A short while ago, I'd posted about my remembrances of the A340, as I recalled them from my (long-haul) travel experiences with Lufthansa, over an active period that had lasted for two decades. In that post, I'd done a bit of back-of-the-envelope type calculations to determine the number of times I flew on the A340, also aided by somewhat better memory function of my better half...🙂...since my such travel has been now dormant for about a decade or so. That calculation was partly motivated by an A340 article I'd read by the famed travel blogger and photographer Sam Chui, who had travelled 50+ times on that specific Airbus type. So, being the (much-less-famous) virtual photographer that I'm here in the Avsim Forum...🙂...but still undaunted, I'd wished to know my own A340 count...🙂...Omitting my occasional flights on the DC-10 and the MD-11, most of my oceanic crossings were performed by one of these 4 types (B747, A330, A340, B777). 

I'd calculated my utilization of the individual types as follows: 
"Using a rough 2-decade period of active international travel from U.S. to east/far-east, and assuming 2 roundtrips per year (i.e., 4 flights per year), it gave me 80 flights. Typically, on such long-haul trips, there would be two legs per each flight (correctly pointed out by my better half) since rarely ever I've travelled on marathon (non-stop) flights (that exhausting (knee-numbing) mode of travel not being my preference). So, as guesswork, I divided the total of the 160 flight-legs equally among my 4 major means of long-haul conveyance (330/340/747/777), and concluded that I must have travelled on each of these 4 types about 40 times...so, nearing the vicinity of Sam Chui's (magic) half-century mark but not there...Close, but No Cigar...as they say...🙂...Oh well...

The A330 is a plane I'm immensely grateful to, in my life's adventures, also the subject of my post here. I must have travelled on it ~40 times. All these A330 flights were flown exclusively with Lufthansa (the A330/A340 been not common among U.S. carriers). Lufthansa's fleet history shows a cumulative total deployment of 15 A330s (5 A330-200s and 10 A330-300s). I distinctly recall being on both types, with probably twice as many passages on the -300 variant than with the -200 variant. Thinking back now to my cumulative travels, I've had a few close calls of safety concerns e.g., in an MD-11, high above Atlantic, with severe turbulence, and another rather disturbing encounter in a (smaller) A320, somewhere in Asia, while being tossed about inside the tropical (dark) clouds of an impending thunderstorm. However, for the A330, fortunately, I cannot recall even one such (untoward) incidence. All my A330 flights were routine, smooth, and nothing out-of-ordinary to remember by, which is probably a good thing for frequent air-travelers...🙂...Each and every time, the A330 transported me across the far oceans and lands, safely, efficiently and comfortably. One occasion that comes to mind was reaching 40,000 ft+ altitude that I had observed (during my awake state...🙂...) only during an A330 flight (typically the altitudes would be between 35,000 ft to 38,000 ft, as I recall). So, that was the highest ever (recorded) altitude of ethereal suspension of my life above Mother Earth. 

Today, I checked FlightAware for a Lufthansa flight between Chicago and Frankfurt, as a typical example of an A330 flight from my past but could not find any with an A330 (Lufthansa now seems to deploy the A340 not A330 on this route). So, instead, I found several flights with the A340 for both (EDDF->KORD) and (KORD->EDDF). To simulate with my A330-200 here, I picked one RW flight from KORD to EDDF, which is actually en-route in mid-flight today as I write this. BTW, I noticed that the (RW) track for (EDDF->KORD) i.e., the west-bound flight, drifted upward on the Atlantic Ocean to nearly skim the southern tip of Greenland, whereas for (KORD->EDDF) i.e., the eastbound flight, dipped significantly lower on the Atlantic Ocean (away from Greenland), possibly due to Jetstream considerations. The SimBrief FlightPlan too gave me a route curvature closely resembling this RW (KORD->EDDF) flight. I've uploaded this SimBrief FlightPlan into the MCDU via the EFB of this a/c. Use of the Navigraph website-based verification of the Code generated by the EFB of this a/c, and then a syncing of the FlightPlan on the EFB, conveniently transferred the entire SimBrief FlightPlan into my on-board MCDU. 

I flew at 33,000 ft, just as for today's RW flight. The (RW) distance was 4,300 miles, and the (RW) flight duration was 8 hr 24 mins. The (RW) flight number was LH433, just as what I recall from my past experience. Between North America and Europe, Lufthansa's east-bound flights are typically odd-numbered (e.g. LH433 for KORD->EDDF), and the west-bound flights are even numbered (e.g. LH430 for EDDF->KORD), which flight numbers are ingrained in my memory and have not changed since decades.

Now, a bit about this A330. While debate is razing elsewhere...🙂...in this Forum regarding the merits and de-merits of the newly released Aerosoft A330, I am blissfully unimpacted by it, because first of all, the Aerosoft version, is not yet available for me in the Xbox/marketplace...(somewhat) to my dismay. I would have surely got it, for my own nostalgic reasons for and love of this aircraft...irrespective of (any) lack of fidelity on the part of the developer (though that factor would be surely important for most/many of us simmers). Speaking only for myself, as a non-pilot, an aircraft in my virtual world, has multiple facets of interest, including technical, historical, and emotional, so, sometimes it's acceptable if one facet is lacking...🙂.... Anyway, I spotted today this new item in the Xbox/Marketplace (with that "yellow" sticky) of the LVFR A330-200. So, already been wishing to re-kindle my love affair with the A330 of my past days, I decided to give this SIM a try today, knowing that a (surely) nicer iniBuilds A330 would come by natively to us in MSFS2024. Looking forward to that one too...!  

In the ~40 liveries provided by LVFR's base package; I did not find a Lufthansa livery. So, for this post, I've opted to fly the A330 in the American Airlines colors. American did fly A330s, probably after my active (international) travels, but AA has since supplanted that type by the 787-9s since the Covid pandemic. I recall travels only on American's 777s. Just as the A330 had once lifted me up the highest to ~41,000 ft, the American B777 had once kept me afloat the longest (~18 hours), both types being one-time (engineering) marvels of modern aviation technology....not sure why, but the (evergreen) line of the poem, “Slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God” by John Gillespie Magee, Jr...comes to my mind now...🙂...These aircraft had taken me closer to God...maybe...but I/we wish it were that simple...🙂...

Thanks for viewing this (sample) collection of images of the A330, of my flight segments, from a morning takeoff from Chicago (KORD) and an evening touchdown into Frankfurt (EDDF), the city on river Main, which river you will spot in my pictures below and a river that I always looked forward to on my arrivals there. Meanwhile, here, unmoved from my easy chair, I sip Coffee, and my mind wanders across the world, as I reminisce a bit about my bygone days of (active) long-haul travel...on the Airbus A330-200/-300...an aircraft whose prime time has come and gone, and which is gracefully bowing out of the way now for the young breed of fresh and new faces in the sky...🙂...

The A330 was Airbus's first airliner to offer a choice of three engine types and the LVFR package includes all 3 engines (the pictures below are for RR engines).

Hope you enjoy these pictures of the A330, an a/c that I'll always remember...! Happy flying...!

Great shots, and seems a nice A330 !

cheers 😉

Very nice shots! 😉 

Cracking set of shots!  Cheers,

Calum

pmplayer, Will, Calum (et al.):

Many thanks for the responses...!

It's an interesting story and wonderful pics to accompany it, P_7878. I hope you're happy with the LVFR A 330. 

On 10/10/2024 at 2:56 PM, bernd1151 said:

It's an interesting story and wonderful pics to accompany it, P_7878. I hope you're happy with the LVFR A 330. 

Appreciated the comment, bernd....!

Yes, until a better one comes along (soon hopefully), this one surely works for me and helps me rebuild my (long) memories of the A330...🙂... it looks good too... (I also have their A340, which unfortunately no other developer would take on yet...) ...