Mod team turned developer, FlyByWire has released their first Q&A series for 2021 along with screenshots of their planned Airbus A380 project that the team is now also tackling. The group has added regular Q&A sessions, a vibrant Discord community, and is consistently at or near the top of the list among Flight Simulator fans to be somehow more completely added to the sim. Let’s have a look at what they are working on.
FlyByWire expands their efforts on the A320neo (A32NX)
When Microsoft Flight Simulator came out last year, there was some disappointment that the A320neo wasn’t up to the study simulation level that a lot of experienced airliner sim pilots were hoping for. It wasn’t long before a mod group started working on the A320neo, drawing on programming and systems experience coming together with information being provided by real world A320neo pilots.
The team has been busy working, add more features, re-texturing the cockpit, adding their own custom livery, and working towards the goal of it being a more realistic recreation of the A320.
The team has been doing work on adding a tablet to the cockpit, improving the autopilot and auto-land system, adding more details to the various displays in the cockpit, adding modes that the aircraft can fly with, and so on. The list of features, the level of detail, and the expertise on display is impressive.
Sim pilots aren’t the only ones who have been impressed by the work here, nor as FlyByWire been the only team that have started to tackle improvements on some of the default aircraft in the sim. Working Title, for example, is working on the Citation CJ4 and doing something similar. Asobo Studios seems to be open to working with these teams and hopefully we’ll see more integrated support from Asobo.
As the community has asked us to work with the teams at Working Title and Fly By Wire (and Saltys and others), we have intensified our communication with these teams and continue to be very impressed. The know-how and dedication of these teams is just awesome and we are increasingly confident that we will be able to deepen this collaboration. We hope to share more during the community stream later this month.
Flight Simulator Developer Update
In addition to all of this collaboration, the FlyByWire team has also built their own graphical installer or mod manager. The manager includes the A32NX including mainline Stable and Development versions as well as the ‘Experimental version’ which is the bleeding edge of what the team is working on.
You’ll also note that A380X is also listed on there… yep!
Bringing the A380 to Microsoft Flight Simulator
The A380 has not been an easy aircraft to add to any flight simulator. There are only a few out there and many teams have tried to tackle the project and not gotten anywhere. Will FlyByWire be able to beat those expectations? With an open source dev team that is over 100 strong and plenty of momentum and expertise underpinning it, the answer seems to be maybe!
The A380 project is intended to be freeware with the earliest steps on the project being shown in November with some tweets from the dev team showing off the work that had been done at that point.
Just yesterday, the team tweeted again with some new screenshots of the aircraft under development including a look at the nose gear, overhead panel, pedestal decals and the lower section of the pedestal.
Catch up with the latest ‘In The Hangar’
FlyByWire is now doing regular updates with their In The Hangar series of Q&A’s with the team. The latest update features a lot of what I’ve talked about and even more on the details that different members of the team are putting into the project.
Listening to the enthusiasm of the team and seeing what they’ve done in action so far, it’s pretty clear to me that FlyByWire is going to make a splash this year in the Microsoft Flight Simulator world with the team driving towards the goal of a much more fully realized A320neo and the beginnings of development towards a free A380. This team looks to have a promising future!
Quick links
Interested in the FlyByWire mod for the A32nx or want to learn more about their projects? Here are some quick links to help you find what you’re looking for:
Stormbirds 
Pretty slick
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Very encouraging to see Asobo create meaningful and productive relationships with teams like this!
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It really is! I’m growing a bit more familiar with the default version and I feel like I’ll have to check out the FBW version before too long.
This group really seems to have some great momentum and I’m glad to see Asobo smartly connecting with community groups like this one. Not that they need any help with sales numbers but it can really help cement a sim’s reputation.
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