It's Shark Week
Posted November 5, 2024
Hey all,
Finally, we can shortly deliver (sort of) on the last of our promises to you with the much requested Sharklet update. The “sort of” is something I’ll address up front - the A319 Sharklet is proving quite a challenge to get data on given only a handful exist. It won’t make this upcoming release, but we’ll continue working at it. Anyway, Sharklets were always going to be a bit of a funny one, because really - the majority of the work behind the scenes here is in building in changes specifically so you don’t notice the difference when handflying the aircraft - this is the Airbus way after all. Regardless, for those with an eye for detail - there is a lot to unpack. I will go through them in a classic “grab a tea and have a sit” type long form posts, so maybe go grab a tea and have a sit.
Beyond simply adding the visual model (which Dave will get to shortly), we started by adjusting the flight model. Of course, in reality the engines remained unchanged - and so is the case here. The actual aircraft itself though, is altered - with just a minor touch of lift added, and a nip of drag taken off in particular phases. You’ll feel the sharkies carry just a little bit of extra energy in the flare, nothing you would particularly notice if you weren’t looking for it - they’re ultimately fairly similar to the fences. On approach, once again, not dramatically different - but certainly if you were on the lighter side in some Sharklets, you’re going to want to get on top of the situation earlier rather than later. The flight model should represent these qualities and characteristics without feeling particularly different to handfly in any way thanks to the fly by wire ensuring homogeneous handling.
To accompany the Sharklets, we’ve given the aircraft the requisite software updates that were deployed alongside the real Sharklet’s entry into service - and slightly beyond that, into a “common” software standard for this relative age of aircraft. This involved upgrading the two Elevator and Aileron computers, three Spoiler Elevator computers, and the two Flight Augmentation computers, amongst an array of other system changes to things like the ECAM, fuel, FMGC, so on and so forth. I’ll try to cover as much as reasonably possible.
This generally ranged from fairly simple differences, albeit hidden in detail - such as a reduction in elevator deflection rate commanded by the ELACs when in ground mode - right down to new protection functionality like the “STOP RUDDER INPUT” aural and visual warning generated by the Flight Augmentation Computers in specific configurations or regimes.
The Sharklets do actually shift the aircraft’s aerodynamic center ever so slightly backward during takeoff, but to keep trim settings relatively similar, Airbus introduced an automatic elevator shift on ground to preserve the rotation feel; this is different for every variant - and is represented in the simulation on board your soon arriving Fenix Sharklets.
The updates to the ELAC also included building in something Airbus calls Load Alleviation Function - once again, not that anyone would reasonably notice - but this was added to alleviate wing structure loading. Adding the 2-3m tall Sharklets meant the wings were naturally going to bend slightly more aggressively in extreme conditions. What the airplane now does is deploy either both ailerons upward while in flight, or spoilers 4 and 5 in addition. It does this rather rapidly too, triple digit degrees-a-second deflection speeds. LAF’s 2 sub-functions are also replicated, so the definition between a “stable maneuver” (where only the ailerons deploy), and one activated in case of gusts and turbulence (where it is both aileron and spoiler), is represented fully. This involved a set of computations to trigger the decision making behind it all, and also involved building some small changes to the fly by wire to accommodate LAF deployments in a complimentary way. Inhibitions to this law, naturally, were considered and also implemented. If you trigger LAF, you’re having a bad day - so it’s unlikely anyone does notice, I should certainly hope not anyway.
I’m gonna quit talking about flight controls and move on now - but that should just about start to give you an idea of the level of detail we’ve pursued when bringing you these Sharklets as far as your “interface” with the A320 and its behavior goes.
In other areas - we’ve improved ground physics across the board, and the tiller mapping from the real A320 has now been applied to the tiller input for Fenix - ultimately leading to what we hope you feel is a bit of weight to the entire taxi phase across the entire Fenix range of aircraft.
To accommodate the relatively unique Sharklet “bounce” wingflex, we’ve decoupled the wingflex from MSFS and built a custom wingflex model, taking into account all the usual suspects like localized forces, etc - the model does take into account the fuel tank fill level and whether the wing tip tanks contain any fuel, but in the A320 this is generally a very subtle effect so it may not really be noticeable. This has also been brought backwards into the wing tip fence aircraft, with its own bespoke tuning. Wingflex is going to be an ongoing project before we’re finally completely happy with it, but we feel it’s at a state where it’s delivering a better result than what we could natively achieve, so we’re shipping it to you. There are gonna be a couple of rough edges here and there but we’re going to keep working toward polishing it up and refining the entire thing.
On the overhead, we’ve upgraded the ADIRS model to the more ubiquitous version, this applies to both wing tip fence and Sharklet aircraft - the old ADIRS model will now be retired as it is becoming very uncommon to find. We’ve also updated the ACP to a newer unit - this also applies to both wing tip fence and Sharklet aircraft once again for similar reasons. We’re looking at bringing the old ADIRS and ACP back as a panel option in the future, but for now the updated configuration more closely resembles the majority of EIS2 A320 CEOs flying around, both SL and WTF. Further as part of the modernisation, forced on Sharklet aircraft but optional on wing tip fence aircraft is the new digital standby instrument, complete with the correct degraded displays and functions like ATT RST.
As part of this Sharklet upgrade, we’ve also now added the Additional Center Tanks as an option to the A321. You have the choice of equipping the aircraft with 1 or 2 ACTs, each being a structural container containing a bladder - roughly the same size as a full width cargo container.
These ACTs are popular additions to a lot of American Airlines and JetBlue aircraft - but overall this unlocks those long transcontinental flights that some of you may want to do in specific liveries. We’ve made sure for AA and JBU at least (the two most prolific users of ACTs) that the registrations in the livery manager are correctly configured with the correct number of ACTs, as they can vary from airframe to airframe. As is with all things Airbus, adding these involved tangling ourselves up not only in the fuel system (and requisite control computers - additional logic and valve control), but also to the ECAM logic itself - as a number of new ECAM warnings have now been added to support the full implementation of ACTs. The ACTs themselves have fuel transfer logic and rules given it lives in auto most of the time - all implemented - along with requisite degradations, inhibitions, and manual control as required when you start trying to break stuff.
ACTs are also available in our wing tip fence A321 as those airframes do also exist. Another upgrade applying to both wing tip fence and Sharklet aircraft is the weight variant change to the A321 - we’ve bumped it to the maximum certified weight variant giving you ultimate flexibility with what to do with the aircraft.
Given they’re installed in the aft cargo compartment - when optioned and equipped in real life and the Fenix, if you pop downstairs and open up the rear cargo door you'll be greeted by slightly less room than you're perhaps expecting.
The above shows the rear cargo compartment with a single ACT fitted - not too bad, still enough room to chuck bags in both ways. But what if you're looking to fill all the seats, and head for the other side of the continent? You'll definitely be needing that second ACT, though at the cost of even more of the rear cargo compartment disappearing.
While we’re talking about the visuals - Dave’s got a few paragraphs on the actual sharklets themselves, and some of the really trick stuff that the art team have pulled together for this update beyond what you’ve already seen above.
Hello, Dave here. Since Aamir likes the sound of his keyboard, I'm going to keep this mostly pictures, like all my favourite books. So, the big sticky up thing on the end of the wing. We put a lot of work into making sure we accurately represent the CEO variant of the Sharklet, rather than those fitted to the NEOs, as there's actually some subtle variation between the two. This also gave us an opportunity to dig into the LED lighting, and really bring the SL airframes into the 21st century.
Above we get a first look at what this brings, a whole new NAV light with accurate shadow-casting for each system (1 and 2). This new feature of accurately representing the way the housing illuminates around the LEDs is also deployed to the extremely bright strobes, which we've taken the liberty of fitting with strobe blockers to try and avoid blinding you during night shifts.
Here you can appreciate the difference between the halogen filaments fitted to our WTF fleet, and the LEDs on the SL fleet. Sadly, we can't offer these as a configurable option for now, as even when lights are off/not used in MSFS, just specifying them in the lighting config causes quite an FPS drop. So we've directly 'swapped' them to avoid any performance drop. If in the future the MSFS lighting system is improved, we'll be sure to add this as another configurable option.
Now we couldn't go to all this effort without some new Sharklet liveries could we? As always, do not fret if your favourite livery isn't shown, this is but a taster selection of some that will be coming to the livery manager shortly!
In total we have 106 sharklet-specific liveries so far, bringing the total count of officially available liveries to over 600 across the whole Fenix A32X package. It cannot be understated the monumental effort required from the painters, technical artists, QC staff, coordinators and backend devs to deliver this many liveries to you. We have big plans to further streamline the way you manage and install liveries going forward, which we'll discuss another time. For now though, enjoy the pretty pictures and I will let Aamir get back to yapping.
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Okay, 3 final things.
1 - The sharklets should roll out this week.
2 - 24 hours after Sharklets roll out, we'll be closing out the limited time discount bundle discount on the A320 + A319/A321 expansion pack - so if you want both products as a bundle discount, you still have a little bit of time to go grab the deal before it’s gone.
3 - One last thing we may as well talk about is Flight Simulator 2024. Unfortunately, we were not permitted access to the DevAlpha (though we did ask Microsoft), which means we still don't have an answer for you on compatibility and timelines for adjusting to this new platform. Our intent will be to bring compatibility and stability first and foremost, then at a later time assess the new feature set and see what makes sense. Without seeing it with our own eyes, we cannot make any promises or commitments to timelines and processes, but on release of FS2024 we will begin our due diligence and report back with our thoughts and findings. Sorry this answer isn't very meaty, but being so far removed from this new simulator means we're still asking all the same questions you are.
I think that about covers enough for now, we’ll see you guys soon for the update!
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