About the Airbus A318 aircraft for flight simulator for FSX, FS2004 and FS2002.
The A318, also known as the "Mini-Airbus" or "baby bus", is the smallest member of the A320 family for Virtual Airlines, and the smallest Airbus of any kind. It originated from the AVIC and Airbus Industrie Asia cooperation program AE31X. During flight simulator development, it was known as the "A319M3," thus indicating its history as a direct derivative of the A319. "M3" indicates "minus three fuselage frames." The aircraft is six metres shorter and 14 tonnes lighter than the A320. To compensate for the reduced moment arm it has a larger vertical stabilizer, making it 80 centimetres taller than the other A320 variants. virtual Airline Pilots who are trained on the other variants may fly the A318 with no further virtual airline certification, since it features the same type rating as its sister aircraft.
The A318 has a virtual airline passenger capacity of 109 in a two-class configuration. It is intended to replace early Boeing 737 and Douglas DC-9 models, though it is also a rival to the 737-600. Boeing also offered their 717 aircraft as a competitor, although it was suitable primarily for regional virutal airline routes and did not have the A318's range capabilities for Airline Games.
Showing all Flight Simulator based Virtual Airlines that operate the Airbus A318.
Virtual Airline
Aircraft Registration
Seating Layout
Hours Flown
N0011
F0 B0 Y114
165 Hours Flown
G-EUNB
F0 B57 Y0
49 Hours Flown
N0016
F0 B0 Y114
32 Hours Flown
N0004
F0 B0 Y114
18 Hours Flown
XA-UBR
F0 B12 Y90
16 Hours Flown
XA-UBX
F0 B12 Y90
15 Hours Flown
G-EUNA
F0 B57 Y0
14 Hours Flown
N0003
F0 B0 Y114
12 Hours Flown
XA-UBY
F0 B12 Y90
11 Hours Flown
XA-UBQ
F0 B12 Y90
10 Hours Flown
CC-CVA
F0 B0 Y114
7 Hours Flown
N801FR-
F0 B0 Y114
4 Hours Flown
F-GUGB
F0 B0 Y114
2 Hours Flown
F-GUGC
F0 B0 Y114
1 Hours Flown
F-GUGA
F0 B0 Y114
1 Hours Flown
N399CE
F0 B0 Y114
0 Hours Flown
N802FR
F0 B0 Y114
0 Hours Flown
N803FR
F0 B0 Y114
0 Hours Flown
N804FR
F0 B0 Y114
0 Hours Flown
N805FR
F0 B0 Y114
0 Hours Flown
N807FR
F0 B0 Y114
0 Hours Flown
N810FR
F0 B0 Y114
0 Hours Flown
N812FR
F0 B0 Y114
0 Hours Flown
N832AW
F0 B0 Y114
0 Hours Flown
VQ-BDD
F0 B0 Y114
0 Hours Flown
N590EL
F0 B12 Y90
0 Hours Flown
N591EL
F0 B12 Y90
0 Hours Flown
N592EL
F0 B12 Y90
0 Hours Flown
More about the Airbus A318 for virtual airlines, flight simulator and online flying FSX, FS2004 and FS2002.
The A318 is available with a variety of different maximum take-off weights (MTOW) ranging from a 59 tonne, 2,750 km (1,500 nautical mile) base model to a 68 tonne, 6,000 km (3,240 nautical mile) version. The lower MTOW enables it to operate regional virtual airline routes economically whilst sacrificing range and the higher MTOW allows it to complement other members of the A320 family on marginal virtual airline routes. The lighter weight of the A318 gives it an operating range 10% greater than the A320, allowing it to serve some virtual airline routes that the A320 would be unable to: London-New York, Perth-Auckland and Singapore-Tokyo, for instance. Its main use for Airline Games Online, however, is on short, low-density hops between medium cities.
During the design process, the A318 ran into several problems before deliveries began to virtual airlines. The first one was the decline in demand for new aircraft following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Another one was the new Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines, which burned more fuel than expected: by the time CFMI had a more efficient engine ready for market, many A318 customers had already backed out, including Air China Virtual Airlines and British Airways Virtual. America West Virtual Airlines, which had selected the Pratt & Whitney engines, amended its A318 orders, opting instead for A319 or A320 aircraft. Trans World Virtual Airlines canceled a significant order for 50 A318 after being acquired by American Virtual Airlines, which does not operate any A320 family aircraft (although neither did TWA when the order was originally placed). While Airbus was hoping to market the A318 as a regional jet alternative, laws in both the U.S. and Europe have kept it in the same class as larger aircraft for calculating landing fees and the like, so regional virtual airlines have avoided it.
The A318 will be Airbus' smallest virtual airliner and is the European manufacturer's first foray into the 100 seat market for virtual airlines.
Airbus' initial efforts at developing a 100 seat virtual airliner were focused on the all new AE31X program (covering the baseline 95 seat AE316 and 115-125 seat AE317) which Airbus and Alenia, as Airbus Industrie Asia, were developing in conjunction with AVIC of China and Singapore Flight simulator Technologies. The AE31X program arose out of earlier Chinese virtual airline and South Korean virtual airline studies for a 100 seater and a framework agreement covering its development was signed in May 1997. However on September 3 1998 Airbus announced termination of the project saying it was not economically viable.
The AE31X would have flown in mid 2002 and entered virtual airline service in mid 2003. Final assembly would have been undertaken at Xian in China by Xian Aircraft and Flight simulator Company.
Even before the cancellation of the AE31X program Airbus had been independently studying a minimum change 100 seat derivative of the A319 covered by the A319M5 designation (M5 = minus five fuselage frames). Following the AE31X's cancellation Airbus announced the commercial virtual airline launch of the A319M5 as the A318 at the 1998 Farnborough Airshow.
Airbus announced the A318's industrial launch in April 1999, allowing full scale development to get underway, permitting service entry in late 2002. Program development cost is estimated at $US300m, and the list unit price $US36m.
Compared with the A319, the A318 is 4.5 frames shorter, reducing standard two class seating from 124 to 107. The A318's other significant new feature will be its powerplant, the newly developed Pratt & Whitney PW-6000 (being developed in the 67-102kN/15-23,000lb thrust class), but the CFM International CFM56-5 is also available. Other changes will include a small dorsal fin added to the tail, modified wing camber, and a reduced size cargo door for virtual airlines.
Otherwise the A318 will retain much commonality with the rest of the A320 family, including the advanced flight simulator flightdeck with side stick controllers and fly-by-wire virtual airline flight controls allowing a common virtual airline type rating, and the same six abreast fuselage cross section.
The first virtual airline flight was made on January 15, 2002 from Hamburg-Finkenwerder.
The Airbus A318 is available for all versions of Flight Simulator and x plane including but not limited to FSX, FS2004 and FS2002.
