Torrent Airbus Xtreme Prologue

1. Torrent Blackbox Airbus Xtreme Prologue

In the Prologue Package you will still have a very useable Airbus simulation with Highly detailled MFD Screens and ECAMS. These are all switchable and have independant dimmer controls! Some systems and functionality may be limited initially but The MCDU Will allow you to program a FlightPlan from start to finish, including climbs, Sids, Stars, Speed and Altitude Constraints as well as holding patterns Airways and Alternate Airports. You'll see your performance figures with Vspeeds and Fuel predictions.

The Virtual Cockpit is another 160K Polygons and almost every switch, knob, lever and dial is accurateley modelled and animated. Each panel has its own seperate integral lighting and both front and rear overheads are accurateley reproduced. There are dimmer controls for each MFD and you can swap them around via the correct pedestal switching. The Thrust levers have 'built in' Detents operated by either Joystick, Numpad, F1-F4 Keys or Pageup/Dn you will easily find the one intuitive to you. Custom animations include the fold out tables, Arm rests and sunscreens on top of all the expected switches etc.

The Side sticks operate correctly and lock properly when using the autopilot.

Airbus Xtreme PrologueThe “Airbus A320”-series is, next to “Boeing’s 737-series” one of the bestselling airliner families. There are some add-ons for this Family already, so why is there another studio that makes this bird for the Simmers world? The reason is simple to me: because none of the existing products is as good as it could be!I was asked to write an objective review for the version made by “BlackBox Simulation” and I will try it to be clear and fair. I have never flown an Airbus A320 by myself, so I can only give you my thoughts and feelings about the handling and the control over this one. And yes, normally I fly Boeing 737, 757, 767 and 777, but wanted to give this Airbus a try.

AirbusAirbus is the name of the company that develops airliners and helicopters since 1970. Its headquarters is in Blagnac, France. It is the manufacturer for the A300, A310, A320, A330, A340, A350 and the A380, the biggest airliner yet. The jets are built in different countries in separated parts and are built together in Blagnac, France or Finkenwerder, Germany, depending on the type of aircraft.The A320-Series is used for short and mid-range flights all over the world by nearly most of the airlines.

British Airways is performing the famous SpeedBird One flight BA0001 London, City, LCY – New York, JFK with an A318 with a stop in Shannon, SNN.The Purchase, Download and InstallationYou can buy the BlackBox Xtreme Prologue Add-On via the Store at or at simmarket.de. After purchase you will get the installer and your registration details. The downloaded file is 844mb and after the installation the Airbus needs nearly 3,2GB of space. There comes a manual and a quick start guide.

First you should read the quick start guide, because there is the explanation how you adjust your throttles. In the manual you can read the correct way to fuel your aircraft, too. The manual is a tutorial flight where you will learn, how to use the add-on.The Add-OnThe Add-On is the full package. That means you will get the A318, A319, A320 and the A321 with one Add-On. The Airbus Extreme Prologue is available in Version 0.85.2 at the moment when I write this review. That means, it is not the final Version and also means it is still under development. Some parts of the Systems, like the weather radar, aren’t working yet but it is a promise that it comes to life with another update.

You will get 60 liveries in all. Many other custom-paints are available on avsim-library or other well known places.

Torrent Blackbox Airbus Xtreme Prologue

As a small gift there is a variant of the A320-100 outer model available, one of the Air France liveries.Blackbox is delivering the NaviGraph Airac 1506 with the installation. So if you have an account at NaviGraph, you can and you should update it to the newest Airac. The inner and outer appearanceWhen I loaded the A318 for the first time, I was surprised by the outer textures. They are in High-Definition 4096×4096 resolution and they are looking really good. Despite its size they aren’t much greedy for VAS or heavy on the frames. They are really stable. In the cockpit there are movable sun visiors, hideaway folding tables, moving armrests and a movable hot seat in the back.

The outer textures are really looking nice and more like metal, the individual rivets can be identified and the surface has a nice shiny touch.As I said, I like the outer model textures. But most of the time you will sit in the right or left seat in the cockpit. There you have to look on this, in my eyes unfortunately plastic looking surfaces. To be honest, I don’t like the look of the cockpit-textures. They act to blunt and clean, the writings on the displays are a little bit blurry and from the normal views they are badly to read. They remind me of another cheap Airbus add-on I had times before. I am missing some structures of the different parts.

Just have a look on the coffee mug on the left side or the safety rope.Another thing I also don’t like is the appearance of the light-fields on the ground in the outer views. They are simple triangles and are looking boring. Maybe there will be some investigations in volumetric light-cones.The SystemsThe systems are developed well in this aircraft. The CDU works like you should expect in an airliner. The engines and systems are running when you start your Simulator with the add-on. You have to cut the engines from fuel and the batteries, if you would like to save a cold and dark panel state.

System wise the modeling is great already. You can start the engines in the real way by following checklists or the tutorial to get it powered up.The aircraft doesn’t come with a load manager for payload and fuel, so you have to use the default one in your Sim. But it is promised that there will be a manager with the next update. The Auto-Pilot works well, the frequencies of the ILS, Navaids are updated automatically and entered accordingly in the FMC.The ECAM is working and you can switch between the pages for APU, Engine, Fuel, etc.Example for the system-deepness: When you are in-flight and your fuel tanks are nearly empty, the plane will pump the fuel from the outer tanks into the inner tanks automatically.

Something that I never have noticed in the AS Airbus.The Navigation displays: In the Blackbox A320 Series you can adjust them independently from each other. Means: You can set the MAP on one of them and the ILS on the other one. Another example is the switches for the landing lights. In the Aerosoft A320 Series you can’t switch the lights separate from each other because one switch is for all three lights. Blackbox has one switch for every lightMost of the buttons and knobs are working by left or right mouse button or via the mouse-wheel.

At some switches it is awful to use them, for example the landing light switches. Why not to use the left mouse button for ON and the right button for OFF?

For now there are multiple click spots and they are hard to hit them.Hint: The knobs are usable as they come, or you can use the altitude, the speed and the heading knobs together with the shift button on your keyboard. That allows you to scroll up or down faster in steps of tens. This function wasn’t mentioned in the tutorial yet but I like it very much and make dialing in the altitude etc so much easier.In flightThe flight model feels different from the other, well known, add-on for this aircraft.Taxing is a little bit tricky with the Blackbox A320 Series. When you have fueled it right, it is reacting like a heavy Plane.

It is oversteering when you are too fast and needs a little bit of time to react. You have to practice a little bit, when you haven’t flown with an Airbus before.In the air, the BBS is absolutely clear the better one.

The steering and the acting of the airliner are completely different and feel much better. It is much easier to control the aircraft on final or right after departure. As I have mentioned in the beginning, I have never flown an Airbus in real, but the way BlackBox is simulating the feeling of the aircraft seems to be the better one.SoundI would say the Sound in the cockpit and the sound of the engines are good. Compared to my experience and some YouTube videos.