Mini Review: Wilco A380 v2

Wilco Publishing just came out with a major update to their Airbus A380 add-on. This update adds full support for Flight Simulator X, along with a few new features. I managed to get hold of it this week, so I figured I would take a few moments to share some impressions.

Let me start off by mentioning that there are some nice aspects of the A380 v2 product. It uses the same FMC as Wilco's Airbus Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 products. Presumably, the FMC database is upgradable with AIRAC updates from Navigraph, although I haven't tried this yet. The FMC seems to work fine for both vertical and lateral navigation. Wilco has created a nice set of liveries for the A380, including most of the known A380 customers such as Singapore, Qantas, and Emirates. The external models look very nice. Wilco has also simulated flight attendant announcements in-flight, similar to the Level-D 767. These are cute and add a little touch of realism while flying.

Some of the initial comments regarding the A380 v2 I have seen in various forums elsewhere have been somewhat negative. It is worth noting that Wilco has not endorsed the A380 add-on with their PIC ("Pilot-in-Command") label, which seems to be reserved for their best releases. Given this, criticism of the A380 v2 is not entirely fair, as Wilco themselves seem to have acknowledged that the product is not in their top tier. Still, with both their Airbus Vol. 1 and Airbus Vol. 2 products bearing the PIC label, it seems like some of those efforts could have rubbed off onto the update of the A380 product.

With that said, I will address some of the downsides of the A380 v2 product. The 2D panel appears to be a direct port from the old FS9-only version of the A380. While functional, it is not as visually appealing as the panels used in the Airbus Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 products. I understand the real A380 instrument panel is substantially similar to the earlier Airbus models, so it seems like it would have been easy enough to reuse some of those components. My major complaint is that some of the text in the displays of the A380 product is much more cramped, making them more difficult to read.

My other major complaint is that there seems to be a bug involving deployment of reverse thrust on the A380 when landing. I did a few short test flights of the A380 this weekend, and the reverse thrusters did not seem to stay activated when landing. When holding down the F2 key, the reverse thrust mode seemed to toggle off and on. At the very least, the behavior seems to be different than the behavior apparent in the Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 products. If this behavior is indeed a bug, hopefully it will be resolved in a future update of the A380 product.

Some people have reported that the A380 v2 handles nothing at all like the real thing. I wouldn't know -- not being a real pilot myself. That certainly could well be the case.

Overall, I think this product is OK, but not spectacular. It is not up to the standards of the 737 PIC or the Airbus PIC products, but it's not terrible. I rate it better than Wilco's CRJ add-on (another direct FS9 port lacking significant functionality) and their 777 add-on (severe bugs), but not as highly as their PIC products. It's worth checking out if you are just dying to try out an A380, but I don't know that I would put it in the must-have category.

Rating: ** 1/2