Coming out only a few weeks ago, iniBuilds have launched their first purchasable airliner for Microsoft Flight Simulator and they’ve made a bit a splash while doing it. Their Airbus A300 comes packaged with quite a few features, some unique to airliners in the sim, and they are offering it at a competitive price. I’m taking my time with a full review as I have a lot to learn and iniBuilds have committed to offering free and paid updates too. So, for now I’m doing an early impressions review of the aircraft. A lot of people have also asked what the difference between this and the freely available A310 is and I take a look at that as well. Without further delay, here are my early impressions of the iniBuilds A300-600!

The significant history of the A300

There are a bunch of reasons why this plane is quite interesting from a real world perspective. That starts with the A300 being the original Airbus.

After a number of European airliners failed to see broad success, a memorandum of understanding was initially signed by the UK, France and West Germany to create a pan-European airliner project with the goal of selling aircraft worldwide. Although the UK government would ultimately drop out of the project, France and West Germany would share in a 50/50 project that ultimately lead to the creation of Airbus and the A300. Though sales were initially slow, the A300 gradually gained acceptance and became a sales success.

Airlines realized that there were fuel economy savings that a twin-engine, wide-body, offered over the tri-jets it was competing with. That, together with the acceptance of ETOPS (Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards), enabled the A300 to fly transatlantic and that helped clinch the prize.

The A300 also makes a bit of history in another category. It was among the first of the modern airliner to freighter conversions with some being purpose built in the configuration and others being converted to the configuration after ending service as airliners. The last A300-600F rolled off the production lines in 2007 and recent announcements have indicated that the aircraft is expected to continue to see service as a freighter until 2035.

Don’t we already have this airplane?

Microsoft Flight Simulator already has an A310. It was also created by iniBuilds and was released by Microsoft as part of the 40th Anniversary update to everyone with the sim. So, isn’t this the same airplane? Sort of.

The earliest A300 was shortened, its cockpit redesigned for two pilot operation (the early A300 had a three person cockpit like its contemporaries) and it was re-winged to form the A310 . The A300-600 was, in the real world, then developed from the A310 design. The two aircraft share avionics and even type ratings given their similarities.

Back in the sim world, the basics of flying the A300-600 payware and the A310 that everyone has access to are essentially the same. To the point where even I, only about a year into my efforts to learn and fly airliners, was able to jump in and do what I was doing before with the A310. If its so familiar, then where does the value come in? Here’s why it appeals so much to me.

Extra details, extra features

Everything about the A300-600 is more refined than the A310. While there’s nothing wrong with the A310, the work that iniBuilds has done for the A300 goes above and beyond and that goes for the visuals, the sounds, and the systems.

The visuals all over the airplane are impressive. From the subtle texturing of the cockpit dash to the labels on the outside of the aircraft, everything just seems more intricately done. The aircraft’s brakes glow under heavy braking as well. The A310 is good, very good with the texture enhancement pack (free on the Marketplace) but this is better. Textures alone don’t make it worth the money so what else is there?

The sounds, which were always a weaker aspect of the A310, are better here too. With the A300 there are more and better sounds all around and the “buzzsaw” sound on the General Electric CF6 engines is very satisfying. Just as impressive are the engines while parked with the blades spinning slowly in the breeze with a subtle tick-tick-tick sound as they rotate. Not the first time we’ve seen this but its well integrated. Inside to outside audio levels did need a bit of tweaking but iniBuilds did that early on in one of the patches that the aircraft has seen since release and I haven’t had any complaints – doubly so after I adjusted the levels to my own liking in the EFB settings menu.

Speaking of EFB, iniBuilds have built out the EFB on the A300-600 to do quite a bit more than the standard. The throttle calibration seems better thought out and more user friendly, the included checklist is a great reference, and the interface to control doors, stairs, and other miscellany is really nicely refined. It also has good integration with SimBrief and Navigraph for folks who use those services. Its the maintenance feature, rarely seen on airliners (if at all), that help make this stand out.

iniBuilds have also included a maintenance system that I don’t think has been seen before on any other airliner for Microsoft Flight Simulator (someone correct me if I’m wrong there). Some GA airplanes have had different takes on this feature before but this time we have it on an airliner and it gives a sense of operating a real aircraft over a prolonged period of time. There’s some graphical flourish to the system in the EFB letting you see the status of various parts. But you can also do a walkaround inspection and look at tire and break wear visually. Very cool!

I also want to take a moment to appreciate just how good the cockpit screens have been done. These are old style CRT screens and they have been modeled with the appropriate resolution and a bit of that old school CRT fuzz. They bath the cockpit in a greenish glow at night too which looks spectacular – the A310 has the same screen but it just doesn’t look quite as good as this.

The future will bring some additional options to the airplane including a different set of engines, the Pratt & Whitney JT9D, and a paid addition will add a more modern avionics suite as common with freighters flying in 2023.

Freighter ops

One of the main reasons I ended up buying the A300-600 was for freighter operations. I’ve flown aircraft like the Ju52 and C-47 in the IL-2 series and the DC-3 in MSFS but I’ve never done larger jet-based freighter flying before so the A300-600F was my entry point into it. And I’ve really enjoyed it!

The A300-600F is still a significant part of the freighter fleet as of 2024 though both it and the MD-11 are gradually being replaced by more modern freighter conversions. Still, DHL currently operates 36 of them and FedEx flies 65 and retirement of the A300-600 freighters is not expected for another decade.

This kind of flying is procedurally quite similar to airliners but the experience is different if you try to mimic real world operations in even the smallest way. That starts with the places that you’ll fly as flying this aircraft had me looking for freight hubs with some of the scenery that I already had. Then I even ended up purchasing another airport, Leipzig/Halle EDDP by Digital Design, to get one of DHL’s primary freight hubs.

iniBuilds have also done a great job of modeling some unique cargo options. You can “walk” the camera back there and have a look at what is in the hold. That includes aerospace parts, F1 race team parts, humanitarian relief and even horses. You can also select more generic cargo crates too which helps cover a wide range of cargo types. The impact is both visual but the presets also include realistic weight too which definitely has a simulated impact.

iniBuilds have also made the cargo door fully functional with the ability to operate it either from the EFB or from a control panel in the cargo hold. I love the option! Its immersive and enjoyable! Folks with GSX, a third party airliner ops plugin, can also see freighter lift vehicles pulling up to the aircraft though I have not tested this myself.

Passengers too

The A300-600 is also available in passenger configuration. This jumps out less at me than the freighter as the experience is more similar to the A310. That said, we still see some nice additions. The passenger stairways, luggage loading, and catering truck are all animated and have custom sounds. If you use GSX, the aircraft has support for that system too though I haven’t yet tested it.

Emergency evacuation slides are also present although I’ve only activated them accidentally rather than with intent so far. Not sure if user error, EFB UI issue, or something else contributing to that. I still need to work out why that’s happening.

Liveries

Available through the iniManager software, there are a ton of free liveries to download and install with a couple of clicks. That makes it really easy to decide to get a new livery and just download it and then fly. iniBuilds have added additional liveries to the list since launch so you can find a very wide selection of options.

Those liveries are all of very high quality with detailed weathering and dirt on the aircraft and they includes freighter operators such a DHL and FedEx or historical airliner operators including American, Pan Am, Thai Airways, Japan Airways, Lufthansa, Garuda Indonesia and South African just to mention some of the options.

Performance issues

One of the criticisms of the A310 is its hit on system performance. If you have a powerful sim rig, the aircraft performs fine but if you’re trying to fly it on a lesser system there are sometimes frame rate issues. The A300-600 has a similar set of issues and has also been reported as a bit of a performance hog

I don’t do much in the way of benchmark testing on Stormbirds and leave that to others, however, the consensus opinion out there is that this airliner is heavy on frames. Its certainly not as well optimized as PMDG’s 737 series or Aerosoft’s CRJ which are the most framerate friendly airliners that I’ve tested to date. My experience has generally been smooth except at the heaviest of airport scenery setups where I have had some stutters and one runway excursion as a result of a particularly long and ill timed stutter.

iniBuilds do offer, through their iniManager, a way to downgrade the textures to help with performance, the opposite of their enhancement pack for the A310, but I don’t think that will necessarily help with some of the CPU overhead that I think is the core of the issue. I’m not sure if the company will be able to or is motivated to improve here but I hope that they are able to eek out some small gains at least.

It’s not a show stopping issue in my experience but its worth paying attention to. If you have a strong system, this should be no problem. If you’re right on the edge of the specifications sheet for MSFS, it may not be a good experience.

Is it fast and fun?

For me, the fun part of sim flying is the flying. While I’m willing to do a certain amount of setup of an airplane, I don’t always feel like doing the cold and dark setup and start. I have done it with the A300-600 now a few times but there are times where I’d like to get going as quickly as I can. Its an anathema to some virtual airliner folks no doubt but there are plenty of others who want to find a happy medium ground. Or at least that’s what I think. So… does the A300 fit the bill? Mostly!

iniBuilds have some pluses and one minus in this category. On the plus side, the EFB have a bunch of panel state options that let you quickly jump from one state to another and the system works very effectively to let you start from cold and dark, get the GPU on and do some setup, or select ready for takeoff. Be warned that you can’t jump from state to start without undoing what happened before so if you want to go on GPU and configure the MCDU with a flight plan, selecting ready for takeoff will undo all of that.

On the negative, like a lot of airliners, the only way to pre-load a flight plan is via SimBrief and there’s no support for MSFS built in flight plan. While veteran airliner folks will almost all be using SimBrief, newer folks are going to be more accustomed to the built in system which is adequate if not fully featured. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.

Final thoughts

I think the A300-600R(F) is already a success with what iniBuilds have managed to release. Popularity among the community helps tell the story but popularity isn’t the only metric and in my estimation they have released a genuinely solid product with a great list of features.

What iniBuilds do need to do is get their optimization managed a little better. The aircraft doesn’t run badly most of the time but it could run better too and compete a little more closely with PMDG’s offering. I hope that they manage to offer some improvements there in what is already a quality product. This is a bit of a nitpick as most of my experience with performance has still been very good with some loss of smoothness in the heaviest of circumstances.

I’ll eventually be writing an even more fulsome review of this airplane but I want to spend a lot more time with it, learn more, and I also want to let the aircraft mature. With additional engines and avionics options coming by the middle part of the year, iniBuilds intends to build on this initial release and at that point I will write a more complete review.

2024 is going to be a big year for the iniBuilds as their A320neo V2 is coming for free to the sim as part of another Microsoft release and they’ve stated that they intend to release their A350-900 and -1000 by the end of 2024. These are exciting times and the A300-600 is definitely part of the goodness of what we have now and ahead.

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