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Aircraft Review: Airbus A300 and A310 by iniBuilds Update: Inibuilds have confirmed they will update this aircraft free of charge for existing users. No date yet has been confirmed for this,but they expect 2023. History: The Airbus A300 was to be the first aircraft to be developed, manufactured and marketed by Airbus. In 1972, the A300 made its maiden flight; its first production model, the A300B2, entered service in 1974. By 1979 the consortium had 256 orders for A300, and Airbus had launched a more advanced aircraft, the A310, in the previous year. The A300-600, the subject of this review was first delivered in 1988. It differs from the A300-B2/B4 due to the two-person cockpit, and mixture of glass and analogue cockpit similar in design to the Boeing 757/767 family and features the same design as the later A310 from which the A300 is derived. It uses 6 small CRT displays as the did the first generation of A320 series aircraft The Airbus A310 (initially the A300B10) was launched with orders from Swissair and Lufthansa. On 3 April 1982, the first prototype conducted its maiden flight, and it received its type certification on 11 March 1983. Keeping the same eight-abreast cross-section, the A310 is 6.95 m (22.8 ft) shorter than the initial A300 variants, and has a smaller wing, down from 260 to 219 m2 (2,800 to 2,360 sq ft). The A310 introduced a two-crew glass cockpit, later adopted for the A300-600 with a common type rating. It was powered by the same General Electric CF6-80 or Pratt & Whitney JT9D then PW4000 turbofan jet engines. It can seat 220 passengers in two classes, or 240 in all-economy, and has a flying range up to 5,150 nmi (9,540 km). It has over-wing between the two main front and rear door pairs. In April 1983, the aircraft entered revenue service with Swissair, and competed with the Boeing 767-200, introduced six months before. Its longer range and ETOPS regulations allowed it to be operated on transatlantic flights. Until the last delivery in June 1998, 255 aircraft were produced, as it was succeeded by the larger Airbus A330-200. It was available as a cargo aircraft version, and was also developed into a military variant, the A310 MRTT multi-role transport, then tanker. Nowadays Aircraft manufacturers design their products around a specific engine type or variant, but when Airbus built the A300, they did not have this luxury, so they took the next-powerful engine on the market to exceed their requirements. This results in a very steep take-off angle-of-attack which is might throw some new pilots when first flying the aircraft. In the case of the A300, there are two different engine variants, and each has a passenger and cargo version. When adding liveries, it's important to know that the liveries are dependent on the engine-type, so you will need to be aware of the engine-type (GE or PW respectively ) when selecting your aircraft you wish to fly. The A310 was initially launched with a choice of three engines: the General Electric CF6-80A (originally the CF6-45B2), the Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7R4D1, and the Rolls-Royce RB211. The specific Rolls-Royce RB211-524B4 engine intended for this initial application was not developed. Installation: With the inimanager, the installation is now greatly simplified. It's now just a case of downloading the inimanager from here, and then selecting the products you purchased which then become installed to the X-Plane 11\Aircraft\iniSimulations\ folder. Before the inimanager was released, you had to download each aircraft variant separately and then download the liveries. The aircraft installation location is in X-Plane 11\Aircraft\iniSimulations. If you have purchased other variants such as the A300 BelugaST or A310, these will be installed in subfolders,so example X-Plane 11\Aircraft\iniSimulations\iniSimulations A300 BelugaST or X-Plane 11\Aircraft\iniSimulations\ iniSimulations A300-600R(F) v2 - Passenger. To get the feel of the aircraft and its systems, I decided to do a quick (but still used) cargo route from EGNX to EIDW which is enough time to get a quick flight in, but keep you busy. The flight time is quite short, ~45 minutes so you won't have much time to get bored. Before we start, here's a quick external view from both sides of the aircraft. You can see the cargo doors and texturing is very nicely done here. One of the most annoying aspects of X-Plane for me is the zooming of the views when trying to use the mouse-wheel to turn a switch or rotate a heading or speed knob, with this in mind, I really recommend the use of X-Camera, which gives you the option to disable mouse-wheel. True, this also disables the outside mouse zoom which I like, but it's a small inconvenience compared to the benefits. I would also add that you will find a Navigraph subscription very handy, as the ILS for each airport is not stored in the database unlike the later A320/300/340 families so the ability to bring up an airport from the Avitab plugin makes life a lot easier when planning your approaches. Airbus A300/A310 gotchas Even if you are familiar with the Airbus aircraft in general, there are a few idiosyncrasies that might catch you out. Some are listed below: Scratchpad entries on FMC, clear existing data before entering new data otherwise it will not show. Flex-To values will not show or become active, until you select an altitude in the ALT-SEL window. External Power will not disconnect using EFB (Electronic Flight Bag) until you select "EXT PWR" on the overhead to AVAIL V1 speed will show as default value 100 even after clicking "Send Data" - this value needs to be set manually with the "SPD/MACH" knob. In order to activate the auto-throttle system, you need to manually select the speed, then click on the dial to activate "pre set" which will show up in yellow text. You then need to click on a small area to the bottom-left of the A/THR similar to the operation of the PMDG series (small screw to the below-left of the speed knob). Engine spool-up will be slower than expected as these are older engines. Landing gear needs to be set to "neutral" (middle position),otherwise the auto-brake system will not activate. You can pre-arm the decent profile by using the mouse to the left of the ALT SEL knob. It shows as a down-arrow icon. You will then see a blue P.DES show on the PFD below the P.ALT annunciator. The course and heading displays are dependent on the toggle-switch on the cockpit VOR/NAV/ILS three-way-switch. The VOR will display dashed lines until you select VOR from the glare shield. The range values on the F.C.U (Flight Control Unit), are different to what you'd be used to in the A320, in the A300 series, they are 15,30,60,120,240 as opposed to the A320 series which show 10,20,40,80,160 and 320 There are only the iniSimulation House liveries installed by default when you install the aircraft, So you need to use the inimanager to install any desired additional liveries (of which there are many). You simply click on the livery tab and choose from Realistic or Fictional under the Freighter or Passenger versions. This is a great improvement on the original version of the aircraft which required you to download each livery manually, and if a new version was produced, it meant you had to download the new version again. With the inimanager system, you can remove or update the liveries as desired. To see the aircraft type you're currently flying, on the FMC go to REF, then A/C Status. Here you will see engine-type ie: PW 4158 PFD/ND XFR is a nice hidden gem, it switches the two displays over in the event of a CRT failure. General Electric Engines N2 is ~ 20 Pratt and Whitney startup N2 ~ 24 For comparison Framerate for IXEG 737 ~52 in cruise ~35 in Dublin (Boundless Scenery). Framerate for A300 in 55 fps in cruise. ~45 fps in Dublin cargo area. New features in A300/A310 CDLPC implementation - you can import the flights with your Simbrief username. Landing performance page Load sheet is now changed so that data is directly entered using your keyboard, instead of sliding values. Currently known issues: At the moment, the only issue I have is with the pilot's side altimeter counter. Scrolling between the units 80 and 00 shows a slight skip as the aircraft climbs or descends. Oddly enough, it only happens on the freighter variants of both the A300 and A310 models. The passenger variants are working as expected. Currently, the latest versions are as follows: A300-600 version V2.09 A300 BelugaST version V1.12 A310-300 version 1.14 You can purchase this aircraft from the following sites. https://store.inibuilds.com/pages/inisimulations (price does not include V.A.T) A300-600 (£69.99) A310-300 (£69.99) A300-ST Beluga (£44.99) Note that you are entitled to a 25% discount if you have one of their models already. Comment I would definitely recommend this aircraft as it is one of the best older-style aircraft out there. If you are getting a bit tired of Boeing and modern Airbus aircraft, this is the one for you. It's got the right blend of vintage and modern to keep you interested. Review System Specifications: Computer System: Windows - Intel Core i9-9900K CPU 5.00GHz / 64bit - 32 Gb DDR4 4300 RAM - EVGA GeForce GTX 2070 8Gb - Samsung Evo 1Tb SSD Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane 11.55r2 Addons: Saitek Throttle and Yoke : Sound -Soundblaster Audigy Fx Plugins: : BetterPushBack - Free LiveTraffic - Weather ActiveSkyXP https://hifisimtech.com/asxp/ Aircraft Review by Jude Bradley 10th June 2022 Copyright©2022 : 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