iniBuilds A380 Airliner Development Update - August 2026

Hello!

Welcome back to another iniBuilds Aircraft Development Update! This time, we’ll be taking a closer look at some of the systems, features and technical advancements being introduced with the A380 Airliner, alongside the latest progress on the current A350 Airliner and the upcoming A350 Airliner V2.

A380 Airliner

Since our last A380 Airliner development update, work has continued across every area of the aircraft. Alongside introducing a number of completely new features, the team has also spent considerable time revisiting and improving many of the underlying systems already familiar from our previous aircraft.

A large amount of this work has taken place behind the scenes, with significant areas of code refactored to improve performance, stability and maintainability while retaining the depth of simulation we are aiming for with the A380. Not every improvement is something you will immediately see in a screenshot, but the work under the hood has been substantial and provides a much stronger foundation for the aircraft as a whole.

Let’s get into it!

Ground Operations, Persistence and Turnaround 🛬

The scale of the A380 extends well beyond the flight deck, and recreating the aircraft properly has meant looking closely at many of the systems and processes involved in operating it on the ground.

We have introduced a new aircraft persistence system, allowing important aircraft states such as fuel quantities, switch positions and system conditions to be retained between simulator sessions. Rather than every flight beginning with a completely reset aircraft, you can return to the A380 in the condition in which you previously left it.

That persistence extends beyond the cockpit too. The aircraft’s potable water and waste systems are fully simulated, with water consumption, waste accumulation and ground servicing all modelled throughout operation. Combined with persistence, neglecting these systems over multiple sectors can have consequences. Leave the water servicing for long enough and you may eventually find yourself with inoperative lavatories and first class showers!

Turnarounds are further brought to life through full compatibility with the iniBuilds Multi-Jetway Technology. At supported airports, multiple passenger boarding bridges can connect to the aircraft simultaneously, allowing the A380’s two-deck configuration to be represented far more authentically during boarding and deboarding.

Although this system is not exclusive to the A380, the aircraft was the main reason for its development. What initially began as a solution to the unique requirements of the A380 has since evolved into a wider system that can be used across compatible iniBuilds aircraft and airports.

You can learn more about the Multi-Jetway Technology on its introduction post: https://forum.inibuilds.com/topic/37165-an-introduction-to-inibuilds-multi-jetways-technology/

EFB, OIS and Ground-Service Integration 📊

The Electronic Flight Bag and Onboard Information System have continued to evolve alongside the rest of the aircraft, bringing together a number of new tools for flight planning, performance and aircraft operation.

Take-off planning has also been expanded significantly within the EFB. The integrated take-off performance calculator calculates V-speeds, FLEX temperature and stop margin based on aircraft weight, configuration, runway conditions and weather.

This functionality now includes support for intersection departures, allowing pilots to select the intended runway intersection and automatically account for the reduced take-off distance within the performance calculation.

An initial implementation of the NSS Avionics domain has also been introduced within the OIS, allowing users to switch between NSS Avionics and Flight Operations functions. AOC communications have been moved into the dedicated NSS inbox, while expanded crew-identification fields allow pilot information and operating status to be entered.

Chart handling has been improved across both the EFB and OIS. Search results now include pagination controls, while multi-page Lido charts are supported so that every available page can be viewed and navigated correctly.

Numeric entry has received a smaller quality-of-life improvement too, with keyboards on both systems adopting a more familiar numpad-style layout.

A new EFB Notification Centre, accessible through the bell icon, provides a central location for reviewing and tracking aircraft and EFB-related notifications.

Finally, GSX integration has been updated to V2, providing deeper communication between the aircraft and GSX. This includes revised integration logic, dedicated GSX notifications and a new state panel for monitoring active ground-service operations.

Flight Deck, Displays and Controls 🎛️

Across the flight deck, development has focused on improving both fidelity and flexibility, from how the aircraft’s displays are managed to the systems supporting the crew throughout operation.

Independent Display Unit management allows pop-up displays and swappable cockpit screens to operate separately, more closely reflecting the flexibility of the real aircraft while providing greater freedom for users with multi-monitor or home-cockpit configurations.

The A380 Airliner also features a fully integrated Runway Awareness and Advisory System (RAAS), providing realistic runway-related callouts during ground operations. These assist the crew with awareness of runway entries, approaches, exits and potential incursions, particularly when operating at larger or more complex airports.

Brake to Vacate (BTV) functionality has also been implemented, providing predicted runway exit performance and automatic turnaround-time calculations. This helps the crew assess the most suitable runway exit during arrival planning and brings another of the A380’s distinctive flight-deck systems into the simulation.

Improved PRIM logic, realistic response delays and further tuning of aircraft stability allow the fly-by-wire system to behave more naturally throughout the flight envelope.

The Vertical Situation Display (VSD) presents terrain, flight path, altitude constraints and descent planning within a vertical profile of the route. Further improvements to its calculations and logic allow the display to provide more representative output and situational awareness during complex arrivals and descents.

Weather radar functionality is also making use of recent simulator API improvements. Adjustable tilt and azimuth controls allow the radar to scan the atmosphere ahead more realistically, helping to identify precipitation and make informed routing decisions around weather.

Fuel temperature is also simulated across the aircraft’s tanks. Temperature changes dynamically according to altitude, ambient conditions and flight duration.

Should fuel temperatures move outside the expected operating range, the appropriate ECAM indications can be triggered, requiring the crew to assess and manage the situation accordingly.

Flight Model & Aircraft Dynamics 💨

Recreating the A380’s behaviour has required several areas of the flight model to be approached differently from our previous aircraft.

One of the most obvious examples is the landing gear. the A380’s complete landing-gear configuration is represented within the flight model, including functional body-gear steering. The rear body-gear assemblies physically steer in response to pilot inputs, giving the aircraft surprisingly manageable ground handling despite its enormous size.

This has been combined with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’s new suspension modelling, allowing the individual landing-gear assemblies to react more naturally while taxiing, turning and travelling across uneven surfaces.

The aircraft’s complex arrangement of multiple bogies has also required additional work around ground contact and compression.

By using additional contact points within the MSFS 2024 flight model, the individual gear assemblies can react progressively as they make contact with the runway. This becomes particularly noticeable during touchdown, where the aircraft can settle naturally across the different bogies rather than behaving as though the entire landing gear were a single rigid contact point.

Whether the aircraft touches down firmly, gently or with some roll angle, each assembly responds independently as the weight transfers onto the landing gear.

Dedicated A380-specific fly-by-wire rotation laws have also been developed.

These simulate the transition between the ground, rotation and airborne phases during take-off, while accounting for the A380’s enormous operating-weight range. Sidestick input is translated into an appropriate pitch response so that the aircraft remains consistent and predictable whether operating relatively light or close to maximum take-off weight.

The wings themselves are driven by a custom dynamic wing-flex system, responding to aerodynamic forces, aircraft weight, turbulence and manoeuvring loads. Rather than relying on a simple predefined animation, the wing movement continuously responds to the conditions acting upon the aircraft.

Failures and Scenarios⚠️

Failures remain an important part of the A380 simulation, and a comprehensive failure-management system has been reorganised around the aircraft’s ATA chapter structure.

This makes failures easier to locate and configure while bringing their organisation closer to the way systems and procedures are structured within real-world aircraft documentation.

A number of individual scenarios have also been added or received substantial development.

Engine fuel leaks can develop under a variety of operating conditions, requiring the crew to identify the problem, follow the appropriate procedures and manage the aircraft through the relevant ECAM-driven workflow.

Cabin pressurisation leaks can develop gradually rather than presenting themselves immediately. A small leak may initially be difficult to notice unless the aircraft’s indications are being monitored closely, before eventually requiring intervention, descent or diversion.

Individual Display Unit failures allow the loss of primary flight information to be simulated independently. Displays can then be reconfigured using the available alternate procedures, creating a more involved abnormal situation for the crew to manage.

Events can now be triggered immediately or occur randomly in your flight, with similar trigger controls available across other scenarios.

Allowing the event to occur while still on the ground introduces an entirely different failure-management situation, where the crew may have to make decisions during one of the highest-workload phases of the flight.

Choose Your Era 📅

The A380 Airliner has continued to evolve throughout its production life, with later MSN aircraft introducing changes across flight guidance, displays, FMS functionality, system logic and operating procedures. As a result, an aircraft delivered during the production's early years can offer a noticeably different flight-deck experience from one operating today.

We wanted to represent this evolution rather than treating every A380 as though it were built to one universal standard. Whether you are recreating an early Air France operation from Paris in 2010 or flying a modern-day Emirates service in 2026, the aircraft should reflect the systems and procedures appropriate to that era.

Through the EFB, you can switch between two aircraft configurations: Early-MSN, based on the Batch 2 standard, and Modern-MSN, based on Batch 7. Each configuration changes more than a handful of labels, introducing the appropriate FMS capabilities, flight-guidance logic, display behaviour, protections, procedures and checklist philosophy.

The comparison below highlights some of the key differences between these two configurations and how the flight deck has evolved over time.

Engine Differences 💪

Of course, one of the most recognisable differences between A380 operators is sitting underneath the wings.

The A380 was offered with two completely different engine families: the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 and Engine Alliance GP7200.

These are fundamentally different powerplants. The Trent 900 uses Rolls-Royce’s three-shaft architecture, while the GP7200 uses a two-spool design derived from technologies developed for the GE90 and PW4000 engine families.

Because of this, we did not want the engine selection to simply amount to swapping one external model for another.

Both engine options are represented as distinct variants, with their own external geometry, sound profile, start and shutdown behaviour, spool dynamics, thrust response and relevant cockpit indications and system behaviour.

The result is that selecting the Trent 900 or GP7200 changes more than the appearance of the aircraft. Each option has its own characteristics from engine start through to shutdown, better reflecting the operator and aircraft configuration being flown.

Exterior Visuals Update

Alongside the extensive systems and flight-model work taking place on the A380 Airliner, the art team has continued refining the exterior to ensure the visual experience receives the same level of attention. From further model improvements and interactive exterior features to custom visual effects, there has been plenty of work taking place across the aircraft since we last showcased it.

Exterior Model Refinements & Features

Since the showcase of what you've seen in our A380 Airliner trailer, the team has continued to revisit several major areas of the exterior model, with significant reworking carried out across the board to bring it to a higher level of detail and accuracy.

The A380 is a long-term project since a handful of years to date, and as our internal standards, tools and understanding of the aircraft have improved (and continue to), we have continued QA'ing and revisiting earlier work.

The wings in particular have received extensive attention. Alongside improvements to their geometry and detailing, they are fully animated and integrated with the dynamic wing-flex system mentioned earlier in this update. Control surfaces, spoilers and other moving components remain visually connected to the changing shape of the wing as it responds to aerodynamic forces, aircraft weight, turbulence and manoeuvring loads.

Both the Trent 900 and GP7200 models have also been revisited, with further refinements to their geometry and detailing to better capture the characteristics of each powerplant. This includes fully modelled engine interiors, while the belly and lower fuselage have received a similar refinement pass.

As you have come to expect from our recent aircraft, the exterior also includes a wide range of smaller interactive details for the MSFS 2024 Walkaround Mode. Air-conditioning hatches along the belly can be opened, alongside the ground power connection hatch, rear APU access hatch and other servicing panels around the aircraft. As mentioned earlier, areas such as the potable water and waste servicing points are not purely visual either, and are connected directly to their respective simulated systems and serviceable via GSX as standard.

Immersion Effects

As previously showcased with aircraft such as the TriStar and A350 Airliner, Immersion FX play an important role in making the aircraft feel connected to the environment around it. With the A380, these effects have been expanded to help convey the sheer scale and power of the aircraft throughout different phases of operation.

In wet conditions, the aircraft features tyre and wheel water spray, alongside engine water spray and reverse effects. Engine vortices can also form under the appropriate atmospheric conditions, while custom heat blur effects have been developed for both the engines and APU.

In flight, the A380 features custom contrail effects alongside dedicated fuel jettison effects when fuel dumping is required.

Abnormal events are represented visually too, with engine flame and smoke effects during applicable bird strikes and engine failures, while a tail strike will produce sparks and visual damage to the hull as the aircraft makes contact with the runway.

These effects add another layer of visual feedback to the underlying simulation, whether the aircraft is taxiing through standing water, climbing through humid air, jettisoning fuel or dealing with an abnormal event.

A350 Airliner: What’s Next?

Development on the A350 is continuing on two fronts.

The first is A350 Systems and Performance Update 1, which will be released as v1.2.7 for the current aircraft. This update focuses on addressing commonly reported stability, flight-planning, systems and handling issues, while also bringing across applicable improvements developed for the A380 Airliner.

Alongside this work, we’re excited to confirm that work on A350 Airliner V2 is underway. This is a much wider core upgrade covering the aircraft’s geometry, exterior and interior artwork, Head-Up Display, EFB, OIS, systems, failures, ECAM functionality and so much more!

A350 Airliner V2 is being developed exclusively for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and will be available as a FREE update for all existing A350 Airliner customers.

With the release of V2, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will become the sole development platform for the A350 Airliner. At that point, active development and updates for the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 version will conclude, with the existing 2020 version remaining available to customers in its current form.

This decision allows us to move the A350 forward without being constrained by the technical and architectural limitations of the previous simulator generation. Continuing to develop across both platforms increasingly requires compromises that ultimately hold back what we can deliver.

By focusing entirely on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, we can make full use of the newer technology, push the depth and capabilities of the A350 further, and ultimately deliver a significantly better product and experience for our customers.

V2 represents the next generation of the iniBuilds A350 Airliner, and concentrating our development efforts on MSFS 2024 gives us the freedom to make that next generation everything we want it to be.

A350 Systems and Performance Update 1

Alongside our work on A350 Airliner V2, we have also been working on an update for the current A350 Airliner. This update is focused on addressing a number of areas highlighted through community feedback and our own continued testing, with particular attention being given to stability, flight planning, navigation and aircraft handling.

Stability & Reliability

• Improved aircraft and display stability across a number of loading and flight-planning scenarios.

• Improved robustness when entering runway, STAR and transition data into the flight plan.

• Improved reliability of SimBrief flight-plan imports across a number of edge-case scenarios.

• Improved auto-save behaviour when the simulator is paused.

Flight Planning & Navigation

• Improved alternate flight-plan creation and waypoint sequencing.

• Improved along-track waypoint placement and flight-plan insertion.

• Improved speed and altitude constraint handling following DIR TO operations.

• Various improvements to VNAV behaviour and flight-plan management.

Systems, Performance & Indications

• Improved RMP navaid audio behaviour for LS, ADF and VOR identifiers.

• Refinements to cabin vertical-speed behaviour during cruise.

• Improvements to auto-derated climb-thrust behaviour.

• Corrected ILS course presentation behaviour following landing.

Flight Controls & Handling

• Further refinements to roll and pitch-axis response.

• Improvements to fly-by-wire bank-angle protection and bank-hold behaviour.

These changes form part of our continued work to refine the current A350 experience while development of the significantly larger A350 Airliner V2 update progresses in parallel.

A350 Airliner V2

V2 is not simply a collection of fixes or a visual refresh. It is a wider core upgrade to the aircraft, with major work taking place across the cockpit geometry, interior and exterior artwork, aircraft variants, HUD, EFB, OIS, systems, failures, ECAM functionality and more.

The update is being developed specifically for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, allowing the team to take greater advantage of the platform as we work towards a more accurate, refined and complete recreation of the A350, it will also be completely FREE for current users.

Cockpit Geometry and Interior

The A350 cockpit is undergoing a substantial geometry overhaul using newly collected data.

This provides the art team with significantly stronger reference material for revisiting the proportions, positioning and shapes of key flight-deck elements. The new data is being used throughout the cockpit environment, allowing individual panels, controls and surrounding structures to be represented with greater accuracy.

The wider interior artwork is also being revisited as part of this process, ensuring the improvements extend beyond individual components and create a more cohesive flight-deck environment.

Exterior Geometry and Aircraft Variants

Work is also taking place across the exterior model, with particular attention being given to the differences between the A350-900 and A350-1000.

The wing geometry of each variant is being revisited so that the two aircraft more accurately reflect their individual proportions and characteristics. This moves away from the more general representation currently shared between them and allows each variant to present a more distinctive and accurate profile.

Head-Up Display

The Head-Up Display is receiving a major update, with its logic, symbology and behaviour being revisited throughout the different phases of flight. This work is focused on improving the accuracy of the guidance presented to the crew and ensuring that HUD indications respond appropriately as flight modes, aircraft configuration and operating conditions change.

EFB and Onboard Information System

Both the EFB and Onboard Information System are being revisited as part of the wider V2 upgrade. The work will improve their functionality and integration with the rest of the aircraft, creating a stronger connection between the information available to the crew and the wider simulated systems.

We will have more to share about the individual EFB and OIS improvements as V2 development progresses.

Systems, Failures and ECAM

A new failure system is being developed alongside significant updates to the underlying systems logic. This will allow failures and abnormal situations to be represented in a more detailed and structured way, while providing a stronger foundation for additional scenarios and functionality in the future.

The ECAM displays and associated logic are being revisited at the same time, improving how system states, alerts and abnormal situations are communicated to the crew. Together, these changes will create a much closer relationship between the simulated aircraft systems, the failures affecting them and the information presented on the flight deck.

The areas shown here represent only part of the work underway for A350 Airliner V2. We will be taking a much deeper look at the updated cockpit, exterior, systems and onboard functionality as development continues.

There is still plenty more to show A350 Airliner V2, and we’ll be sharing more as development continues.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support, feedback and patience. We cannot wait for you to get your hands on the A380 Airliner. We’ll be announcing more very soon!

iniBuilds Team ❤️