The Aerosoft team has recently taken to their A330 website to showcase some new information about their upcoming Airbus A330 long-haul aircraft series for Microsoft Flight Simulator.
The development update starts with the team saying that the A330 has been around for a long time, with the systems mostly being based on the previous, FSX version of their Airbus series. They tried to take advantage of this, as Microsoft Flight Simulator still offers this kind of programming. Until a certain point, this worked, but the team wanted something better.
The more the team tried to implement their previous code base, they ran into incompatibility of this code base with native MSFS features, ultimately resulting in the Aerosoft team needing to rebuild more systems from scratch.
As of the Summer Solstice of 2024 (21st June), the team has fully completed all the 3D exterior models of the A330 CEO and NEO, which will be available in the package. This includes the RR engines, GE engines and PW engines. The same basically applies to the EFB which will be available in the aircraft, except for the NEO variant, which stands at 90 % completion at the moment. All of the following information resembles the readiness of the aircraft to enter beta testing.
The flight model is also almost complete, with the RR engine option being fully ready for beta testing, while the rest are 20 % behind. The FMS of each are 70 % complete and only the NEO falls 20 % behind the rest in terms of general systems.
Speaking of sound packs, the RR engine sound pack is almost complete, with the GE engine being 80 % done, the PW variant is 50 % done and the NEO variant will still take a while, as its sound pack is only 30 % finished.
One a bit more disappointing information is about the autopilot, which currently stands at 30 % for all the aircraft options.
The team closes this shorter development update by saying that nothing significant has changed since the last development update. The A330 is going to be released for both the current version of MSFS and for FS2024. The moment the Aerosoft team has a beta version of this upcoming simulator, extensive testing will commence. If everything goes smoothly, there is a high possibility that the owners of the FS2020 version of the A330 might be eligible for a free upgrade in the future.
If you would like to learn more about the Aerosoft A330 development, read the previous development update here.
