Hi all,
The 321XLR has been delivered to ibera for commercial service yesterday.
Can we please add this aircraft to the game?
Many thanks!
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Probably the most anticipated aircraft for a long time - I am sure the Devs already have a fairly complete model for this aircraft, I reckon next major patch.
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It’s on our radar, but we don’t have the full required performance data yet. We’ll take another look soon, but I was hoping to have a first draft of my new performance formulas ready for this model. Not sure whether that’s going to work out, though.
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As this model has made its first commercial flights, can we assume it’s coming soon?
see Martins comment one step above your question
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It’s been always the way the aircraft were introduced after the first commercial flight. I would suggest not to wait for the new performance formula, because it may take some time and as Martin himself wrote before it’s far front easy and it’s not working the way he assumed initially.
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I did see that, but since I read it as a maybe due to time constraints, I was asking if we will instead follow tradition and get it soon. This is a highly anticipated model, and I am curious as to which path will be followed. Since the first commercial flights have been completed, and this is traditionally when a new aircraft appears, I thought I would request an update.
@martin are we still waiting for the data or the new performance formulas for the XLR?
As far as I know, no new/better data has been released by Airbus since January. But if anyone has a more recent “Airport Planning Manual” than the one from January (which contains no performance charts specific to the A321XLR), please let me know.
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Hey @martin. I found this one from June 2024. Seems to have seperate data for the XLR. https://aircraft.airbus.com/sites/g/files/jlcbta126/files/2024-06/AC_A321_0624.pdf
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Maybe I am misreading the file (only on my phone right now), but as far as I can tell there’s only a payload/range chart for the „regular“ ACF versions, but not for the XLR.
On further review I believe you are correct. Plenty of data about the XLR in other areas but I couldn’t find any XLR specific data on Payload/Range either. I guess the wait goes on but i’ll keep an eye out for it.
I wonder why they haven’t released the figures yet, maybe it isnt living up to expectations?
Also I do find it crazy that the XLR can do Paris-Vancouver. Airlinesim is going to be A321XLR heavy
At the end of the day, the manuals we use are intended for “airport planning”. The actual differences between a regular A321 NEO, an LR or an XLR in terms of their handling on the ground are probably tiny. So while the total weights and fuel capacities would matter in that context to some extent, the precise performance likely doesn’t.
As far as I understand it, the only differences between the LR and XLR are the increased MTOW (almost certainly more a matter of certification, less of actual structural changes) and the structurally integrated fuel tanks (rather than just putting auxiliary tanks into the cargo bay), likely saving a little bit of empty weight. As such, we could probably get away with using the same performance characteristics for the XLR as for the LR, just with higher fuel capacity and MTOW. But even that is somewhat harder to do than it should be, given our current set of performance formulas.
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Yh that thought has been passing through my mind for some time. I mean the universal design of Airbus is for the most part pretty much just a net positive until you end up with the LR & the XLR which is essentially not far off being one of the same. There’s only small weight differences that would exist between auxiliaries & integrated, followed by the additional fuel capacity & totalling any of the other minor modifications. Combined with the existing performance with the LR & overall I recon the performance differences we’d be talking about would only be percentage points at best.
I think it would be safe to assume that your probably not going to get much more data from airport planning documents since the only things that will be of interest would pertain specially to ground operations, hazards, fuelling, safety/fire etc etc
I know for me personally I dont mind either way, if that means waiting or not since I’d view it as a niche aircraft, at least for my needs anyway. But its also worth noting that data for subvariants can take a long time if not years to trickle into the public space & even then thats not necessarily a guarantee
I guess the question Im thinking of is what could be the potential solution?
Do we wait for more data or to get the formula rework done so it would be easier to try to replicate the XLR performance