PSS Airbus Pro Series 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.

The PSS Airbus A330 Pro Series package contains the A330-200 and A330-300 in all three engine variations (PW, GE and RR) plus separate engine sounds for all three engine types. The base pack contains the Airbus rollout colors livery for each model, but an all liveries package can be bought which contains 47 liveries.

The PSS A330-200 is a good looking model and features all the usual animations. However, some of the animations are not quite right. The stabilizer is moving too high up or down when trimming, the landing gear is floating a bit and the wingtip vortices appear when the aircraft is still on the runway. Those vortices are only visible if there is a certain amount of humidity.

Like many other PSS models, the windows are physically 'holes' and not textures, so you can look right thru the aircraft (which is not a bad thing, although it might be a matter of taste). The base textures and most of the liveries are well done.

The 2d panel is very detailed, almost all cockpit systems are modeled, like TCAS, GPWS and a fully functional MCDU (Multi-Purpose Control and Display Unit). Even the autoland function works! Typical Airbus fly-by-wire systems like the Alpha Floor mode are also realistically modeled. The information on the EFIS displays is clear and sharp and you can expand the displays by clicking on them. On startup, the big panel (screenshot #2) will show, but with one click on a spot on the upper-left corner, a smaller version will show (screenshot #4), that way you'll be able to takeoff or land the aircraft. The overhead panel, pedestal and MCDU are also accessible by using click-spots located near the location of those panels.

The virtual cockpit looks nice too, almost all buttons and handles are clickable, including the MCDU. The spoilers, flaps and the throttles can not be moved by using the mouse, so you need to do that with the keyboard, joystick or in the 2d panel mode. Just like in the 2d panel mode, you can expand the EFIS displays by clicking on them. Unfortunately, the wings/engines are not modeled in the virtual cockpit, so in other words: no wingview.

The flight dynamics are ok, although the approach speed seems to be just a bit too slow for this type of aircraft. The auto flight system is working perfectly, however the turns made by the autopilot are too abrupt. The well illustrated manual (3 PDF files) is huge and explains all aircraft systems step-by-step. A panel configuration utility can be used to set the panel sound volume, default startup configuration (engines off or cold & dark) and key assignments. The load editor can be used to edit the payload and save it to the aircraft.cfg while the fuel planner can calculate how much fuel you need, but you'll have to manually enter the amount of fuel in FS.

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