YSMajor Pack's A330 and A340 Review

YSMajor is one of my favourite modder in YSPilots. You probably knew that he had released his latest update to his massive YSMajor pack which feature all his creation. This time, the whole unzipped pack hit an astonishing of 174MB in size. I'm an civil aviation guy, so for sure, I'll pick something I love the most first for review. Here comes the A330 and A340 series from YSMajor!

I should have write this review earlier but I'm going to Korea for tour last week, so I decided to postpone the review until now. By luck, the aircraft I'm in for the flight from Kota Kinabalu to Incheon International Airport of Seoul was one of the aircraft in the pack, it's the Korean Air A330-200.


Let's get back to the aircraft. As you know these A330 and A340 are just a part from the YSMajor's massive pack. Both the A330 and A340 are come with several repaints. To name a few, there is Korean Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Shanghai Airlines Star Alliance livery, Royal Airforce and more. With such a quantity of repaints, all of the repaints do have good quality.




Some of the livery available. From top to bottom: Shanghai Airlines Star Alliance livery, Swiss Air, Korean Air.

As far as I remember, there is only one A330 model exist in the world of YS. It's made by a Japanese. Obviously YSMajor isn't using that model, instead, he is PROBABLY use that as a base model and have some major overhaul here and there, turning it from a mid quality model to a mid-high quality model.

Changes are pretty obvious. First of all, the fuselage seems to be rounder than the original model with transparent cockpit windows. Beside that, you can see that the wings, flaps, slats, spoilers are now more detail and more realistic.


A look at the beautifully made flaps and slats.


Look at the engines!

Another thing that is note worthy is the new sets of engines on some of the A330 and A340 model. These new engines are not only beautifully modeled but also highly realistic. Just like the real thing, you can see through the turbofans' blade from the front and back. There is also high speed propeller animation on it, making these A330 and A340's turbofan are among my favourite engines in YSFlight. Thrust reverser are animated in these new sets of turbofan. But those which are using the old CFM engines have different luck.


Reverse thrust set.

The repaint of these aircraft are virtually flawless. There aren't much visible floating mark around, but those are what you would expect in YSMajor's addon. Unfortunately, there is one little bad surprise I noticed. The Swiss Air livery's engine marking seems to be slightly floated.


Opps!

Interior, it seems to be pretty disappointing. I'm always a great fans of highly detailed interior model but the cockpit that comes with these A330 and A340 are rather low quality. No only that both of them are using the same cockpit but apparently most of the component inside the cockpit are direct extract from Takaty's 737 model. These included both pilots model, yokes, instruments, flaps handle, gear handle, etc. Even worse is that these pilots are using Boeing's yoke instead of Airbus's side stick to fly. Animation are straight extract from Takaty's model, so there're nothing to complaint on the animation. Instead of HUD, YSMajor had inserted a pretty basic flying instrument for these models. Not bad actually since HUD simply didn't feels well under jetliner of this era. (don't mention about 737NG, 787, A380 blah blah...)


:(


:)

For the flight experience, again I have to clarify first I am not a pilot, I did not fly any aircraft before, included A330 and A340. The control of these A330 and A340 are quite different compare to most of the jetliner model out there. They're far more less responsive than other, especially the aileron. Reverse thrust seems to be far less powerful than other model too. As you leave the gate of an airport with the reverse thrust, it feels like an actual pushback. The aircraft moves slowly backward, unlike most of the other jetliner model in YS. On the other hand, the reverse thrust becomes less powerful when you touchdown and try to slow down the aircraft quickly. Rudder is similar to Takaty's 737, it turns far less angle and slower than other. I can't rate the dat file's realistism, since I don't know how it behave in a real aircraft. But I have to say that it is unique, unique always contribute to fun factor.


Cathay Pacific A340 touchdown and Chek Lap Kok.

As a whole, I will consider these A330 and A340 as an addon that stand at the mid-high rank in YS addon. Surely it's not the best thing available from YSMajor, but it is not bad at all. High quality exterior model, realistic looking flaps and slats, sweet repaints, all these stuff are enough to cover the not-so-good side of the model (especially the cockpit).

Pros:
- Beautiful new model.
- Realistic repaints.
- Pretty fun dat file.

Cons:
- Some mark are slightly floating.
- Highly unrealistic cockpit.