Dear community and development team, I decided to write this feedback and summary about the new A321XLR aircraft. If you have expectations from this game and you care, feel free to read this, it will be long. If you don’t have the time, then it’s probably not for you. 🙂
The last time I gave feedback on the A320NEO, I was heavily criticized and almost the entire community jumped on me when I said the aircraft felt a bit “rushed” for release. Now that this XLR has come out, everyone is saying exactly the same thing, so it seems I wasn’t crazy after all.
Putting that aside, IPACS mentioned that they are confident the A320 family will receive many updates going forward. A few months have passed, and it seems that nothing has really changed except the aircraft model itself.
That being said, I’ll go ahead and give a summary of this aircraft.
Engine Sounds
Just like the previous NEO aircraft, we have the same issue. The sound is somewhat realistic, I’d say around 65% but many details are missing that the developers didn’t take into account.
For PW engines, when at idle, from the inside view there is a very high-pitched sound that is exaggerated compared to reality, and it can become quite annoying after a while. Regarding the “whale sound” when increasing thrust, it starts correctly, but it doesn’t end realistically, it cuts off abruptly instead of fading out naturally. If you check from the tower view, you’ll clearly hear what I mean.
Also, when reducing thrust to idle, once the engines reach around 350–450 parameters, the sound activates again, which is completely unrealistic. This sound should only occur when increasing thrust, not when decreasing it. During descent, you hear this sound continuously, which is not realistic at all. This definitely needs to be reviewed (although honestly, I don’t think it will happen).
Moving on to the CFM LEAP engines, here things feel more realistic both at idle and during flight behavior. However, during engine startup, it becomes unrealistic. If you watch a real startup, you’ll notice that when fuel starts pumping into the engine, there’s a strong, very low-frequency sound (similar to what is simulated on the 737 MAX 9 in the game). Feel free to see it here: CFM LEAP Start Up This is not present for the LEAP engines and should be implemented. Hopefully this will be considered.
Exterior Design
There are several issues here as well. Many liveries are incorrectly made and have missing elements, for example, airline text on the sharklets and similar details.
The windshield is overly transparent, and the windows have a very grey texture. This issue has been reported multiple times but doesn’t seem to have been addressed at all. If you choose a livery with the black mask around the windshield, because of the transparency and grey tones, it’s barely visible and defeats the purpose. In reality, the windows are darker, leaning towards black, which looks much better.
Lighting also has issues. Nose lights have disappeared because IPACS implemented the new NEO lighting system, but not all airlines have this system in reality, so configurations should reflect each specific airline.
The red beacon lights are also too weak compared to reality. In real life, they illuminate the sharklet, the front part of the wing, and the engine. In the game, they only slightly light up the engine and a small part of the wing underside. This has also been reported before, but unfortunately, no changes have been made.
Sounds (General)
There are many missing sound effects, if I listed them all, this would turn into a novel. 😆
The ambient cockpit sound of an Airbus A320 family aircraft has nothing to do with what we currently have in the game. The sounds when pressing the battery buttons and then EXT POWER are not realistically simulated at all. The PTU sound has been reported many times as unrealistic (which it is), but it has never been reworked.
The electric pump sound is completely unrealistic, it’s a strange noise that has nothing to do with reality. Fuel pump sounds are entirely missing, something I’ve mentioned many times, and it hasn’t been implemented. This makes the aircraft feel far from realistic.
On the website aircraft list, the aircraft sounds very fancy when you read the description, but once you actually experience it in the game, it’s not as impressive as it seems.
There are many more things that need to be fixed or implemented, like realistic fuel consumption, but I won’t go into all of them. What I mentioned above is, in my opinion, a MUST.
I hope you take this feedback into consideration and aim to deliver a high-quality product, just like you did with the A350. It’s a shame to have one aircraft extremely detailed while others have so many shortcomings.
I understand that you mentioned the A321NEO implementation was more complex due to the large number of liveries, but that’s exactly why many people want it, so they can fly with their favorite airline. And if you don’t want to deal with adding many liveries, at least allow iOS users to create their own or download liveries from external sources.
I hope you made it this far and that you’ll take action on these missing features for both the NEO and CEO models because we really need them.
I wish you guys best luck on your hard work and we look forward to continuing impressing us!
