Airbus Panels by NPSimPanel

By Bill Stack
18 April 2009

NPSimPanel has released a series of instrument panels with considerable detail for those simmers who want more than the basics.

Panels are offered in two packages for five Airbuses: A318, A319, A320, and A321; and A330 and A340. I reviewed the panels for the A318 to A321 package.

Throttle Panel	Overhead Panel	Main and Throttle Panels at Night
NPSimPanel's Airbus Panels

Major Features

The NPSimPanels Airbus panels are available for instant downloading from the Flight Sim Pilot Shop.

The setup program makes a subfolder called "NPSimpanel" under the FSX main folder and a subfolder called "Airbus_A319321NP" in the FSX Airplanes folder. Then it installs the panels, aircraft, checklists, and other necessary files in their proper locations.

These panels include more features than I can feasibly name here. The most notable feature is the amount and depth of data available to flight simmers:

The Navigation Display has five modes of operation, or pages: Rose ILS, Rose VOR, Rose NAV, Arc, and Plan.
The Arc and Plan modes/pages include black backgrounds and terrain backgrounds.
The Engine Display has three pages.
The ECAM (Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitor) has 12 pages.
Most of the major instruments are enlarged through popup windows.
The panels have auto-climb and auto-land systems.
A CDU (control display unit, a.k.a. flight-management computer) is included.

A complete listing of these features is available at the Flight Sim Pilot Shop.

The package includes eight flyable Airbuses in various liveries: two A319s, three A320s, and three A321s in Air France, British Airways, Lufthansa, Northwest Airlines, and others. Thus, we get eight aircraft in addition to the four panels.

All eight aircraft use the FSX default Airbus A321 for their flight modeling and sounds, so their performances and sounds are the same.

Checklists and reference sheets for all eight aircraft are included.

A 65-page manual in Adobe Acrobat format describes the main panel and its major components with annotated color screen shots and textual explanations.

Primary Flight Display and Navigation Displays	Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitor
NPSimPanels' Information Pages

Nice Features

The 65-page manual with its numerous screen shots and explanatory annotations is very helpful in understanding how to use these comprehensive panels.

The inclusion of eight flyable Airbuses is a pleasant surprise. I expected to receive four instrument panels, one for each of the aircraft identified in the product title, and I expected to use the NPSimPanels panels for the FSX Airbus. There's no need for changing the default panel for the FSX Airbus when we have these eight aircraft.

Most of the instruments that enlarge through popup windows are clickable. Their popups open and close with mouse clicks. I found only one or two that do not mouse click.

The ECAM provides much more data then default MSFS ECAS [Engine Crew Alerting System] does, including information about cabin pressure, door status, and wheel conditions. These data are ideal for advanced flight simmers and useful for learners.

The glass instruments are very high quality when viewed in the popup windows.

Air France	Northwest Airlines	Lufthansa
NPSimPanels' Airbus Aircraft

Issues

Readability of instruments, digital readouts, and controls (switches, knobs, buttons, etc.) ranges from difficult to impossible in the 2D and 3D main panels. As shown in our comparison screen shots, the viewpoint of NPSimPanels' 2D panel is farther back than the viewpoint of the FSX panel, and that makes the instruments much smaller on the screen. It exemplifies overemphasis on panel appearance and not enough consideration to the instruments' useability. Instruments are much more readable in the popup panels, but not all items on the main panel are available in popup panels.

There is no popup window specifically for the radio stack. The radio stack is included in the "Throttle Panel," and the "Over Head Panel." When you need to use the radios, you have to open the throttle panel or the overhead panel, and the radio stack is a small portion of their popup windows.

The manual shows three different panels with explanatory annotations but titles them all the same: "A318/319/320/321." There's no way to tell which panel goes to which aircraft.

The manual would be more helpful if it had a numbered table of contents and/or links to pages and if it told which popup panels particular controls and gauges are found. Flipping through 65 pages when seeking information is a hassle.

I received no replies to two requests for information from NPSimPanel's tech support. That doesn't bode well for customers who have problems or questions about the product.

NPSimPanel's A321 2D Panel	FSX's A321 2D Panel
Comparison of 2D Panels

Summary

I'm impressed by the depth of information available in each of these basic panels and their subpanels. Real-world Airbus pilots have much more information than is available from the FSX Airbus panels. Granted most flight simmers don't need all that information, but it adds to the realism of airline flight.

These panels are ideal for advanced jet simmers and a great learning tool for beginning jet simmers. All those data are likely to confound novice flight simmers who will be overwhelmed by the amount of available data and what to do with them.

The poor readability of the 2D and 3D main panels is a disappointment for otherwise excellent products.

The price is very reasonable for what you get: four instrument panels, clickable popup panels, numerous pages, a comprehensive manual, and eight Airbuses.

Bill Stack

Learn More About NPSimPanels Airbus Panels