BenW

To be honest, it's as simple or as time consuming as you want to be. I only fly in FS9 but I do have the iFly 737 NG, not as detailed or as good as the NGX but for the purposes of planning a flight exactly the same. My FS9 has all the bells and whistles; FS2Crew, Pro Flight Emulator ATC, GEX, REX etc. Planning a flight for me means firing up Active Sky and letting it download the current weather. Then I fire up Vroute premium and select a route. I don't have time for sitting there for hours in the cruise so I usually just look for a fun, short hop, say Dublin to Liverpool, around 30-40 minutes tops. Vroute spits out the route with the right SIDS and STARS and I export that into the FMC. Then I fire up TOPCAT, select the departure and arrival runways and it calculates the performance numbers for me so I know I'm not going to be too heavy and run off the runway into Liverpool Bay because I don't have enough room to stop. This information can also be presented on the kneeboard (which I trust still exists in FSX!) inside the VC. Then I fire up the sim at the departure gate. Airliners are 99% of the time already warmed up by the time the crew arrive, so I always begin flights with external power connected, packs running etc so the main task is inputting the information into the FMC and readying the aircraft for flight, a job that takes about 10 mins, tops. Then it's a case of buttoning up the doors, calling AES for pushback and getting her started, taxy out and depart. This is probably about 10mins, depending on how big the airport is! Once in the air I usually engage autopilot after the flaps are up, especially if I'm flying with ATC as I want hands free to climb or turn as what they ask me. Cruise is a matter of looking out of the window and enjoying the view of the Irish Sea until North Wales comes into view and then planning the descent. I'll usually fly this on autopilot until fully established on the ILS with gear and flaps set. A whole flight of this might take 15 mins planning, 40 mins in the air and 10 mins to taxy in and shut down. That's usually enough for me. Hand flying is a funny one. Having flown light aircraft for my PPL and full motion Level D simulators, FS still doesn't give me much sense of actually flying. The cues are all wrong and it's actually much, much easier in a real 737 simulator (I flew BA's 737-400 at Heathrow) to hand fly than in FS as trying to accurately hand fly, operate the MCP and talk to ATC (a task that would be shared in a real airliner) is too hard to be very satisfying IMHO. I'm much more interested in operating the aircraft SMOOTHLY. In real life, autopilot is often punched in very soon after departure, especially in busy traffic environments as it frees up the crew to concentrate on the SID and handle ATC. The same is true of arrival. Rarely are airliners hand flown much in the descent in busy airspace, anyway. I find it much more rewarding to manipulate the aircraft through the MCP with precision all the way to a stable approach and well flown manual landing rather than wobble all over the sky trying to do everything myself. Consequently my hand flying skills have eroded beyond following the magenta line, but if you read PPRUNE you will see that's a consequence of automation. I'd get the NGX and open your mind to a new world that is less about flying and lining up VOR tracks but to one that is about actually OPERATING the aircraft, in the way that the job of the modern pilot does. Flying a 737 NG is about 0.5% VOR tracks and 99.5% management of systems. I find the latter very rewarding when it all comes together.

Might be worth trying at a different airport. Mega Schipol is a well known stinker when it comes to performance.

You should probably just bite the bullet and get your head round the FMC, to be honest. All the proper stuff (PMDG, iFLY, QW 146, Level D) needs to be flown by the numbers if you want to do it properly and the only way to do that is by programming the FMC. The trick with FMC programming is to make it easy on yourself. The hardest bit is probably entering airways and waypoints and then getting them to marry up with the corresponding SID or STAR. If you use something like Vroute Premium it spits out the route and you just enter it the start and end airport codes straight into the 'route' section of the FMC and everything is loaded for you automatically. Vroute even tells you which SID or STAR is most appropriate for the weather and runway in use so you just select those from the 'dep' and 'arr' pages. Nothing to it. The other program that makes FMC programming easy is TOPCAT. It calculates all the performance numbers based on the aircraft weight, runway in use and prevailing weather and all you do is type them in on the PERF and TAKEOFF pages. Once you get up to speed you could program the FMC in about 4-5 mins, tops. Once you understand how the aircraft uses the information from the FMC to fly, you will find that it decreases your workload in the flight deck enormously.

I'd be interested in the answer to this as well. Djerba's terminal seems to kill things stone dead on my system - again like you things become a slideshow.

Nope, Jersey in the Channel Islands which is between the UK mainland and France. Small island populated by rich tax exiles and was the only part of the British isles to be occupied by the Jerries in the war. It's a bit like England but near to France, so the weather is a bit better and they have nice cheeses. Or something like that....

Another vote for PFE. It's certainly a zillion times better than Radar Contact from an immersion point of view, if not quite there in terms ease of use and reliability. There are a few quirks however, in that there must be some language code inside FS which tells it which voice set to use. Flying around the Caribbean for example, throws up some quirks. Some of the islands are French, some are Dutch, some are British but the language you would expect to hear would be West Indian. PFE in its wisdom sees the British sound code for say, Antigua and plays you a clip of the Antigua controller who sounds like he is from deepest Manchester! This does detract from the realism a little but it's still a great programme.

It was on the 'future airports' list on the UK2000 page but seems to have disappeared since. It's a shame as it's a perfect airport for an hour of simming, being only a short hop from all the airports on the South Coast so a busy sector ending in a very challenging short runway to arrive into at 1700m. In fact, I think it's probably the shortest in the UK handling stuff like 737s and A320s. 757s and iirc BA 767s and Tristars have all been in there in the past. When I flew BA's full motion 737-400 sim at LHR I asked the instructor if we could have a few approaches into Jersey, the last one of which she obligingly gave me in moderate turbulence and poor viz. Needless to say the touchdown was 'firm' but I was quite chuffed when she told me that it was 'a darn sight better than most Jersey landings she'd seen'! Let's hope someone does it, I'd buy it in a flash.

It's a real shame that Rob has decided to end his involvement with the AS forums. Thanks to him my A320 became useable again and I for one am incredibly grateful that he gave me a couple of hours of his time for a one on one team viewer session to get it up and running.

Be great if it's true, but it'll take a bit more than updating the website to convince me.

When I jumpseated on a Maersk Air UK 737-500 back in the pre-9/11 days between Birmingham and Milan the pilots made extensive use of VS in the descent. Climbs were generally made in VNAV, with the altitude window set to the next cleared flight level. The skipper explained that FLCH for small changes can be uncomfortable for punters due to the deck angle/engine noise that controlling speed with pitch can give.

I wasn't very impressed with it. The frames were on the lowish side and the oversimplification of certain systems (that I had fully learnt how to use in the LDS 767) was a chore. I also found it very 'pitchy' to fly. The 146 though is absolutely superb.

It's not a level-D sim, but rather a fixed base 'mockup' type. The link to their site is here: http://www.virtual-aerospace.com/737_simulator.html It certainly looks pretty good but it still runs on MS flight simulator so don't expect to be blown away. I've flown lots of sims from home built ones to BA's own 737-400 level-D motion sim and by a long chalk the BA one was the easiest to fly. The visuals, the motion cues and the properly damped controls make it far easier to fly than anything with a fixed base running on flight sim. We had a crack at a turbulent, wet and filthy night into Jersey, which for our non-UK friends is only 1700m long and is nicknamed 'HMS Jersey' by BA crews because it's like landing on a carrier! The turbulence on approach had us bouncing around in our seats and as we taxied in after an (intentional, you don't ever look for a greaser at JSY) firm landing my instructor turned to me and said 'well that was better than most landings I've seen at Jersey!'. I have to admit, I was more than a bit excitable for a few hours after. Still compared to £400 for an hour in BA's sim, it would be a fun day out for £150.

A *LONG* list of missing alphas for Aerosoft's Schipol scenery - you know, the one that runs like a dog, funny that.... Also any users of the Muscat X scenery (which is fairly average as scenery goes, so I've always wondered why it runs poorly) be aware that there's a list of missing alphas as long as your arm for that one too.

Cheers Rafal. I'll give the advice on that thread a try.

I tried Djerba X, looks great but the frame rates are nasty when the terminal is in view. I tried the update and turned off ground shadows but to no avail. Odd that considering it has no ground traffic and it's such a small airport it's so bad on frames. I might reinstall. I had terrible frames with the ifly 737 FP update but that seems to have sorted itself out, as FS9 sometimes does....

I actually found the REX clouds easier on frames than the AS ones, and better looking to boot. Use AS for your weather though, Rex's weather engine is a bit agricultural.

I've reinstalled more than a few times and the advice not to bloat is a good one. I ditched a load of pay ware and freeware on my last install with no regrets.

I love Malaysia. Air Asia X (which is sadly not serving us here in Europe any longer) took us to KL and we took two internal flights with Air Asia and they were great. Certainly better than a certain budget airline with a harp on the tail nearer home ;). The landing in KL in the A340 was the smoothest I've ever felt - he just greased it on. Had it not been for the thrust reverse you'd barely be able to tell we'd landed. The only scenery I have in Asia is FT Kai Tak. Apart from Macau, are there any good add-on airports that are within say an hour's flying time of Hong Kong?

So the robust conversation continues! I've taken a few pics to underline my points from the mini-review. A better shot of the pools of light from the open cargo holds at night: Cockpit lighting integrated, panel and flood Overhead, showing the infamous APU start switch. All the switches move. Engine 2 fire test - note the checklist on the ECAM First officer's side. The seat moves and Rob added a motorised sound to it like the real thing. The windows open and the armrests fold down, as does the jumpseat behind. I do not however like the small headrest! Departure loaded for LEIB. All the required info is contained in the TOPCAT take off and landing report. Oddly TOPCAT has given us V Speeds that are the same! Note that the THR RED altitude on this occasion is 1802 feet and ACC altitude is 3302 feet AGL. When reaching THR RED, we'll move the thrust levers to CLB (climb) and at ACC we'll retract the flaps to zero when the speed builds beyond 'S'. Hydraulics not yet pressurised so the ailerons droop. Rolling down 01L at Menorca. We've selected a de-rate (Flex) of 67, NAV is armed, CLB is armed, you can just about see the 1 of V1, hidden behind the pink triangle of V2 and the green circle of rotate! Quite a stiff wind at LEMH today, 15 kts on the nose. Over on the ND you can see the SID, out to 07 DME off the MHN VOR and then a left turn to track towards NEVIC. Both the MHN VOR and the MN NDB have been selected manually by me on the NAV RAD page. Initial stage of the departure - here we've just pulled up the gear and are climbing at V2+10, around 17.5 degrees nose up. Second stage of the departure - thrust levers have been pulled back into the CLB gate as indicated by the FMA now telling us we're in a THRust CLimB So we're at the top of descent. In fact we've just run a bit past it so it's time to dial down the altitude and press the alt button to do a managed descent. Note that the Airbus does not tell you to descend like your Boeing does.... The first of those Airbus descent modes - fully managed DES where the computer is doing it all and the airspeed will go up and down a bit as the FMGC tries to get us on the profile. As we're above the profile (the pink circle next to the altitude) the thrust in this instance has gone to idle. If we'd descended earlier (below) the profile then the the thrust would go to SPEED mode to give us a more shallow descent. Doing things manually. Here's an Airbus gotcha - if you manually select a heading then the managed descent disconnects and gives you current vertical speed. This I didn't know until this week! We're now descending the old fashioned way - we're controlling the heading and vertical speed, the speed is still managed. Unfortunately at this point I got a bit big for my boots and decided I'd try to ace a VOR approach for 06 at Ibiza instead of an ILS :P . Naturally I screwed it up and ended up going around. I'll get some more pics of the final approach segment later on. Hope the pics put my comments from the mini review into context a little better! BenW

PFE is a funny one. I use it most of the time now and my success rate is high, although there will be the odd flight where it just throws an utter brain fart. Support is good (in that you always get a reply) but often it'll be a one line response that doesn't entirely solve your problem. It's soooo much better than RC4 in many ways, the accents matched to airlines and ATC centres and the fact that it'll give you proper taxy instructions and speeds as well as vectors to final. It does take much more setting up than RC4 however and is arguably a bit more temperamental. I'd forget about the TGS. In the real world, you get the taxy instructions and you need to read the chart. If you're using add-on airports then these will correspond to the chart and you'll be able to find your way to the end of runway without much difficulty unless you're somewhere mental like CDG. You've also got your virtual co-pilot giving you guidance so that should be sufficient. Also don't worry about the PFE displayer. I don't know anyone that seems to have got it to work! My method for a good flight in PFE - Get the route through vRoute Premium and use the fuel planner page to build a vertical profile of your route. Export the route into PFE. Once your route has gone through PF2000 and it's in PFE then enter the altitudes from the vertical profile in Vroute alongside the corresponding waypoints in PFE. Work out which runways you're going to use. TOPCAT and Active Sky are good for this. If you're using a SID, make sure 'SIDs active' is ticked on the SIDS STARS page for your selected airport. Enter an altitude to complete the SID. Even if you haven't finished the SID PFE will clear you to 'own navigation' beyond this altitude, which is fine - just go direct to your first waypoint. If you've a fast climbing aircraft then set the SID completion altitude higher so that you complete more of the SID, or you can set a waypoint as the end of a SID. I find it easier to do it the first method as in real life you often don't fly the whole SID. Put an X against the runways that you're not using. PFE uses wind direction for runway use unless you specify one, not the direction of all the ai so it might vector you into the face of traffic taking off towards you. I prevent this by also closing the runways I don't want using an AFCAD editor. I don't bother using STARS as I like getting vectors from the last waypoint as it's more fun. It's worth swotting up on the right STAR for the approach anyway, so you get an idea of the altitudes and fixes for the final approach, even though you won't be following them. When you first fire up FSX and PFE, put your VCP to 'off', so that you tune the frequencies yourself. Once you've pushed back, set VCP to 'VCP handles all comms' BEFORE you tune for taxi clearance, as the TGS prevents you from changing the VCP mode. The VCP will now do everything, including calling the tower when ready for departure as you reach the end of the runway. If he doesn't (and some add-on airports have dodgy holding points that don't register with PFE) then you tune it yourself and press '6'. That's it. Everything else will be automated - you simply follow the ATC instructions all the way to the destination. While in the cruise press '2' to load ACARS for your destination. In FS9 (can't speak for FSX) it loads up in the kneeboard. Amongst other things, it'll give you the runway in use for arrival, so you can get your approach set up. After landing, it only seems to assign a gate about 5% of the time so best assign a gate for yourself at each airport in the set up, too. I love PFE as it's the best ATC program by far, but it's needlessly fiddly to get the best out of. My method above is usually pretty foolproof though.

So you'll know that on these forums I've been pretty scathing of the Airsimmer A320 debacle and have perhaps been guilty of wading in to forum discussions with a 'it doesn't work/it crashes/it's not finished/they robbed our money' type vibe. I think what made me most peed off was that the A320 felt so 'nearly' there. It was so good in many areas but in the end trying to make it work just felt like pushing water uphill and in the end I resigned myself to the fact that we were never going to have a decent 'Bus for FS9, and that made me a bit grumpy. Whenever I flew in real life on an Airbus it almost wound me up that unlike the Boeings that we've been chewing on in FS9 for years, I was rather in the dark on how to fly one. Certainly unlike the level-D 737-400 sim I flew a couple of years back there was no way I could hop in, start the APU and engines, program the FMC and fly a couple of decent circuits because frankly, I didn't have a clue what to do with the mythical Airbus and the lack of a really good one for FS9 wasn't going to change that. As it happened one recent forum conversation led me to our very own Airsimmer guru Flex1978 who kindly offered to log into my PC on Teamviewer and install my copy of the Airsimmer A320 properly, with the latest extended team updates. This we did and Rob spent a good while patiently running through the process until finally there it was, the Airsimmer A320 was sat in my virtual hangar. With a bit of guidance on how to avoid CTDs (most of which are well documented now) Rob wished me well and left me to get to grips with the Renault of the skies. So, I needed a test flight but then ran into the first Airsimmer gotcha. You can't import flight plans, so my normal method of dumping a vRoute plan into the aircraft flight plan folder was not a goer. You can use it to get the route and the SIDs and STARs of course, but you need to input the route manually. This doesn't take as long as you might think as you can input airways to cut out many of the waypoints but if you're a company route man like me then it's worth learning how to do this properly. The other thing you need to fly the A320 properly is all the information that comes from TOPCAT. Without weights, CoGs, flex temperatures and the right V speeds you're on a one way ticket to taking out a forest a la Habsheim (okay that crash wasn't caused by the wrong figures inputted but the result will be the same) but thankfully the A320 is supported by TOPCAT and coming up with the numbers is as easy as falling off a log. You can also load the aircraft payload and fuel via TOPCAT too, which is all at the touch of a button. So far, so good. So into the flight deck and away here we go. It's important to load the default Cessna first and then the A320. The second Airsimmer gotcha is that if you start the APU from the VC you get a CTD. The workaround is to assign a key to do it from the keyboard or do it from the 2D view. No showstopper there. The A320 kindly offers you ground power through the FMGS menu and within a moment in spot view you'll see a cable snaking from the ground up to the aircraft and the 'avail' light comes on. Hitting it powers up the beast with a satisfying 'chung' sound as the flight deck comes to life. Oddly ground air is offered as a menu option but isn't modelled, so the only way to keep your passengers comfortable is to fire up the APU and select bleed air on to feed the packs, which roar into life. The flight deck ambience is superb and it really does sound like an A320, with that droning packs/fans sound that anyone who has spent time aboard one will recognise. The VC itself is superb, with lot of nice touches like a jumpseat that folds away, 3D switches, nicely textured seats and walls and wonderful night lighting which is 3-way adjustable. The only thing that's odd in the VC is the headrest texture on the pilot's seat. A320 seats have a headrest that is nearly as wide as the seat itself but the Airsimmer's tiny headrest looks like it has shrunk, as if someone left it in the wash. Hopefully some enterprising individual might be able to rework the seat texture and make the headrest look normal! Popping outside after dark with the cargo doors open you notice that the holds are lit up and throw pools of light onto the ground below; a nice touch. Similarly the flight deck glows brighter from outside when the dome light is turned on. The exterior textures are really nicely done, too, with lots of detail. My first flight was from Menorca LEMH to Ibiza LEIB in the Iberia A320. Programming the FMGS was nice and easy using all the information from TOPCAT and before long we've got a route planned, V speeds in, doors closed (you can do this from the FMGS menu) and I'm running through the checklist for engine start as AES starts pushing us back using the AES config file Rafal kindly uploaded onto Aerosoft's site. The first issue then occurred as all I could hear during the pushback was a horrid graunching, grinding noise and 'G LOAD' appeared on the ECAM, along with clouds of smoke from under the cockpit. I wondered whether this was an issue with the AES config but knowing Rafal as a stickler for detail I couldn't see how. One to investigate after the flight, that one. Engine start in an A320 is a cinch - simply flick the engine mode switch to 'ignition/start', hang on until you hear the packs die (not sure you need to do this but I did) and then hit the master switch for each engine in turn and soon enough there was that wonderful dog barking sound of the PTU in progress. At this point I hit the Takeoff Config button on the pedestal which gives a run down of items that must be taken care of before departure (auto brake max, spoilers armed, signs on etc), set the flaps, the THS (take off trim, done manually with the trim wheel) and finally set the taxi light, which also has a brighter setting for 'takeoff'. Taxying away from the stand, the engine noise and taxy ambience is superb, with a nice deep 'crump' sound every now and then to simulate running over cracks in the concrete. I recall there was a bit of aggro over this sound in the Airsimmer forum years ago but I think it's one of the best sounds added to any FS9 aircraft as it conveys a sense of a big, heavy machine bumping along the taxyway. The ground handling is also very good, with a great view as you sit higher than in a 737. The A320 feels heavy on the ground although taxying at or near idle thrust is easy, yet you don't get the speed build up that plagues other aircraft. It's fairly easy to get running and taxi along at 20-25 knots without touching either the power or the brakes. Now however another issue, which is my CH pedals don't seem to like the A320. The brake pressure light is swinging madly up and down every time I go any near the pedals, let alone push them and it's near enough impossible to brake without wobbling all over the place. I delete the brake axis and try again (they were processed twice, oddly, once through FSUIPC and once through FS9) and then I have no brakes at all! I decide to crack on with the flight and investigate later so use reverse thrust to bring myself to a stop (apologies to Iberia maintenance!). Lining up was nice and easy and off we went, although I initially pushed the throttles into the TOGA gate I flicked them back an inch to get back into the Flex gate as all the numbers were set up for the derated takeoff and I didn't want to be fighting TOGA power. I remember learning how to fly big iron years back before I really understood derating and every takeoff was like man versus machine as I didn't realise at the time that they were all full power, low weight takeoffs! In real life of course such takeoffs are a real handful as everything happens incredibly quickly so I make life easier for myself these days with plenty of payload and derate so that everything happens so much more slowly on the takeoff roll. The first thing I noticed on the takeoff roll was how slowly the A320 seems to accelerate compared to the iFly 737. It seemed to take an age to get to 100 knots and the end of the runway was looming but eventually V1 came and a moment later I rotated and we were climbing away. This was a SID departure so there was little to do but point it wherever the FD told me and bring the gear up. I found the handling in the air very wobbly. A tiny bit of movement on the stick sent me wobbling all over the sky. There was work to do on the joystick axis too, unless it was meant to do this! Once on autopilot though it was very smooth. The A320 has a three stage takeoff procedure - the initial rotation, a climb at V2+10 to the 'THR RED' (thrust reduction) altitude where the thrust levers are pulled back to the CL gate and then at the 'ACC' (acceleration) altitude the speed pings to 250 knots, the nose comes down a bit and the speed builds up. Once past the 'F' mark on the speed tape I went to flaps 1 and past the 'S' mark retracted the slats by selecting 'flaps 0'. Climbing in the 'Bus is actually pretty easy. You dial in the selected altitude and push the alt button in, which is a bit like VNAV in a Boeing in that any altitude constraints will be honoured along the way. If ATC clear you to the high heavens you can select the altitude and PULL the alt button and that selects 'OP Climb' which basically shoots you straight up and any altitude constraints can go whistle. Speed is managed by the FMGC. So a short while later, safely in the cruise, we're all good. I review the landing, mindful of the advice from Rob earlier about the A320s CTD issues. You must have a go around waypoint in the flight plan or the A320 will CTD at 50 AGL, possibly the most annoying thing to any simmer in the world ever as the landing is the money shot of every sim session and being denied it is intensely maddening. So I check and there is one, no problem. Also you have to be careful when selecting a STAR because if the first waypoint is the same as your last waypoint on the active flight plan then you'll get a CTD. No problems for me on this one, thankfully. The descent however into IBZ was very unstable and rushed, as I got myself into a panic over the Airbus's many descent modes and ended up very hot into the final approach. After the event I spent some time googling my plight and the best resource I found was from a Cathay Pacific Captain about the black art of landing an A340, a virtually identical aircraft from a pilot's point of view. If you are interested you'll find it here: http://www.smartcock..._Monitoring.pdf So what went wrong? Well essentially you can fly the descent in managed mode but there are several Airbus gotchas that you need to understand before attempting this and for the brave hearted the Airsimmer actually models all these modes pretty well. There are a multitude of different modes that come into play depending on where along the descent profile you are and which mode you select on the FCU. Getting these muddled up is a recipe for an approach that will end in a go-around, or tears, or both. You can use the old fashioned VS modes and control the speed yourself but bear in mind you'll miss the one thing unfortunately not modelled on the A320 which is 'level off' indication, where a blue arrow pointing up (climb) or pointing down (descent) give you the point on the ND at which the aircraft will level off at the altitude that is selected. This is the 'Bus equivalent of the useful descent arc or 'green banana' you find in a Boeing. You don't know how much you miss this until it's gone. In the Boeing you just dial in the vertical speed until the arc hits where you need to be and down you go. In the Airbus, you need to do the required arithmetic in your head or you'll miss the level off point by miles and potentially find yourself too high or low on the approach. It's better in many ways to leave this to aircraft and descend in managed mode so that the aircraft does the sums but RTFM first! It's also worth pointing out that the ET version (unlike the basic - work that one out!) can't manage speed on the final approach so you have to do it yourself as VAPP is blank on the PERF page. The other 'Bus gotcha is slowing the thing down. Boeing kindly give you lots of flap settings that can get you out of bother on approach as there's always a stage of flap available to you somewhere along the line. The Airbus only has four, and the first is unavailable to you until under 220 kts so don't think that a dirty dive for the ground is a good idea if you don't want the ECAM screaming at you about overspeeding the flaps. The plan in the A320 is to get down to green dot speed (essentially min clean) around the early part of the approach down to 2000 feet, slowing to get flaps 1 and then 2 out just before glide slope intercept and then gear down, descend on the ILS before taking flaps 3 or full. This all happens fairly quickly and I had a real job on my hands as I found the speed just didn't want to come down between flaps 1 and 2. On the glide I disconnected the AP and found myself wobbling all over the sky again and the arrival was best termed 'positive'. Autobrakes disconnect when reverse is cancelled (which I pulled out at 60 knots), so forgetting I had no brakes I ran right to the end! Over the next couple of days of extensive flying and with the kind assistance of Rob via email I sorted out the handling (deleted all axis via FSUIPC and set them as recommended by the Airsimmer forums), fixed the AES problem (press 'repair for push' on the AES config page with the A320 loaded at an AES airport), bought myself some new Saitek pedals (feel nice and stiff and much better on the ground but only half solved the brake issue - I'll come back to that) and started to fly the A320 with PFE, which is an ATC add-on. I set up PFE to give me a SID (if applicable) on departure and then for arrival I program the first bit of the STAR along with with the main flight plan and then take vectors to the final approach. This I've found is fairly realistic to the way it's done in real life and is useful for planning purposes as you can get a good idea from the chart of where the approach will begin and still have the unpredictability of the vectors and final approach speeds after that to final. Flying the A320 with vectors, altitudes and speeds from ATC is actually very easy as you're managing the speed, the VS and the headings just like you do in any other aircraft. The A320 flies very nicely on autopilot although I do find that the auto thrust tends to seesaw up and down a lot on final approach. I find it best to disconnect it once established along with the auto pilot and eyeball it in. Once I sorted the axis out I found the manual handling much better and it's actually pretty nice to hand fly, once you get used to the weirdness of not trimming. The best policy with the stick, in the words of an Airbus pilot is to treat it like someone's else's man part - 'don't touch it any any more than you absolutely need to'! On a couple of test flights I tried the old 'heel over the stick and come back in 10 minutes to see if it's still holding the bank angle' trick and indeed it was. From what I could see, in normal law it was pretty hard (although not impossible) to stall the thing or turn it on its back. Clearly if you want to break the flight model then you can, but for the amount of hand flying most of us will do in the heavy iron with ATC etc then you'll find it goes where you need it to with no fuss. So, in summary, it's been a few days since the second coming of the Airsimmer A320, after it was sent off to the virtual Mojave of my hard drive a couple of years back. Clearly there's still work to do as the annoying CTDs, although largely isolated to specific instances, are still present, and despite containing detail like not being able to select auto brake whilst the nose gear is disconnected, there is still stuff like ground air selectable in the menu but not modelled. The brakes are still an issue as although they work, for some reason when you apply full toe brake they actually stop working altogether so you have to judge around 75% travel on the pedals to stop the thing. It's annoying as any braking that's little harder on one pedal than the other leaves you yawing all over the place or when you pull onto stand and realise you're going a bit fast you panic, stomp on the pedals and of course keep going straight through the terminal, like that scene from Airplane. In all my other aircraft they work fine, so it's an Airsimmer issue as far as I can see. But these are all minor niggles to be honest. If you're prepared to jump through a few hoops then you'll be entering into the world of the Airbus and all its sights, sounds and weird foibles. Flying it like a Boeing is not an option and the learning curve is steep. There's a lot of 'what's it doing now?' and that's not down to Airsimmer, that's down to Airbus. The VC is one of the best for FS9, period and the soundset is superb. As far as I can see for everyday flying all the ECAM stuff is there and you can drive it exactly the way Airbus say you should, with the exception of managed speed on final approach. There, I've said it. The headlines tomorrow - Airsimmer in A320 that actually works shocker!' BenW.

Good stuff guys. I'll try some of your tips. Rob, I'll give you a shout over at the AS forum and hopefully you can help me become a Bus convert. My old flying instructor is a good mate of mine and now is a 'Bus captain for Easyjet so I've no shortage of help flying the thing - just getting it installed is the tricky bit;)

Guys I'm not down with the 'Bus terminology so forgive me. I use a combination of F1 View and Active Camera to move around the VC. The mouse wheel moves you forwards and backwards in the VC. In the iFly 737 you just click next to the knob in the MCP to rotate it, or on a PMDG aircraft hover until the little hand appears. In the Airsimmer you use the mouse wheel to rotate the knobs on the FCU, so there's a conflict. The only solution I could see to this was to uninstall F1 View when using the Airsimmer, unless someone has a better idea. I'd love nothing more than to get it working properly and Flex, if you could spare me some time on teamviewer to get this done I'd be very grateful. Looking at the install process for the ET version (the one I have) on the AS forum looks too complicated for my modest brainpower!

Yes I have it and stick by what I said. There are just too many annoyances with it. The APU ctd, the legs page ctd, the wonky nav modes, the sifting through cryptic forum posts to try to figure out how to make it work, for me, it's just not worth it. Plus my main bugbear which is the fact that I can't use F1 View as you need the mouse wheel to turn the MCP buttons so I have to uninstall that just to load the damn thing. I can fire up the iFly 737 and go somewhere. I don't need to worry about the aeroplane as it just works so I can concentrate on the flying. The Airsimmer seems to be 99% farting about with and 1% flying, which seems to end in tears. As I said, it's great but flawed. Tell me that's not the case?

If the A320 is up to PMDG standard (and with it being Lefteris' project, there's no reason to suspect it won't be) then I think this will be the moment I ditch FS9 for FSX. I can live without the NGX as the iFly NG works fine in FS9. There's no decent 'Bus for FS9 and there never will be, so I'm watching this one closely!