It’s no secret that iniBuilds A350 airliner launch as been seen a mix of praise and criticism within the community as the long haul airliner simulation has seen its share of problems. The airliner has now been updated with one of the more substantial updates since launch and it looks set to address some issues while adding in new features too. Let’s have a look.

Features and fixes

The folks at iniBuilds have been working on their A350 post-launch for quite some time now and we’re at version 1.0.9 now. Some fixes have been small and aimed at stability (WASM crashes have been a constant issue with the A350 for some users) while other are more fulsome and its the later that we have with 1.0.9.

One of the areas overhauled is the VNAV system which they say now better follows calculated VNAV profiles. It apparently skipped height in turns, didn’t always meet speed limitations or altitude constraints correctly. New features have been added together with these fixes with new ETT (Estimated Take-off Time), CMS (Constant Mach Segment), and CDA (Continous Descent Approach).

Another point of contention was missing ECAM (Airbus’ aircraft monitoring) messages. Over a dozen new ones have been added including fuel leak, various icing rated warnings, and brake faults. It’s very likely not going to satisfy all but its good to see improvement.

Flight model adjustments have been made too. New yaw damper effects should improve crosswind handling and adverse yaw effects while rotation law updates should eliminate some aggressive pitch issues.

Stability is also reportedly improved with the removal of some duplicate and unnecessary variables in the code. Reportedly there have been cleanups to code in places as well. Time will tell if this helps remove the WASM crash issues that have been a point of complaint since the start.

New visual effects

There are some new eye-candy related items in this update too. One of them is dynamic snow and icing effects. Icing can form dynamically on the aircraft based on precipitation type. A GSX-addon will also enable you to remove the icing on the ground with deicing procedures. In 2024, snow can also build up on top of the aircraft. All of this can be adjusted via EFB for whatever outcome the player wants.

Another feature is the addition of hot brake disc effects. The brakes will glow red under heavy braking and smoke can come off of them if they get too hot. This has been a fun thing to see on their A300 so its good to see it jump to this airliner too.

A full change-log is available here on the iniBuilds forums.