Stephen Posted July 22, 2024 Report Posted July 22, 2024 Aircraft Review : Airbus A380-842 XP12 by Peters Aircraft The Airbus A380 is a very large wide-body airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus. It is the world's largest passenger airliner and the only full-length double-deck jet airliner in service. Airbus studies started in 1988, and the project was announced in 1990 to challenge the dominance of the Boeing 747 in the long-haul market. I am first going to acknowledge that the Airbus A380 is an absolutely monumental aircraft. I personally have a lot of adulation for the machine. I think it has had a lot of unwarranted negative statements about it, but getting close to one, and flying on a A380 (four times to date), it is a brilliant addition to aviation. What the A380 achieves is not being recognised, and only then will its impact on aviation be it's lasting legacy when it is gone. So I am a little biased here in this review towards the aircraft, any A380 to fly in X-Plane 12 is going to fill my reasoning, it is the biggest and hardest long-haul machine to fly, or to fly correctly. There has been three A380's in X-Plane, Riviere's A380 is the most known, but I never really liked it, as the performance was shocking. There was another freeware, but that design was even worse in it's cardboard quality. There was an announcement back in April 2024 by X-Works that they were indeed developing a payware A380, but that project is still very much in it's infancy... the last payware A380 was from Peter Hager, or Peters Aircraft. Originally an X-Plane 10 era release, but the aircraft has then fell into a long decline, and since X-Plane 12's introduction it was grounded by the dysfunctional FMC and the lighting in being totally outdated and also non-functional. Well that A380 aircraft is back, in an upgraded X-Plane 12 wrapper. This A380 XP12 is not a completely new development, it is basically the same one, and it is still Planemaker based, in that it makes the origins in the year 2013. Can a 11 year old design compete with the same today? Outwardly it is different. The external model has been totally remodeled and now has 8K textures, it shows with the XP12 shine and the better detail, you can now read the textures as well, instead of the earlier ziggy buzzy lo-res images. The Airbus A380 wing is a work of art. I have a 1-300 model of the A380 to marvel at the shape and design, it was built only 5 miles away from where I was born, my family relatives built that wing... this area again has been remodeled, and it looks excellent in the bulky midsection and the hanging shape and design. Flaps are well done, and the leading edge foils are also well modeled. The engines here are the Trent 900 Rolls Royce engines of 70,000 to 80,000 pounds-force (lbf), only Qantas flies the A380-842 variant, pods are well done as is the rear exhaust cones and internal fans, the 900 has a fan diameter is approximately 116 inches (294.6 cm).... Only the inner engines (2 and 3) have reverser doors and all four engines have internal integrated drive generators (IDG). Noticeable however is the Planemaker gap between the fan and the cowling, once seen it is very hard to unsee it. Other variants on the A388 are the A380-841 Engine Alliance GP7200 - Trent RR 970 engines and the A380-861 Rolls-Royce Trent 970 engines, which serves other airlines including the biggest 125 aircraft fleet operator Emirates (uses both 861 & 842 variants). These other variants will becoming soon to the same package, as will those engine option operators. Four bogie gear is also remodeled, they now has more and quite intricate detail and better textures, the tyres are good, but are too shiny for me. And the rear set of bogies will now turn with the nosewheel, as on the real A380. There is no cabin, no opening doors or even any external elements? and is completely created in Planemaker... you could call it a pure X-Plane aircraft design. Externally though it does not look out of place in X-Plane 12, the mass of the Airbus just dominates the space around it. My flight today is YSSY (Sydney) to WSSS (Singapore) or QF01, the oldest sectional route on the "Kangaroo Route" to London, QF02 does the return route LON-SIN-SYD. The actual cockpit is the originally the same, looked brilliant a decade ago, still has that same punch today, but let us be clear, the functionality needs a fair bit of work to bring it up to current standards, as a lot of the switches don't work, and some are even doing the wrong action, some doing two actions in one (lighting). There is no First Officer interaction either, or any menus in here. The cockpit does feel great, but there are still far too many light gaps? even some shining through the OHP and mostly the lower floor and rear bulkhead, even through the OHP... it shows of an age back then... Seats are blocky/minecraft in design, worse is the very lo-res purple carpet, that needs replacing ASAP. Airbus joystick controller is well done, but not animated, this was all first rate detail back then, sort of holds up. All that power at your disposal via such petit throttles, note only the twin inboard thrust reverser levers. One area that has (thankfully) had attention are the instrument graphics, they used to be terribly crappy lo-res to use, even hard to read... now they are all bright and crystal clear... The main item that grounded the XP10/11 Peters Aircraft A380 was the outdated FMC (Flight Management Computer), it just didn't work anymore? The fix in here is quite surprising, just insert in the X-Plane generic FMC. It shouldn't work, but it does as it gives you access to routes, AIRWAYS, SID and STARS and DEP/ARR Approaches, and it pops out as well for ease of use. So it is not an Airbus FMGS installation, certainly not the later A350/A380 style FMGS. So route setup via the standard FMC is very easy, I admit not very Airbusy, but it is functional to use with STEP to plan awkward waypoints. Maybe Peters Aircraft should switch to the default A330 FMC, it might fit in better here? What is Airbusy is the PERF setup. Again not highly detailed, but you can at least add in the numbers you want for six PERF options; T.O (TakeOff), CLB (Climb), CRZ (Cruise), DES (Descend), APPR (Approach) and GA (Go Around). T.O... You can set the FL (Flight Level), Speed Bugs (V1, VR, V2) and either TOGA or FLEX... FLEX is recommended and is set at +45c, Flaps 1 or 2 and that gives you the THS FOR trim setting, Thrust Reduction and Acceleration altitudes can also be set. Finally you can set the Transitional Altitude, and that sets the EQ Acceleration altitude. Other options include Cost Index (CI) and .M speed, Descent .M/knts speed, Trans, Managed Speed... I haven't filled out the APPR tab, because I usually do that at around 100 nm before the approach to get the correct weather numbers. But OAT and QNH, either BARO or RADIO Minimums, and Trans Altitude are available You can choose between (landing ) CONF 3 or FULL flap, VAPP speed (VREF + Wind Correction), the landing speeds are then shown. GA (Go Around) speeds are also available as is the Thrust Reduction height. Weight and Fuel load is done via the X-Plane "Weight & Balance" menu, basic... Only set the "Total" fuel and don't use the individual tank sliders, then the system will set up the correct tankage for you, same with the trim as we shall see. The only other parameter to be set is the payload. The SYD-SIN route is quite short for the A380 as this sector is a 3484 nm and 8.0 hours flying time. The Airbus A380 can do a 8,000 nm (14,800 km) range, so the tankage here is only 110,721 kg, of a gross weight TOW 437,914 kg. The A380 can therefore be far, far heavier on T.O if flying a Pacific or Europe/Asia run and that is were your "Heavy" skills comes in and the challenge of flying the Super Jumbo. Pushback... and then we can start the engines. APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) has to be running, and you select on the OHP, the APUBLEED (it is locked to Auto), then select IGN START (Engine Mode Selector) on the ENG START switch. You start an inner engine first (2 or 3) for the pneumatics, environmental and IDG power, then the other inner engine (say 3), then engines 1 then 4. Basically when N2 reaches around 20-25%, you can move to the next engine in the sequence, the full startup procedure is very well done as the engine goes through it's start cycle to a configured N2 55%, the lower SD (System Display) gives you more information on the vitals. Engine start up sounds are actually excellent, yes the Hager A380 doesn't have every dynamic range, but the sounds were, and are still very good, and you can (slightly) hear them from the cockpit, as your sited a long way from the noise, and it is quite muffled as well, externally they are actually very good. Your powered up and ready to go... It is VERY important to set the T.O TRIM THS correctly. The position (usually around 39.5%) is set out on the lower right PFD, you will need to align the white line within the purple rectangle, certainly don't be out of the green rectangle range. The A380 is HEAVY so if the trim is out, then your not going to fly... anywhere! This brings us to a slightly controversial feature... When you let off the park brake, your view will shift? to seat down. You can adjust the view up and down to see through the cockpit window but otherwise it feels frozen. You are now connected to the nosewheel steering, so if you turn the nosewheel, then your view moves left or right as well? If you want out of this viewing tool, then press on the "Taxi" camera on the instrument panel, and your views go back to normal... In "Taxi" mode you get a double view (tail and nosewheel) to navigate the taxiways, it is very good actually... the same camera view can be put on the SD, but it doesn't cancel out the dynamic steering views... The dynamic view has several parameters to having it (auto) switched ON... if the aircraft is on the ground, taxi camera is OFF, parking brake is OFF, and the aircraft is NOT in T.O mode and if in ROLL OUT mode, with when the ground speed is below 30kn. Note that make sure you have the "Taxi" mode switched on when using push back... one you can see the pushback truck doing it's job, cool, but also that with the pushback tool turning and rattling the nosewheel, it affects the view by shaking it and turning your angle weirdly. But on the taxiway the "Taxi" image is great for following (holding) the centre line, and it shows your current taxi speed as well. The A380 doesn't taxi... it just rumbles along very nicely. 34L north track... this is were I have an issue with the feature view tool, if you turn the "Taxi" off you get shakes through the steering as you move it? so you can't read the instruments.... "Taxi" on then you still can't read the instruments to take off? It needs a full kill switch! The T.O distance depends of course on weight, airport altitude, runway conditions, but the average TO run is around 9,800 feet (3,000 meters) of runway for takeoff. So you can only use certain runways, same with using only certain taxiways with it's A380 size.... Up those four petite throttles and your moving. There is no CHRONO button (PFD)? to start? that aspect is needed, but the CHR panel does work. Your moving, but the Airbus won't leap off the line, or move fast... it is a strange aircraft in this respect, as everything goes into a slow motion aspect, that wing is very efficient, best in the business as it produces huge lift, so you sort of glide into the air with no dramas. 300,000 lbs of combined thrust, gives you the power you need, certainly at this lighter weight... again the climb rate is between 2,000 fpm and 3,000 fpm depending on the load factors, but 2,000 fpm is always a good yardstick. Gear up and Flaps to position 1 Watch that complex undercarriage store itself up in the aircraft, a feat of engineering. You can check the gear condition via the lower SD display. All Airbus developers have found a different way to imitate the Airbus button logic... The Peters Aircraft way is for in pressing the knob, is to pull it out, or Manual operation, there is a hotspot rear above the knob (green) to push in for the Auto operation. If there is a dot on the display it is noted as being in the auto setting... The original FBW or Fly-By-Wire is used in here. FBW takes pilot inputs, which are converted into electronic signals that are sent to flight control computers. These computers then process the inputs and send commands to the aircraft’s control surfaces. Also is it's flight envelope protection (LAWS) of Normal Law and Alternate Law. The system prevents the aircraft from exceeding operational limits, such as stall, over-speed, and over-G, enhancing overall safety. The FBW in Hager's A380 is a very good one, mainly because it was created by Mr X-Plane Airbus himself or Torsten Liesk of ToLiSS. So you have the quality feel and handing of Airbus Aircraft. So the A380 here handles and flies really well, and the system has been here refined for X-Plane 12 dynamics. So the Airbus systems and logic is very high, good a decade ago, still very good today. As noted I am under halve the range weight, so I have a lot options to climb up to my cruise altitude, in fact almost straight up to the assigned altitude. But if you are at MTOW (Maximum Takeoff Weight) then the A380 will handle very differently, not only in the initial climb, but climbing to altitude. If at MTOW, I usually climb first to about 30,000 ft, then step up the altitude to the final Cruise altitude in 2,000ft segments over 500 nm, burning off fuel and weight. It is all about efficiency Being a long-haul, you will settle in for the "Long Haul"... You can monitor the A380 via the excellent SD information, and overall you have 12 different options to observe; Engines, Bleed, Cabin Pressure, APU, Cond (Environment), Doors, Elec AC, Elec DC, Fuel, Hydraulics, Wheel, F/CTL (Flight Controls) and Video or Camera. The FMC two Progress pages are now accessible as well, unlike the original... Long-Haulers love their toys... here you can drop the front window blinds by pressing the "HotSpot" centre window, also you can pop out the worktable with a built in (non-working) keyboard. Performance is surprisingly very good, within and counting the same numbers as you follow the route in SimBrief, you have to make allowances for winds, which are quite heavy at the cruise altitude, but I found it was impressive and being within a 100 kg of fuel. Being a four engined aircraft... it is the lamentable situation that the aircraft is not super efficient like the A350 or B787, it costs money to run, but it's substantial running costs are out weighed by it's immense load factors, and that the passengers adore the machine. On the right routes (a bit like Concorde) it is highly regarded, even profitable. Worse is the fact that there is nothing to replace the A380 with, as the Boeing 777X is years away, even then how are you going to replace a 100+ fleet. You can get the most out of the A380, because the documentation from Peter Hager is excellent. Not only a deep manual (78 Pages), but there are also two detailed route tutorials. They are all the original manuals, but updated where needed for this XP12 release. In the late afternoon sunshine, Bali, Indonesia shines below. Yes the A380 is now flying in a more realistic 3d world, X-Plane 12 can create a very different atmosphere from the one I first flew this aircraft in X-Plane 10, that cardboard look and feel is now well gone, replaced by the dynamics of the latest version of the Simulator... it's impressive, because it is. Now approaching the STAR of UGEB1B for the approach into Changi, Singapore at dusk... it is a pretty time to arrive. Even using the older style of liveries, the Airbus looks very nice in the low light. Cockpit lighting is basic... all instrument displays are adjustable, as is the integral lighting for OHP and Pedestal. There are three STORM settings, Bright-Med-Off, that gives you the three moods in the cockpit... The Med STORM lighting setting is fine for most night operations, including the approach and landing, it's dull enough to see everything, but not too bright to distract you. There are no spot lights or any other siding lighting in here, but it's not too bad actually in feel. The external lighting has been upgraded to X-Plane 12, it looks good with the bloom effects, but misses the earlier better lighting that shone in the daylight, which I loved. The NAV WING, RWY Turnoff and LOGO are all under one (both) switches (NAV-LOGO), so you can't have the separated detailed lighting. STROBE, BEACON and LAND are thankfully separated, a shame as it could have been good if all the assigned switches had worked. The A380 has a brilliant lighting set up, six landing and twin wing lights will bring the aircraft alive at night. Turning into the 20R approach, you have to set up the ILS Landing Frequency... It's complicated here by the various ways you can insert the ILS Frequency... There are options on the three RMP (Radio Management Panel), but also on the Co-Pilot MFD, it is also on the FMC Radio setting... so actually which one do you use? You have to switch the NAV setting from VHF to NAV to insert the ILS Frequency as noted in the manual... only it does not work? the only option I could get the Frequency to work with, was on the First Officer MFD lower insert 108.90 MHz It's tricky to get right as you have to be almost on top of the glideslope before the ILS Freq will be accepted (it bounces back to the other Freq), if accepted it is then shown in the PFD when you press the LS button right EFIS Control Panel, and it shows you the ILS name "ICH" Freq and distance to the runway... Only now can you select the APPR button to lOC in the localiser It's all still very old school, and even frustrating to use effectively, as there is no set the frequency and be ready for landing deal here. Approach speed (Vref) is around 145 knts (FULL Flap), the A380 can be really slow on a landing approach, again you get that slow-motion effect, that gives you time to adjust before landing. In finals you can adjust down to below the 140 knt threshold... You get all the "LOUD" callouts 2,000, 1000, 500... but there is nothing like the thrill of landing a "Heavy" after a long flight, your nerves and muscles are tight, your focused on controlling this massive machine down onto that runway. "Retard, Retard"... Once the AP1 clicks off, you flare the A380 slightly, so the rear bogies touch cleanly at around 130 knts. Once the nosewheel is down, you can then activate the thrust reversers, only engines 2 and 3, but it is enough to slow the bulk of the A380 down... lighting on the ground is very good, even with the landing lights on or off. On the roll out you have to be aware of the steering view coming activating again, and it can come in with the thud! So you quickly turn on the "Taxi" camera again to get your views back... not a big fan to be honest. There are two liveries provided with this RR Trent engine choice, the earlier 2016, and the current 2024 livery. Summary The Airbus A380 is a very large wide-body airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus. It is the world's largest passenger airliner and the only full-length double-deck jet airliner in service. The origins of this Airbus A380 are over a decade old, back in the X-Plane 10 era, and the core design here is Planemaker based. The externals have however been fully redone for XP12 including quality 8K textures. So it looks very nice. The cockpit is basically the same as the earlier aircraft (XP11), but there has been added in new functionality and systems. The same original Torsten Liesk (ToLISS) plugin is still used but upgraded to X-Plane 12 dynamics, as has the overall aircraft performance (spot on). The solution to the broken FMC, was to replace it with the X-Plane default FMC, the intergration is clever and it works in giving functionality to the systems, but the A330 FMS would have have been a better more airbus style optional choice. Lighting is hampered by the switchgear, but the sounds if not dynamic are still excellent. The nosewheel guided camera is a good idea, but doesn't work that well in practice, as it changes you view at critical times of the takeoff and landing roll out, it buggers up the pushback tool as well. There are no static objects, or menus here, not even a cabin. light holes in the engines, OHP and cockpit can't be unseen, but they are all related to the Planemaker foundations. Flying a A380 is always a great sensation, it is a mega sized aircraft with a mega sized reputation. I am very familiar with the Peter's Aircraft A380, so fell back into the aircraft very easily, yes it is a bit of a nostalgia journey and it is great to have the aircraft flying again. Coming soon are all the different engine options and the airlines that fly them, unlike the old separated different variant purchases, and that aspect alone will put a lot of value into the package. It's an Airbus A380 in X-Plane 12, long haul and X-Plane 12 dynamics together... a great combination! _________________________ The Airbus A380 XP12 by Peter Hager scenery is Available now from the X-Plane.Org Store here : Airbus A380 XP12 Price Is US$59.90, You Save:$10.00(14%) Retail Price:$69.90 Requirements X-Plane 12 (not for XP11) Windows, MAC or Linux 8 GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 172 MB Current version: 1.0 July 11th 2024) Installed in your X-Plane Aircraft folder 168Mb. Installation 305Mb, Authorization is required by inserting a licence txt in the aircraft folder. Documents __TUTORIAL FLIGHT PLANS 1 LFBO ILS.fms 2 LFBO RNV.fms 3 LFBOEDHI.fm _A388 ReadMe.rtf A380_manual.pdf Design by Peter Hagar Support forum: Peter Hagar A380 XP12 _____________________ Review System Specifications: Windows - 12th Gen IS1700 Core i7 12700K 12 Core 3.60 GHz CPU - 64bit -32 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - PNY GeForce RTX 3080 10GB XLR8 - Samsung 970 EVO+ 2TB SSD Software: - Windows 11 Pro - X-Plane 12.1.1. Plugins: Traffic Global - JustFlight-Traffic (X-Plane.OrgStore) US$52.99 : Global SFD plugin US$30.00 Scenery or Aircraft - YSSY - FlyTampa Sydney (X-Plane.OrgStore) - US$28.00 ___________________________ Review by Stephen Dutton 22nd July 2024 Copyright©2024: X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved Kiwiflyer 1 Quote
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