Airbus Series Volume 1/2 - Service Pack

This Service Pack was released in January 2009 and brings the Airbus Volume1/Volume2 gauges to version 3.3.0.99.
If you want to know how to check the gauge version you have, click here.

The bug fixes and additions are listed here, the most important ones are in bold characters.

Bug Fixes
 Additions
All these features are described below...

Navigraph database Bug Fix

This is the most important fix of this service pack.
The usage of some recent versions of the Navigraph database (AIRAC 0712 and higher) appeared to cause a bug and a crash to desktop.
The bug was noticed by some users that were using 64-bit operating systems (XP-64 and Vista64), but it appeared the bug was also there for users of Windows XP (32-bit version) and Vista 32.
This bug has been fixed. This service pack has been tested with AIRAC 0712, 0810, 0811, 0812 and 0813, under Windows XP 32, XP-64 and Vista 32.

Hydraulic System Bug Fix

One of the user, who is a real A320 pilot, reported a bug on the hydraulic system: when the yellow hydraulic circuit is not pressurized by the engine, the yellow electric pump was not pressurizing it as it should.
This has been fixed. Now when the yellow hydraulic pump is turned on, the yellow hydraulic system is normally under pressure.

FMA Speed Bug Fix

There was a small bug on the Flight Mode Anunciator (FMA), the upper part of the PDF:
When climbing in managed mode, the first column displaying the speed mode shows "THR CLB", this is normal. But if you switched to selected speed mode by pulling the speed mode, the display used to change to "SPEED", and it shouldn't.
This is now fixed and when you switch to selected speed mode, the display remains "THR CLB" as long as you are in CLB, OP CLB, DES or OP DES mode.

ECAM Engine Page

A real A320 pilot told us that the ENG page should remain displayed on the System Display (SD) as long as the Engine Mode Selector is on the IGN/START position.
This has been implemented accordingly, this feature is now fully realistic.

ECAM Flight Control Page

The F/CTL page of the SD was wrong because the G, B and Y letters that designate the 3 hydraulic circuits were always green.
They now turn amber when the corresponding hydraulic circuit is not pressurized.

Additional Keyboard Shortcuts

Many new shortcuts are now available, almost all the features of the aircraft can be controlled by the keyboard or through a programmable HID device.
The list of available shortcuts is too long to be displayed here. You can see it by opening the key configurator.

Note that many keyboard shortcuts are available, but many of them have no key is defined. You have to assign a key to them through the Key Config tool.




New Ways of Entering Waypoints in the MCDU

This is a very important addition because we saw many questions on forums about this. All the answers are here.
There are now 4 ways of entering waypoints in the MCDU:
  1. Enter the waypoint name
    This is the most standard way of entering a waypoint. You can add intersections, or any type of navaid name here.
    If several intersection/navaid have the name entered, the multiple name page is displayed to let the pilot choose the desired waypoint.
    See the product documentation for more information about this.
  2. Enter the waypoint coordinates
    Many users don't know this was possible before this service pack... You can enter a waypoint by entering its latitude/longitude coordinates.
    Enter the waypoint coordinates as a AABBCCD string, where the coordinates are AA°BB.CC and D is the orientation (N or S for the latitude, E or W for the longitude).
    Example: To enter a waypoint which latitude is 56°23.45N and longitude is 110°12.34E, enter: 562345N/1101234E
  3. Enter a waypoint defined by an existing waypoint, a bearing and a distance
    You can enter a "virtual" waypoint (a waypoint that does not exist) defined by an existing waypoint, a bearing and a distance. Use the syntax waypoint/bearing/distance.
    For example, to enter a waypoint located at 10 NM of the navaid RBT on the radial 270° (full west from RBT), enter: RBT/270/10
    Again, if several waypoints exist with the name specified, the multiple name page appears to let you select the one you want.
    This is very useful to enter SID/STAR according to the map.
  4. Enter a waypoint defined by the intersection of 2 radials coming from 2 waypoints
    You can enter a virtual waypoint defined by the intersection of 2 radials coming from 2 existing waypoints or navaids, using the syntax waypoint/bearing/waypoint/bearing.
    For example, to enter a waypoint that is at the intersection of the 270° radial coming from RBT and the 130° radial coming from OE, enter: RBT/270/OE/130
    Again, if several waypoints exist with the name specified, the multiple name page appears to let you select the one you want.
    Keep in mind that the intersection you define may not exist. In this case, an error message is displayed on the MCDU.
    This is very useful to enter SID/STAR according to the map.
All this is very important to remember, especially if you have to manually enter a SID or STAR that is not properly defined in the database.

Reminder

It shows that some features that were available in the previous Service Pack are ignored by many users. The can be useful and make the panel usage more pleasant, which is why they are shown here, even if they are not new in this service pack.

Some commands available in Flight Simulator are not used in the Airbus Series aircrafts. For example, all the FS commands dedicated to an helicopter control are not used. Consequently, these commands can be used by you to trigger some features specific to this aircraft. This is very convenient because you can use the Flight simulator menu to configure the Airbus-specific commands, and assign them to key, a joystick button, or whatever you want.
For following table shows the matching between the FS commands and the Airbus-specific commands you can map:

FS Command Airbus Command
Autopilot pitch ref increase up/down ND Mode inc/dec
Helo governor beep increase/decrease ND Range inc/dec
Clutch toggle Master Caution press
Rotor governor on/off Master Warning press
Trigger rotor brake All EFIS Brightness reset
Increase decision height (Concorde) All EFIS Brightness increase
Decrease decision height (Concorde) All EFIS Brightness decrease

Example:
Imagine you want to use the ‘Shift-ESC’ key to reset the EFIS brightness:
- In FS, open the pull down menu Options > Controls > Assignments…
- Scroll the command list to “Trigger Rotor Brake”
- Define a key assignment for this command (press ‘Shift-ESC’ to assign this key to this command)
When this is done, the ‘Shift-ESC’ key command the EFIS brightness reset in your favorite Airbus aircraft.

How to know which is the current version?

If you want to know what version of the gauge you are using, it is very easy and it works the same for fs9 and for FSX.
Browse to the panel directory of the aircraft, and right click the gauge (.gau file in fs9, .dll file in FSX) to see its properties.
In the property screen, click the 'Version" tab and the file version appears here, as shown on the image below with the A318 gauge.
If you have a version lower than 3.3.0.99, you should get the latest service pack.