319 and 180 seat A321. After a prolonged development period, the A320 flew in early 1987, to which airlines responded by throwing large sums of cash at Airbus pleading for them to, “go on, do another one.”

Their Shrek 2 of the series was the A321. The fuselage was relatively easy for the most part: add a couple plugs front and aft the wing and delete the small overwing exits in favour of larger ones fitted in the new plugs – though the window spacing for the original overwing exits remain. The wing, however, would be a bit more of a challenge, as early on it was realised an unmodified A320 wing would be quite compromising for performance, and limit its competitiveness with the freshly incoming Boeing 737-400, and established success story, the 757-200. Some low hanging fruit was picked off, which eventually became the cross-family ‘Lift Enhancement Package’ (we’ll get onto this later), but it was obvious more significant changes would be required. Double-slotted trailing edge flaps were designed and fitted along with some subtle changes increasing wing area by about 4%, helping a wing originally designed for a 70-ton airliner lift nigh-on an extra 15 tonnes – though this came with a penalty of additional weight and complexity. This same wing (albeit with some further flap modifications) is now working even harder on the 101-ton A321XLR, leading to take-off speeds that are just shy of tyre speed limits.

Now back to the A321CEO – the extra weight meant extra thrust would be needed to meet expected performance criteria. This was achieved on both the IAE and CFM engines through some minor modifications and an increased maximum N1. All would be well until a new noise directive due to come into effect in 2006 left the A321’s CFM56 variants just slightly over the limit, requiring some remedial action to keep it in line with the rest of the A320 family. The Acoustic Upgrade Package, launched in 2003, saw chevrons added to the exhaust nozzle and some additional noise suppression material around the reverser nacelles, brought the noise signature back by about 10dB. Airbus offered this as the Noise Reduction Package for the A319 and A320, however uptake was a statistical anomaly. The A321 would make its maiden flight in 1994, and remains a pillar of the A320 family, with the A321NEO/LR/XLR variants selling so well it may even eclipse the A320 in the future.

The A321 has seen usage on a surprisingly broad range of missions over the years, from dense regional and intercity usage to long and thin cross-continent routes that don’t have the year-round demand to justify a widebody, such as JetBlue’s nearly 7 hour Boston – San Francisco flight, or WOW Air’s 3300 mile Reykjavik – Tel Aviv. When equipped with the optional Additional Center Tanks (something we will be adding to our A321 down the line!) an A321 is capable of impressive performances including trans-Atlantic flight – though more airlines are using the 321NEO/LR now for these extended range missions.

Airbus’ Shrek 3 was to be the A320M-7, now known as the A319; a relatively easy win for the drawing office as everything bar the fuselage looked safe to reuse. Though there were some subtle changes to the A319 that had come about as part of trying to lower the A321’s pitch attitude during take-off and landing: additional strakes on the outboard engine cowling (rather than just the A320’s inboard cowling strakes), extensions to the inboard spoilers and wing trailing edge, inboard slat enlargement (pretty sure I’ve been offered this in a spam email), and some other minor aero improvements such as a tighter seal between the inboard and outboard trailing edge flaps. Now, if any of that sounds familiar to you, it’s because these modifications became the “Lift Improvement Package”, standard on all A319s and A321s, but weirdly, only an option on the A320 CEO – which didn’t see as much uptake as you’d expect, though is now standard on the A32N. This package is not to be confused with the ‘A320 Enhanced’ improvements that came in around MSN 3000, featuring a reprofiled engine pylon, wing-to-body fairing, and lower drag fuel vents.

Now, those are the improvements they made, let's talk about the compromises. When the designers realised they’d need to shorten the A320 by 7 frames (just over 12ft), they immediately ran into something, almost literally. The cargo doors. The A319 was now so short, half the rear cargo door was now also half the rear wingbox. It’s obvious Pierre in the drawing office did not enjoy this exercise of redesigning the rear cargo door to include some of the rear wingbox, because when he realised the front cargo door would also intersect the wingbox, he did something truly horrific: he shortened the wingbox by about a foot to avoid it intersecting the cargo door… but only on the right-hand side of the aircraft. This asymmetric wonder has evaded most A319 representations in Flight Simulation, until now. May you notice it on every flight. I can only presume this was such a harrowing experience for all involved that no one dared to utter, ''Pierre, what about the bulk-cargo door?”, which is entirely missing from the A319. At least they could remove one of the overwing emergency exits for a bit of weight and complexity saving. Well, until easyJet rocked up and asked Pierre if he would be so kind as to put them back. Poor Pierre.

Thrust would yet again be provided by the IAE V2500 and CFM56-5 engines, this time with a healthy derate to keep would-be 757 pilots in their place. The A319 would take to the skies for the first time in mid-1995, and launch into a market that, in the end, wasn’t really looking to replace its 120-seat 737s, BAC-111s with like-for-like, and instead mostly opted for the slightly more economic A320. However, the A319, with all the lift improvements from the A321 development, and overall lower weight, did allow it to find use on some unique routes across the world into ‘marginal’ airports. Druk Air send them into Paro, Volotea into Florence, and BA chucked an A319 into Guernsey for the lead up to the London 2012 Olympics. These days more than ever, A319s are utilised on field-limited missions that are just slightly too uncomfortable in an A320 CEO.

Now, let’s say you’re an operator with the full house, A319 through A321, what do your crew need to know? Well, the good news is Airbus worked very hard to try and keep them all as alike as possible from an operations perspective, so the list of ‘gotchas’ is quite short, but there is this annoying phenomenon known as ‘physics’ that can muddy things. Starting on the ground, taxiing a lightly loaded IAE A319 can be somewhat like walking a greyhound that just heard a car backfire: if you’re heads down in the MCDU for more than a few seconds during the taxi you’ll have gathered enough speed to practise your “V1” callout. And don’t think riding the brakes is the answer either. In fact, poor management of this on long taxis can lead to uncomfortably high brake temperatures by the time you reach the runway. Thankfully Airbus have a recommended procedure: allow the speed to increase to 30 knots, then brake back down to 10 knots. This will be the most thermally efficient way to keep the speeds managed. On the opposite end of the spectrum, when moving off after pushback a heavy CFM A321 will have you worried about blowing the ground equipment away. And on the subject of the A321, the distance you sit ahead of the main landing gear means you’ll need to be quite careful when turning on narrow taxiways; overshoot the yellow line a tad as you would with a widebody. For the most part, the rest of the flight will feel familiar. The A319 can ride turbulence really rather well, so if you’re in an A321 and hear an A319 on the struggle bus in weather up ahead, get your shoulder straps on now.

Into the descent you’ll notice a trend: the A321 doesn’t slow down, and the A319 slows down a bit too much. One would be forgiven for thinking Airbus didn’t update the VNAV calculations for these two. Once you’re lined up on final, click the AP off and start flying, the differences slowly start to come through, though not in the way you might expect. Remember how the A319 slows down too much in the descent? Well, once fully configured on final it’ll pull the Uno reverse card on you and keep hold of its speed like an ATP to a false localiser signal. Other than that, the A319 will just feel like a really light A320, and the A321 a really heavy one. But don’t let this lull you into a false sense of security; the A321 specifically requires a bit more management into the flare for two reasons. Firstly, you’ll be coming in with more inertia, so the usual “idle and pull” at 30ft isn’t going to give you enough time to arrest the descent. Instead, you’ll want to flare a little bit earlier, and a little bit less, even (the opposite is true for the A319: pull the power out later, and flare more). This leads us onto the second A321 specific behaviour: you’ll need to land tail-minded, as that extra long fuselage also means a tail-strike is at a worryingly low pitch of 9.5 degrees. Holding it off for a butter or overcorrecting for a sudden gust will inevitably lead to the FWC yelling “PITCH! PITCH!” as it frets over the possibility of something non-rubber contacting the runway.

We’re not finished yet, however. Something else to consider is braking – if the A319 is about managing the brakes on the departure, the A321 is about managing brakes on arrival. The A321 has virtually the same brakes as the A319, but lands about 15 tonnes heavier and 20 knots faster. So you’ll need more braking force for the same level of deceleration, from a higher speed. Brake temperatures in the A321 can be a challenge, especially in hotter climates with short runways; be mindful of how long you’re booked on the ground, and consider rolling to a further exit or relying on a higher reverse thrust setting to keep the brakes cool.

For me personally, when we embarked on the A319 & A321, I was dead certain I’d pretty much exclusively fly the A321, and leave the A319 for the odd easyJet flight, but having spent a lot of time flying both now I must admit I was wrong. The A319 quietly became my favourite without even noticing. The louder engine noise in the cockpit, the ability to chuck it down in some seriously tight airports, and the ease of taxiing about with a bit more speed than perhaps I should without scrubbing the nosewheel as I’m liable to do in a heavy A321. I’m not the only one either, as we track our testers we noticed an immediate flock to the arguably more popular A321, then over time, a drift towards the A319 - there is a charm to it that’s difficult to describe until you’ve done a few sectors with it. I’m really happy we’re sending out both as a single package, because I think you might just join me on team short-bus. Am I allowed to say that Aamir? Aamir…?

Wall of text, but just for those who'd rather not leave the site 🙂

Edited August 18, 20241 yr by FNX_Dave
added context

1 hour ago, FNX_Dave said:

For me personally, when we embarked on the A319 & A321, I was dead certain I’d pretty much exclusively fly the A321, and leave the A319 for the odd easyJet flight, but having spent a lot of time flying both now I must admit I was wrong. The A319 quietly became my favourite without even noticing. The louder engine noise in the cockpit, the ability to chuck it down in some seriously tight airports, and the ease of taxiing about with a bit more speed than perhaps I should without scrubbing the nosewheel as I’m liable to do in a heavy A321. I’m not the only one either, as we track our testers we noticed an immediate flock to the arguably more popular A321, then over time, a drift towards the A319 - there is a charm to it that’s difficult to describe until you’ve done a few sectors with it. I’m really happy we’re sending out both as a single package, because I think you might just join me on team short-bus. Am I allowed to say that Aamir? Aamir…?

Personally I’m waiting on the a321 but I have a feeling I might gravitate toward the a319, I have a personal spot for that plane.
 

The last time I went on a holiday I was 14 or 16 (now 33), life and business commitments took over my world (happy to say my company was acquired and now work in aviation, feeling much more relaxed), back on track, I was on gulf air Sydney to Istanbul, a340-300 (got a cockpit visit at night) to Bahrain and 319 to Istanbul. Rejected take off out of Bahrain, nothing like sitting on the tarmac in an oven while engineers work on the left engine at one of the hottest places in the world.
 

Naturally I was never scared of flying so it was all exciting to me. Best part is, we can have both in the sim right 🤣 Have a feeling the a320 might be left behind though… 

Edited August 18, 20241 yr by rick celik

 @FNX_Dave thank you for your article, lots of useful and interesting info.

A question, any idea when Simbrief profiles will be available? Looking forward to start configuring some registrations... 😉

1 hour ago, FNX_Dave said:

I thought the same too when we started actually! I was wrong. Very wrong. Even if the expansion is not your cup of tea, if you're an aviation enthusiast I did a rather detailed write-up of the differences between the A319/A320/A321 most of us simmers seem to miss, and why they require a different approach to flying:

https://fenixsim.com/blog/entries/2024-08-15_introducing_a319_and_a321/
Wall of text, but just for those who'd rather not leave the site 🙂

Still no mention of the A318

58 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

Still no mention of the A318

It`s a stand alone product for another £40..😂

cheers 😉

In my opinion they might all be variations of the same thing but in reality they will all fly very differently.  The A321 (especially the early builds) had its limitations especially in range and hot and high conditions.  The A319 can serve many more airports and fly much further. 

I remember 20 years ago I flew on a US Airways A321 from CLT to SEA and it was November.  So headwinds were insane and we were packed to the gills with passengers.  When boarding I asked the captain if we can make it without a fuel stop?  He said we will need every drop of fuel we got and we were a few pounds over MTOW (for taxi and hold).  Takeoff run was long and climb out was steep but slow.  Flaps stayed down for a while.  When we arrived in SEA I visited again and we had 1800 lbs of fuel left...eek!  I don't think that was even legal.  Later builds were a bit better.  

11 minutes ago, longhaul747 said:

In my opinion they might all be variations of the same thing but in reality they will all fly very differently.  The A321 (especially the early builds) had its limitations especially in range and hot and high conditions.  The A319 can serve many more airports and fly much further. 

I remember 20 years ago I flew on a US Airways A321 from CLT to SEA and it was November.  So headwinds were insane and we were packed to the gills with passengers.  When boarding I asked the captain if we can make it without a fuel stop?  He said we will need every drop of fuel we got and we were a few pounds over MTOW (for taxi and hold).  Takeoff run was long and climb out was steep but slow.  Flaps stayed down for a while.  When we arrived in SEA I visited again and we had 1800 lbs of fuel left...eek!  I don't think that was even legal.  Later builds were a bit better.  

Yeah, the 321 is an interesting beast - we need to do a little more work around the dispatch of it, potentially, as it is quite quirky in that way. CG is one thing, but the other is OEI performance limitations. We had a tester try a KLAS MTOW engine failure @ 42 degrees C. Suffice to say the airplane did NOT make it. After the report came through we did validation on our side and it turned out the sim matched the real aircraft's performance in this scenario very well - and there is no way that the aircraft would have been dispatched with anything close to MTOW. I spoke to a 321 pilot that flies out of KLAS frequently and he agreed that they regularly need to jig the airplane around/offload pax/dispatch limited when it came to operating the 321 out there in the summer. So, I think some folks are gonna forget that and there is currently no warning that the airplane may not make it OEI. Expecting bug reports for that. The other interesting thing he mentioned was that when they did finally depart, despite both engines happily working, they frequently had to ask for forgiveness for not making the altitude restrictions on departure - it couldn't climb quickly enough. 

The A320 would be more than enough for me, but I feel like I'm dealing with people who deserve support to allow for the development of further products, so I'm going to buy the combo and probably have a lot of fun with it.