Project Opensky A330-300 (v2)

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.

Project Opensky is a freeware aircraft developer group that has been around for some time. They developed many aircraft models for FS2002 and FS2004, mostly Boeing aircraft.

This Airbus A330-300 is a fine aircraft and it does represent the A330-300 well. The base package contains the effect files and wingview models in three different engine variants. The Airbus house colors paint is included with each engine variant. For a panel and virtual cockpit, you need to download the vc package, which contains the vc models of each engine variant, the vc textures, gauges, modules and the 2d panel (by Eric Marciano).

All usual animations are present, like dynamic flexing wings, animated tilting bogies, reflective cockpit windows, crash effects, dynamic shine, opening passenger and cargo doors, condensation effects, and much more. At startup, the A330-300 is a bit overloaded: 12255 pounds over gross weight. For takeoff, you need to decrease the payload.

During the takeoff, initial climb, final approach and landing phases of flight, you have to be careful with the stabilizer trim. The trim function is unrealistically fast, which results in extreme up or down movements of the nose. Also, the stabilizer trim is not animated, so it's not visible in the spotview or towerview. And finally, like the FlightCraft A330-200, the main landing gear is sinking into the runway when landing. This is a common problem in FS2004 for a main landing gear sets with four-wheel bogies or more. In this case the result is realistic behaviour of the landing gear, but the lower wheels sink into the ground first.

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