[I'm delighted with my B2B success, in 2 days, with two (FS2024) iniBuilds airliners (the A321, see my previous post, and the A330, here) flying now so admirably on my (modest) Xbox/TV system...🙂...something I'd thought to be a distant dream, just a week ago, before the Patch. I have no idea what has exactly transpired, but, pre-Patch, these two airplanes simply would not budge from the Apron...while frustratingly also freezing all my peripheral controls in the process...Oh well...things worked out a bit different today...🙂...]

The A330 is an airplane that is dear to me. Of all my transoceanic crossings (shared across 330/340/747/777), for about one-fourth of the number, the transport responsibility had fallen to this stalwart long-hauler. The A330 has two Pax variants: the longer -300 had come first in 1994 and the shorter -200 of this post of mine, here, came 4 years later. I've flown on both variants and have only good (aka routine and uneventful...🙂...) recollections of my flights in the A330. Over a couple of decades of long-haul travel, I had a chance to experience the fleet transition as Lufthansa moved its services from the 744 (LH was the first EU operator to introduce 747 into pax service), through the 330/340, to the 748I (LH was the launch customer of the 748). A330 (and A340) are the reasons LH is a rare long-haul (global) airline operator that never deployed any 777 for Pax service.

Regarding the A330, imagine the excitement in 1994 in the Airbus world, when the middle digit in (3"2"0) would evolve to a "3" for the first time (3"3"0) for service entry of this a/c. Note that the (4-engined) A340 had been already introduced the year before in 1993, and the A330 would share many airframe commonalities with the A340 variant. In the livery of my images below, you'll see the proud marking "More than 1000 A330 delivered", signifying the fact that the A330 was the first ever Airbus wide-body airliner to reach 1,000 deliveries, and was the fourth wide-body of the world to achieve the same milestone after the Boeing (747, 767, and 777) ...

If you might say that the A330-300 competed with some of the 777 variants, the A330-200, seen in the pictures below, looking a bit stockier (and 16 ft shorter in length), compared to the A330-300, was meant to compete with the 767. The A330 was Airbus's first airliner to offer a choice of three engines: the GE CF6, the P & W PW4000, or the RR Trent 700. In the (MSFS2024) launch video, you will spot the "GE CF6" marking on the Engine inlet covers of the KLM A330, before it is seen lifting off the runway. The A330-200, I'm flying here, has, instead, the RR engines (see below close-up shots, for the characteristic shape of the RR Trent 700 engines).

So, after 4 or 5 months of catching glimpses of that impressive (iniBuilds) A330 clip in the MSFS 2024 launch video (and eagerly waiting since), I am finally getting to fly it here today...in the Xbox...🙂...available as a default aircraft of the SIM. Today, it did not fail me, flying flawlessly...from takeoff to touchdown...as I completed a test circuit...lifting off HECA (Cairo) Airport from Rwy 23R and then landing back on the ILS Rwy 05L.

Hope you like these pictures, from my flight today, of this workhorse of a long-hauler airplane that has been in continuous production for over 30 years...and carried on now by its latest 330neo (-800/-900) variants...

Thanks for viewing...!

Very nice set !

cheers 😉

Yes, very nice P_7878. Did not yet try the A330.

Beautiful set! 😉 

pmplayer, Andreas, and Will:

Thanks very much for the comments...🙂...! Cheers...!

Very nice set of shots!

 

Hi Calum: Thanks for the comment...and glad you liked...!

I already have flown the LVFR A330 in MSFS2024, but it was also refreshing to fly here the iniBuilds version of the A330...since it was so prominently featured in the MSFS2024 launch video...🙂...