I have been flying the Airbus A330 in Infinite Flight for a long time and honestly it is one of the aircraft I enjoy the most it is elegant stable and visually beautiful but the current performance does not reflect how the real A330 behaves
Right now the aircraft feels very underpowered even with a light or medium load it struggles to climb beyond FL360 or FL380 and once it reaches FL400 or FL410 it needs almost full engine power around 99 percent just to maintain level flight that is not realistic in real life the Rolls Royce Trent 700 engines can easily maintain cruise at high altitude with around 85 to 88 percent N1 leaving plenty of margin
Because of this imbalance the A330 climb rate becomes unrealistically low above FL360 sometimes dropping below 400 feet per minute the aircraft feels heavy even when it should not takeoffs at higher weights often require full thrust and go arounds feel slow and unresponsive
Every day I tell myself I will try to fly the A330 again but when I remember how weak it feels I lose motivation I end up choosing another aircraft even though the A330 has always been one of my favorites I really hope to see this aircraft receive a proper performance update so that it can finally feel as strong and capable as it should
This is not a complaint this is a genuine request for realism the rework we got in version 21.4 was excellent visually but the thrust and drag model needs to be reviewed and tuned again bringing the A330 up to the same performance standard as the A350 or 777 would make a huge difference
Why this update matters
The A330 is one of the most used and loved wide bodies in Infinite Flight and having it perform realistically would make flying it much more enjoyable for everyone correcting the thrust to drag balance would make takeoff climb and cruise feel authentic again and it would finally bring the A330 to the same level of quality as the other reworked long haul aircraft
Suggested improvements
Review and adjust the engine thrust and drag data for the Trent 700 engines
Check the thrust decay at higher altitudes it becomes too steep above FL360
Improve the takeoff and go around performance so it matches realistic acceleration
I hope this can be considered for a future update the A330 deserves it
The A330 (including the NEO) is however weaker in terms of power and thrust to weight ratio than both the 777 and the A350. So if you’re expecting it to be the same, you will be disappointed regardless of how on accurate our flight model is.
I completely understand that and I respect the accuracy behind the A330 design still even with its naturally lower thrust to weight ratio the aircraft performance in Infinite Flight feels slightly below what is observed in real operations a small refinement in the thrust or drag model could make it reflect the real A330 envelope more precisely and that would enhance both realism and pilot satisfaction without breaking the balance you have achieved
Probably a couple percent weaker, no arguments there.
But also - do you know the weight of the aircraft you’re tracking on FR24? Are you taking previous step climbs it has done during that flight into consideration? Are you using the proper vertical speed when climbing?
I’ve flown the A330 a lot in Infinite Flight and even though I agree with it being very weak, I still haven’t stalled even when following SimBrief FPL’s.
It’s by far my far my most favorite plane. Along with some narrow bodies I am flying it most of the time for my longhauls. As I’m right now. Especially the neo with its bigger and modern engines feels too weak. This was also confirmed by other long time IF members and tested out. I already asked them if it’s just my opinion that it’s not performing as it should. You mentioned simbrief: yes, I can’t use their parameters for my flights. When it’s suggesting stepclimbs from TOC 340, 360, 380, 400, I usually go with 320, 340, 360… sometimes when it’s possible and all factors like wind and weight are ok, I go for 380. but very rarely. N1 would go like crazy. It should stay at max 91% as tutorials are mentioning.
I agree with FR24. But some planes I’ve seen went for FL400.
Hi, do you ever check temperature when you’re climbing heavy? Just now for example with the A330 at 15C temp setting I could climb at MTOW to FL365 without loss of forward speed. But increasing temp to 40C and I can no longer maintain forward speed at that altitude.
So, I wouldn’t have been able to climb to that altitude at 40C. Flying in summer vs winter conditions for example, can make a real difference on average.
@virginatlantic28 : “Pilots report sluggish climb rates at high weights and warm conditions” is a fact, consistent with:
I beg to differ. I think the 330 performs wonderfully, especially after that re-work. It’s one of favorite long-haul aircraft and I never have any issues with it, even with flights that are 12 hours. Same goes for the NEO.
I have not flown the A333 in a while, but I used to fly it a lot and found it nearly perfect. So I just did a climb in solo at standard temperature with 219000kg and reached 34000ft in 20 minutes and 36000ft in 25 minutes, just like a real A330 does.
Max N1 was 93% up to FL340, then 97% to reach FL360, with 95% to cruise at M0,80. FL 34 would have been a better initial level, with only 91% N1 for cruise.
Since this fits under the performance part of your topic, I’m going to tell you it’s underpowered and draggy. It’s supposed to have even more range in game than it does irl, and I’m saying that because there are some breaks in fuel flow between 10,000 and 29,000 feet, where your fuel burn goes up no matter what, even if you keep your engine power at 90% n1 I think.
This is on the neo and there’s some weird behavior from the a350 that has strikingly similar elements as the a330. Not really focused on by the dev team as I’ve been told, but you’re not climbing on a single engine as you’re supposed to (that could have been a way to check if the flight model was okay or not). I don’t fly it much for those reasons. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, it’s in these topics:
I can’t really do anything more because I haven’t had a pro subscription for the past two months and still going, but these test were when I had one.
While the time taken to reach cruise may not differ significantly from that in the real aircraft, the thrust used during climb and cruise certainly do.
A quick glance of this table from an A330-343 FCOM would suffice - the specific TATs you experienced during your flight are irrelevant here as all of the cruise N1 values you mentioned here exceed the maximum cruise N1, for any given altitude and temperature.
(The highest allowable cruise N1 according to this table is 85.5% at FL350 at -14 degrees C.)
The FCOM seems to suggest that this is the case, yes.
Doesn’t the fact that it needs more N1 than is supposed to, in order to maintain a certain speed and altitude, kind of automatically implies that it struggles to climb as it should?
For the reason that you aren’t supposed to exceed max climb N1 while climbing - and if you need more N1 than is allowable to maintain a certain speed during the climb than on the real thing (which is the case here), wouldn’t that mean if you were to use a realistic climb N1 (as shown above) in IF, you’d end up with a lower climb rate than what should be possible in real life?
Using your example - you used 93% N1 to achieve a similar climb performance at FL340 as what would be achieved with ~86% N1 in real life (or lower - most operators use derated climb thrust at lower altitudes in order to reduce engine wear.)
Even though N1 to total thrust output isn’t a directly proportional 1-to-1 relationship, having to use 93% instead of 86% means that you are using a greater % of the maximum thrust in order to achieve the same level of performance as the real aircraft - which therefore means that the maximum thrust available in question is lower in IF, at least at higher altitudes. (This is not really an issue below ~FL200, so this may very well be a problem with the thrust curve.)
Everything relevant was described already in the previous posts. I just want to underline: if max N1 totally goes beyond the green bar into yellow and red for a longer period of time in stepclimbs (following simbriefs fpl recommendation) there is supposedly something not as it should be. Even when climbing at a rate of 200fpm.
. We’re just wondering if the performance is a bit beneath to its rl counterpart.
