My Feedback on the A321 product line as an A320 type rated pilot

[Jeffrey Smith]

Dear FSL team, 

First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your hard work. As I said many times before, I was so happy to see FSL return to MSFS, even more so with the 321neo and the bright perspective of the rest of the product line that we all knew on P3D. I purchased every single copy, but the Concorde (I'm still waiting for the MSFS version !!  ). 
I would also like to thank Lefteris for taking the time to exchange on many occasion with me, I really appreciated you taking the time to consider my e-mails and requests. 

/!\ DISCLAIMER /!\
I'm an active type rated pilot working for a EU company but flying all around the globe for various clients. I fly mostly the 320, 321s CFMs and/or IAE. I never flew a NEO version. That being said, I can be wrong, I don't have the pretention to know everything, even though I study a lot and fly the airplane daily. Please feel free to check and correct me. 
As a simmer, I have 15 years of experience flying various Airbus lines, I was beta tester for the Aerosoft Airbus product line (before the 330), I closely work with brands of industry as I create content for the french community with the name "PilotJeff" and I did 50ish flights since the FSL product line was introduced to MSFS. 
The A321 flies a little bit differently than the A320 and 319 IRL. Due to it's long fuselage, specific attention is given to tailstrike awarness on take off and landing, therefore pilots adapat their manual flying technique. The optimum takeoff flaps is 2 as on all Airbus and it has a nose heavy tendency especially on landing. 

Down to business... 
I'd like to start with positives. In my opinion, this is the best Airbus A320 family experience since P3D. Fenix is behing, iniBuilds is behind (due to Microsoft/asobo limitations) and FBW is doing pretty good but it's not comparable to a payware addon with 10/15 years of development. 
 

• FBW is very good, I think you can add a little more delay but overall very nice, I could do the exact same movement as in the real aircraft, and the aircraft behavior was doing was I was expecting. 
• Performance calculation are very good. I did comparision with FlySmart and it was close. Simbrief tends to load the aircraft the same way whereas IRL we would put as much as we can in the back. 
• The integration of GSX and the use of ATSU for ALL communications including GSX, ground, ATC is amazing ! This is what I use everyday, we go many times in ATSU, the EFB isn't loaded with 100 apps. The fact that it's all in the FMS was a brilliant idea from P3D days. Amazing ! 
• Sounds are in my opinion great, even though you don't hear much in the 321 cockpit. Cabin packaged and the possibility to do PAs is a very cool feature, though useless, but cool, I love it ! It's great for practice haha ! 
• System depth is amazing, I was able to try and reproduce many different behavior on Elec, HYD, ENG, PRESS and the behavior of the aircraft is spot on. Same for the FMS, some stuff might be missing but overall better than anything I've seen. 
• Techlog feature. Well when you though you could escape every day's troubles, FSL kicks you in the b*lls... Amazing feature, I love having the random MEL/CDLs and practice some spurious ECAMs. Probably the best feature that you've added so far ! 
• Effects like St.Elmos, bugs etc... really adds a dimension
• Braking system : although I find the brakes to be not very linear, the temperature simulation is very precise. I'm right footed and it's all the time the side with the hottest brakes, just like in real-life ! 
• Taxiing is also very good. I use IIDB tiller and it's amazing how smooth and NOT linear as the FCOM demonstrates. Very good job ! 
• CB can be triggered, not all of course, but a lot of them ! Amazing !

What I have found (latest revision, MSFS 2024) : 

• Logo light shows only a bright light circle around the led light, but that's it. No projection on the Engines/Wings
• Missing DME information when using LS on an ILS 
• On takeoff Transition from Ground Law to Flight Law is a little aggressive (over 10° of pitch)
• On landing, the nose has a tendency to crash on the runway. IRL it has the same tendency but you can fly it a little to smoothen it. In the sim, impossible, I have to really apply a lot of backpressure. 
• Pitch Wheel in flight changes position almost instantly when changing the THS position. I couldn't feel anything flying the aircraft so it might be the animation. 
• 3D modeling of the cockpit glareshield from the inside has wrong proportion. On that side Fenix did an amazing job. You can see it but the size of the Vents. Same goes for the nose, I see a pale white nose when flying a KLM livery
• Cockpit door overhead panel not lighting when doing the ANN LT test for the Door test
• Manual braking could be a little more linear

I'll run some more test in the future and will continue this post of course. 
Once again thank you for your work FSL team, hopefully you're preparing to offer us a bright future full of FSL products. I wish you nothing more than the success you deserve. 

Sincerely,
Jeff

[Ervin Sahinovic]

1 hour ago, Jeffrey Smith said:

Dear FSL team, 

First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your hard work. As I said many times before, I was so happy to see FSL return to MSFS, even more so with the 321neo and the bright perspective of the rest of the product line that we all knew on P3D. I purchased every single copy, but the Concorde (I'm still waiting for the MSFS version !!  ). 
I would also like to thank Lefteris for taking the time to exchange on many occasion with me, I really appreciated you taking the time to consider my e-mails and requests. 

/!\ DISCLAIMER /!\
I'm an active type rated pilot working for a EU company but flying all around the globe for various clients. I fly mostly the 320, 321s CFMs and/or IAE. I never flew a NEO version. That being said, I can be wrong, I don't have the pretention to know everything, even though I study a lot and fly the airplane daily. Please feel free to check and correct me. 
As a simmer, I have 15 years of experience flying various Airbus lines, I was beta tester for the Aerosoft Airbus product line (before the 330), I closely work with brands of industry as I create content for the french community with the name "PilotJeff" and I did 50ish flights since the FSL product line was introduced to MSFS. 
The A321 flies a little bit differently than the A320 and 319 IRL. Due to it's long fuselage, specific attention is given to tailstrike awarness on take off and landing, therefore pilots adapat their manual flying technique. The optimum takeoff flaps is 2 as on all Airbus and it has a nose heavy tendency especially on landing. 

Down to business... 
I'd like to start with positives. In my opinion, this is the best Airbus A320 family experience since P3D. Fenix is behing, iniBuilds is behind (due to Microsoft/asobo limitations) and FBW is doing pretty good but it's not comparable to a payware addon with 10/15 years of development. 
 

• FBW is very good, I think you can add a little more delay but overall very nice, I could do the exact same movement as in the real aircraft, and the aircraft behavior was doing was I was expecting. 
• Performance calculation are very good. I did comparision with FlySmart and it was close. Simbrief tends to load the aircraft the same way whereas IRL we would put as much as we can in the back. 
• The integration of GSX and the use of ATSU for ALL communications including GSX, ground, ATC is amazing ! This is what I use everyday, we go many times in ATSU, the EFB isn't loaded with 100 apps. The fact that it's all in the FMS was a brilliant idea from P3D days. Amazing ! 
• Sounds are in my opinion great, even though you don't hear much in the 321 cockpit. Cabin packaged and the possibility to do PAs is a very cool feature, though useless, but cool, I love it ! It's great for practice haha ! 
• System depth is amazing, I was able to try and reproduce many different behavior on Elec, HYD, ENG, PRESS and the behavior of the aircraft is spot on. Same for the FMS, some stuff might be missing but overall better than anything I've seen. 
• Techlog feature. Well when you though you could escape every day's troubles, FSL kicks you in the b*lls... Amazing feature, I love having the random MEL/CDLs and practice some spurious ECAMs. Probably the best feature that you've added so far ! 
• Effects like St.Elmos, bugs etc... really adds a dimension
• Braking system : although I find the brakes to be not very linear, the temperature simulation is very precise. I'm right footed and it's all the time the side with the hottest brakes, just like in real-life ! 
• Taxiing is also very good. I use IIDB tiller and it's amazing how smooth and NOT linear as the FCOM demonstrates. Very good job ! 
• CB can be triggered, not all of course, but a lot of them ! Amazing !

What I have found (latest revision, MSFS 2024) : 

• Logo light shows only a bright light circle around the led light, but that's it. No projection on the Engines/Wings
• Missing DME information when using LS on an ILS 
• On takeoff Transition from Ground Law to Flight Law is a little aggressive (over 10° of pitch)
• On landing, the nose has a tendency to crash on the runway. IRL it has the same tendency but you can fly it a little to smoothen it. In the sim, impossible, I have to really apply a lot of backpressure. 
• Pitch Wheel in flight changes position almost instantly when changing the THS position. I couldn't feel anything flying the aircraft so it might be the animation. 
• 3D modeling of the cockpit glareshield from the inside has wrong proportion. On that side Fenix did an amazing job. You can see it but the size of the Vents. Same goes for the nose, I see a pale white nose when flying a KLM livery
• Cockpit door overhead panel not lighting when doing the ANN LT test for the Door test
• Manual braking could be a little more linear

I'll run some more test in the future and will continue this post of course. 
Once again thank you for your work FSL team, hopefully you're preparing to offer us a bright future full of FSL products. I wish you nothing more than the success you deserve. 

Sincerely,
Jeff

Amazing that you share your experience and your thoughts! I personally love this bird and I enjoy flying it all the time. Obviously it’s been out for 2 and a half months so in my view it’s still considered a relatively ”new” product. Had a little bit of performance issues but I fixed it so now it works smoothly. Really happy that I bought it and I can’t wait to see the new LEAP update and the PWs. (Whale engines🐳🐋) Have said this multiple times and I will say it once again- Fantastic work team! I’m eager to see what the team is cooking-PWs, A20N…👀 
Best of luck to the team!

Cheers,

[Jeffrey Smith]

I dreamt of being where I am today, flying the FSLabs on P3D. It's only natural for me that I share something back to the community  
I'm also very interested in the PW, hopefully it'll come soon ! 

Take care !
Jeff 

[Lefteris Kalamaras]

Thank you for this feedback-

just a small note on the light issue - that's Asobo's and they've fixed it in SU3, so it should be good and working once SU3 comes out of beta. The rest we're of course looking into!