In the end, convinced by the good reviews on the forum, I decided to buy the Fenix A320 even though I already own the PMDG B737-800. I flew it for several hours but I have to say, though, that I was a little disappointed. It’s certainly a nice airplane, but there are some bugs and some shortcomings that I didn’t expect from a “study level” airplane.
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First of all, in terms of FPS, it is heavier than PMDG. I knew this, but in my case (I7-7700K - GTX 1080) the difference is very noticeable, especially on the ground and from the external view.
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Sometimes, unpredictably, it is not possible to engage the autopilot. Trying various solutions I saw that, in my case, the only way to do it was to pause the plane via the MCDU, click on the autopilot and then unpause the plane. In this way the autopilot turned on.
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During flight, with the throttle in CLB, if I press ESC to go to the menu and then return to flight, the throttle goes to IDLE by itself.
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Sometimes passengers do not deboard and there is no command that can be used to deboard them.
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But the thing that disappointed me the most and that I don’t consider worthy of a “study level” airplane is the lack of save state. This way there is no point in following the checklists for preparing the cockpit and securing the plane, since next time you will find everything set correctly. What distinguishes a “study level” airplane from others, in my opinion, is the fact that your mistakes should have consequences, but it doesn’t make much sense that way.
For now the only things in which I find it superior to the PMDG are the cabin announcements, the company ACARS system and the EFB. Maybe even failures, but I haven’t experienced those yet.
It seems that the developers are working on an update, so I hope that things can improve, especially regarding the save state.
My two cents.