FBW A32nx Mod

“The A32NX Project is a community-driven open source project to create a free Airbus A320neo in Microsoft Flight Simulator that is as close to reality as possible. It aims to enhance the default A320neo by improving the systems depth and functionality to bring it up to payware-level, all for free.”

Having great fun with this, as it pretty much saves airliners on MSFS. It must be difficult for the modding team as Asobo ‘Keystone Cop’s’ each update with some chaos, but they’ve done some very nice things.

A really short summary is that this is like the Zibo 737 for XP11, but the A320 for MSFS.

Easiest way to get it is from here:

The downloader app is worth grabbing, and I recommend the usually very stable ‘Development’ version as the latest and greatest.

https://github.com/Externoak/A32NX-installer/releases/latest/download/A32NX_Downloader.zip

Lots and lots to talk about, so just some quick screens to get an idea of all the things they’ve added over the top of the stock aircraft:

Cold and Dark in the unmistakable puke blue of the bus:

A proper (ish, don’t you real pilots start causing trouble in my pretend thread :wink: ) external power start, with proper ADIRS alighnment.

Improved ECAM (sp) messaging. A buckload of better MCDU menu re-writes:

Proper Datalink AOC, with company messages displayed!

Decent INIT pages at last! (I’m going to leave off the exclamation point, so take it as a given)

Fuel and Weight planning

Flight progress modes properly modelled, including Flex take offs

Much Improved Flight Plan

Empty seat, so double the work

Nice Weather Radar plus TCAS TA

Updated ENG, Bleed, Pressure, APU screens

Pretending the weather in CYVR is better than it is:

Works great in VR, with OpenXR on WMR doing miracles with about 30 fps and reprojection (public release for this Dec 22nd I think).

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Some nice new lighting fixes coming in the dev version today. Could have done with these the other night with it so dark.

New reading lights

Better flood lights

Beacon belly lights

Take off lights

Landing Lights

It’s crazy how much better this is than the stock aircraft.

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Hmm…gonna apply that mod tomorrow…well…maybe Wednesday as I’m off for a few days starting then. Time to re-don the Reverb and start exploring.

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It just overwrites the stock A320 but only putting stuff in the ‘Community’ folder, so it’s easy to zap and go back. That downloader app I linked to makes it pretty trivial to update.

The plan for the mod team is that they are going to do their own exterior and interior models, plus a new flight systems and their own autopilot. Asobo is happy for them to do this, and actually helps them out in terms of info to be able to do so. So basically it’s going to be like the XP11 Zibo 738 but a bus.

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Yeah…I saw that news you posted about the scenery library community thingy…that is really good news. Crowd-sourcing the improvements is gonna be huge for MSFS and a big bonus for all of us that like to wander the world.

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I may have to finally abandon FSX and jump on the bandwagon. A nice bus would be a great start as I’m familiar with the systems.

I’ve just wondered how much I can expect from my old warhorse system.

It might be worth doing the $1 for the first month (and then cancel) ‘Xbox Games Pass for PC’ as that includes MSFS 2020, as that’ll give you a while to check it out. It runs pretty well for me, but not sure on older hardware.

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Oh, nice - Simbrief integration with the MCDU to load values for your flight plan via AOC msg requests - that will save some tapping. A video, as it give a nicer idea of how it works

As the mod is open source, it’s always interesting to see how someone proposed this feature, a description of how to use it and how the various testing people try it out and provide feedback. It’s great to see on a free mod like this:

Note: this feature hasn’t been merged with the Dev version that on the ‘one button download’ yet, but it’s on the way pretty soon by the looks of it.

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Just tried a flight with the latest Dev build (via the downloader) and the simbrief integration is in there and works great. Picked up my flight and info from simbrief.com perfectly, and all you need to do is assign a SID/STAR and you’re good to go. Saves a lot of tapping on the MCDU for sure.

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That is a pretty slick installer. Love it. Really a nice mod…exploring it now.

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Alas…after many years of holding out. I also finally subscribed to Navigraph. Couldn’t find an RNAV approach that I was looking for and over the decades I’ve noticed more and more disconnects between sim data and what my approach plates show.

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MSFS gets an update every month now to keep on the latest cycle, so that might be handy.

Kelowna (CYLW 34, use lots of snow), Gibraltar (LXGB 27 or 9, both tricky, use lots of cross winds) and San Diego (KSAN 27, mainly to just miss the parking garage) are my three faves of ‘Put bad weather and land the A32NX via a RNAV’. It’s nice to get that quick sim fix in, if a long flight isn’t possible. Air starts, with the approach put in the World Map make it pretty convenient and work ok.

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That would be really nice. I still needed updates for X-Plane…so that works out well anyway. I wasn’t able to find either of the two RNAV approaches into Sandane (LSZS) in the default MSFS or X-Plane, and needed them for an article. I think those approaches are relatively recent additions (2019) to the airfield.

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Nuke the existing directory completely (old files etc) and downloaded a fresh Dev copy via the downloader. They’ve fixed a bunch of things today to make it work with the latest update. Did a quick flight in VR and all is well. I get better support for this free mod than anything paid for, they are obsessed, javascript-loving, busy beavers for sure.

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Yeah…did the update today (after forgetting about your message). My APU wasn’t starting…so I was scratching my head. Ran the auto-updater thingy and got a new version and that was fixed. Really a cool mod. I have no idea what I’m doing, but it sure looks good doing it…

Those gliders are about to go…gliding…

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Remember, it’s an airbus, so don’t touch the flight controls, the computer doesn’t like it. :slight_smile:

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Dogs installed in cockpit to bite pilot if he touches anything… :white_check_mark:

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Pimping out my Airbus. Went with the beautiful and tasteful charcoal and cream interior option. Please don’t smudge the new interior with shrimp cocktail sauce…

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You can tell those dogs are professional by the way they have looped the trash bag over the handle behind the printer.

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