CLS A300B4-608ST Beluga

The Airbus Beluga is a version of the standard Airbus A300 airliner which offers a unique way to transport oversized air cargo. The Beluga (also known as the A300-600ST Super Transporter) was developed to carry complete sections of Airbus aircraft from different production sites around Europe to the final assembly lines in Toulouse or Hamburg. The Beluga is in fact a standard A300 but with the upper part of the fuselage replaced with an enormous horseshoe-shaped structure 7.4 metres in diameter. The Beluga can carry up to 47 tonnes of freight over a range of 1,670 km/900 nm. To date the Belugas have carried several modules for the International Space Station and are also the preferred transport for large and valuable paintings. Today, five Belugas are in service with Airbus.

Started in 2005, Commercial Level Simulations (CLS) has grown to a high quality commercial add-on developer for MS Flight Simulator. Their products are not that expensive and yet high quality.

This Airbus A300 package contains the A300B4-608ST Super Transporter, also known as the "Beluga". The package contains 4 different liveries: The Airbus No.1 2006 (new house colors), the Airbus No.2 2004 (old house colors, "Skylink"), the Airbus No.3 (old house colors "The Super Transporter" titles) and the UPS livery. The exterior is highly detailed and features dynamic shine, dynamic wingflex, opening doors and pushback truck. The big cargo door above the cockpit can be opened, with A320 fuselage visible in it. The interior is a less detailed virtual cockpit and wingview. The virtual cockpit looks nice, but not all systems are modelled, so not all buttons and switches are clickable.

The flightdynamics are well balanced, so for the averange flightsimmer it shouldn't be a problem to manually land this aircraft. Just make sure there isn't too much crosswind, because due to a contact points problem, the aircraft is still drifting sideways after touchdown. This problem has been reported from a few people only, which may indicate that not everybody has encountered the sideway drift or not many people takeoff/land in crosswind conditions.




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