FeelThere Airbus Series Vol 2 A330-200

The Airbus A330 is a twin-engined, medium to long haul wide-body commercial passenger jet aircraft. Airbus launched the A330 in June 1987 together with the four-engined A340, as a single aircraft program. Airbus intended the A330 to replace the A300-600R and compete with the Boeing 767. Many airlines replaced older wide-bodies such as the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 with the A330, which is 38% more fuel efficient than the DC-10. Although the four-engined A340 is the real long-hauler, the A330(-200) has an impressive range of 8890km (4800nm), with an option of even 11,850km (6400nm).

The A330 and A340 have nearly identical airframes and systems, apart from the engines. The A330 is certificated with General Electric CF-6-80E1, the Pratt & Whitney PW4168 and the Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines. The A330-300 made its first flight on November 2, 1992 and entered service with Air Inter in January 1994. The ten frames shorter A330-200 first flew in August 1997 and entered service with Canada 3000 in April 1998. More than 1,000 A330's have been ordered so far.

Feelthere developed a package that contains almost the whole Airbus A330/340 family: The A330-200, A330-200 MRTT, A330-300, A340-300, and A340-600. All models are complete with 2d panel, virtual cockpit and passenger cabin. The A330 models are only in General Electric and Rolls-Royce variant. Each engine version is using their own sound files, including the CFM powered A340.

The Feelthere A330-200 is a beautiful aircraft and represents it's real world counterpart very well. The liveries that can be downloaded from the Wilco Publishing website are well done. All usual animations are present and there are many small details on the exterior model. A configuration tool can be used to set the realism level, IRS align time, cold & dark default startup, etc. Other configuration functions are a fuel planner, load manager and key configuration tool. The fuel planner is a bit basic, you have to manually insert the amount of fuel in the fuel tanks inside FS. The 53 pages .pdf manual is well written and contains many images to help you understand various systems of these aircraft.

Almost all systems are modeled, accessible from the 2d panel and also from the virtual cockpit (all buttons and handles are clickable). Both the 2d panel and virtual cockpit look very realistic and the displays are clear and bright. The FMGC (Flight Management and Guidance Computer) is completely modeled, something I haven't seen often in payware packages. Also systems like TCAS and GPWS are modeled, as well as all the systems located on the overhead panel. Even the autoland function works like the real thing, which I haven't seen in many payware packages either. Typical Airbus fly-by-wire systems are also realistically modeled. A weather radar however, is not present.

The flight dynamics are very well balanced, although this type of aircraft aren't meant to fly manually. Since you'll fly most of the time by using the autoflight system, it's nice to know that the passenger cabin is modeled in the virtual cockpit, so you can sit down, relax and look out one of the windows. If you are using FS2004 and don't have a program like Active Camera, you can use one of the two predefined wingviews which you can access via small icons on the 2d panel.

However, one critical note: the landing gear is sinking a bit into the ground on takeoff/landing and the wingflex is speed based, so the wings do not move up and down in turbulence or when you pull some G's.

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