A320 Airbus

A320 AIRBUS by Thallion : This was bar far the most complex civilian flight sim I flew on the Amiga.

It was developed in conjunction with the airline LUFTHANSA of Germany. The sim came with a huge manual, a massive "notepad" containing Jeppessen airfield approach charts for almost every controlled airfield in Central Europe, and 4 high level navigation charts, and a massive poster of a real A320 cockpit.

As you were "working" for the airline, your flight planning had to be the most efficient route regarding fuel (saving the company money) possible, whilst adhering to all the various flight rules laid out in the charts, including height & speed restriction for noise sensitive areas & avoiding military training areas.

After landing at your destination, you were then graded on your overall performance & flight planning calculations accuracy.

You were continually graded through your flying career, and after so many hours / flights, you had to undergo a check ride with an instructor. Various items of equipment would be disabled ( such as autoland on the autopilot ) so you had to prove you had the skill to be a captain of an airliner. If you failed the check ride you could end up with being demoted.

If you passed, you were able to get the next rank up. During your normal day to day flying, if your standard fell here too, you could also end up in trouble.

The graphics were pretty basic outside - not much of a problem when you were flying above or in cloud for most of the flight. All the airfields were flat, and all the buildings were just marked out with an outline on the ground, although the runways had full lighting for night operations.

Sadly, there were no outside views of the Airbus, only the cockpit front, left & right hand side views.

The sound effects were very good.

The engine start-up & shut down was music to the ears, while the rest of the cockpit had a multitude of alarm bells for various functions. The autopilot had several functions including autothrottle, alt & hdg hold & autoland. You also had full control over flaps & slats, airbrakes & thrust reversers.

The cockpit of this sim was stunning, and the complexity of the navigation instruments ( VOR, NDB ) were lightyears ahead of anything else I had seen or used until then. The flight dynamics of the aircraft were superb - you also had the digital flight computer allowing you full freedom of the flight envelope, but you also had a manual override, which really made you work that aircraft!

The sim had training flight area in the menu, but the main part of the sim was flying as a career for Lufthansa. You had full freedom of choosing your flight details, departure, destination, PAX & cargo weight.

You then had to plan the route in full using the info provided by the charts provided & the random weather reports given to you before take-off allowing a reserve for diversion to an alternate airport. You also had several pages in the manual dedicated to fuel consumption/ airspeed/ altitude charts which were consulted during the planning stages.

It's done by GuilHall Leisure at www.guildhallleisure.com (2023: site has gone).

It's basically an upadate of A320, not very good graphics by today's standards, but gameplay is good, plus you get loads of maps.

Quite hard to find anything about really, it's a shame, because it has rather good gameplay.

Here's a link to some shots of it. It's all in German I'm afraid.