iniBuilds + Synaptic Share A220 Development Update
Quick summary· AI-generated
The developers detail significant progress on the A220's systems simulation, including proper routing of avionics indications (heading toggles, minimums, alerts), dynamic thermal modeling of hydraulics and batteries with heat exchange simulation, and a complete rewrite of the flight management system to support graphical flight planning, lateral/vertical navigation, performance planning, and crew alerting. Physics-based control surface deflection is now modeled when hydraulic pressure is lost, and lag filters have been added to indications to match real-aircraft behavior. The update emphasizes moving systems simulation from functional to convincing.
Excerpt from FSElite
iniBuilds and Synaptic shook the show floor when they shared simultaneous showcases of their soonᵗᵐ-to-come super-sized and short-haul Airbuses at Flight Sim Expo 2026.
Now that the dust has settled, the team published a new development update going over progress on the A220 in further detail.
In terms of systems, the team aims to have every part of the avionics feed from the correct systems component, and over the last few months, they’ve filled in many of the “remaining holes.” Indications including true/magnetic heading toggles, flight path vector caging, barometric minimums, and radio minimums have now been routed through the proper systems to make their way onto the displays and tie into the crew alerting systems.
The displays now indicate hydraulic, fuel, and battery temperatures, which change dynamically based on current conditions. As work is done by the hydraulic system, fluid temperatures will increase. As current draw increases on the batteries, so too will the batteries’ internal temperatures. Synaptic has even gone as far as simulating the heat exchange between hydraulic fluid and fuel.
Lag filters have been added to many of the systems indications to mimic the delayed and smoothed indications of the real aircraft in an effort to take the A220’s systems simulation from “good” to “convincing.”
Systems now interact with the simulated world. Physics and wind-based control surface reaction is modelled, so if the hydraulic system depressurizes, control surfaces will deflect with gravity and strong winds. Importantly, it doesn’t affect the ailerons or spoilers, since those are hard locked and do not move when depressurized.
iniBuilds + Synaptic A220 Flight Management System
In the development update, the team explained that they’ve entirely gutted and rewritten the flight management system from the ground up to provide a more stable, scalable, and sustainable foundation for the wide range of features that the A220 offers to pilots. This includes graphical flight planning, full lateral and vertical navigation, performance planning, crew alerting and messaging, vertical direct-to’s, configurable holds, and path offsets.
Graphical flight planning, in particular, is deeply integrated into the ProLine Fusion avionics in the A220, and it allows pilots to make modifications to their flight plans directly from the map. Pilots can click on any flight plan waypoint and insert holds, activate direct-to’s, perform reroutes, insert relative fixes,…
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