FeelThere Airbus Series Vol 2 A340-300

The Airbus A340 is a four-engined, long haul wide-body commercial passenger jet aircraft. Airbus launched the A340 in June 1987 in parallel with the A330, as a single aircraft program. Both aircraft share the same wing and similar fuselage structure, and borrow heavily from the advanced avionics and composite structure technology developed for the A320. The A340-300 first flew in 1991 and entered service with Lufthansa and Air France in March 1993. The A340 is a competitor of the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 and the Boeing 777. It seats between 261 and 380 passengers, and has a range between 6,700 and 9,000 NM. The CFM International CFM56-5C4 engines are the only engine choice for the -200 and -300 variants.

The -500 and -600 variants are powered by the Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engines. The A340-500 is the longest-range variant and can fly 313 passengers in a three-class cabin layout over 8,650 nm (16,020 km). The A340-600 is with a length of 75,30 meter almost 5 meter longer than the Boeing 747-400 and with that the longest passenger aircraft in the world. It was designed as an early generation 747 replacement. The A340-600 flies 380 passengers in a three-class cabin layout (419 in 2 class) over 7,500 nautical miles (13,900 km).

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 A340-300 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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