Overland A380

The Airbus A380, nicknamed 'Superjumbo', is a double-deck wide-body jet airliner. Its the world's largest passenger jet (with the Antonov An-225 being the larges civil aircraft since it carries cargo and no passengers). The Airbus A380 development program was officially launched in June 1994 and the first flight took place from Toulouse, France on April 27, 2005 and led to a flight test program involving five Airbus A380s. The first A380 entered commercial service with Singapore Airlines on 25 October 2007 with a inaugural flight between Singapore and Sydney.

The A380 seats 555 passengers on two decks in a three class arrangement or up to 853 people in all economy class configurations. A380 has 49% more floor area and produces 50% less cabin noise than its direct competition, the Boeing 747-400. Initial production of the A380 was troubled by a few delays that made many airlines reconsider their A380 orders. The A380-800F freighter orders were cancelled and Airbus negotiated a revised delivery schedule and compensation with 13 customers of the passenger version.

Simmer's sky is a label of the japanese company Overland Co.,Ltd. Along with a few other products, they sell the Fly into the sky! package, which contains many Airbus and Boeing aircraft.

This Airbus A380 is a beautiful designed aircraft, the shape of the fuselage represents the A380 very well. The Fly into the sky! package contains only one A380 livery: Singapore Airlines. The 2d panel is framerate friendly, but doesn't have a FMC. For full IFR flights, you need to use the default Carmin GPS unit. ILS Approaches are no problem, just enter the course/ILS frequency and use the LOC and APPR buttons. The virtual cockpit is a bit simple, only the most important systems are modelled. But it looks nice and is framerate friendly too. There is also a wingview model for even better framerates.

The flightdynamics are ok, but the ground effect is minimal, which can result in bumpy landings due to the little effect of the flare. Another thing is the main landing gear. Like almost all other overland aircraft, the main landing gear seems to float for a bit over the runway upon landing and finally sinks to the ground when rolling out. This is a common problem in FS, especially landing gear sets with four-wheel bogies or even more wheels, like this aircraft: A total of 22 wheels!

Unlike many other A380 models for FS, this A380's main landing gear is placed at the correct angle: exactly the opposite angle of the Boeing 747's main landing gear. We've seen this opposite angle already on the Tupolev Tu-154M, Boeing 767 and the Airbus A310. Another detail: only the two inboard engines are equipped with thrust reversers, exactly like its realworld counterpart.

--