The A330-300 is the long, lean medium wide-body of the Airbus fleet — easier to land than the larger A350, more demanding than the A320. The wing is forgiving in crosswind; the engines hang low enough that you can't use aggressive wing-down on touchdown.
Landing technique
- Flare at 30 ft like the rest of the Airbus fleet — auto-callout is your cue.
- Reduce thrust to idle and HOLD pitch. Don't chase the runway.
- GS mini adds the wind buffer automatically — don't add extra margin on top.
- After touchdown, max reverse to 80 kt, then taper. The Trent engines spool down predictably; respect them.
- Crab + de-crab at flare initiation in crosswinds; wing-down is a no-go for engine clearance.
Common mistakes
- Holding too much thrust through the flare and floating — Airbus FCOM is explicit about idle by 30 ft.
- Side-stick over-control on flare leading to PIO — the FBW does most of the work.
- Late spoiler arming.
Aircraft data
- Manufacturer
- Airbus
- Model
- A330
- Variant
- -300
- FAA approach category
- D
- MTOW
- 242000 kg (533518 lbs)
- Vref reference
- 140 kt
- MSFS source
- Default Std
- FLARE matches
- Airbus A330-300 · A330-300 · A330 -300
Related reading
- → How FLARE grades a landing — the composite formula behind every score
- → What "stabilized approach" actually means — the 1000-ft gate, four criteria, technique
- → Wide-Body Twin Airliner scoring thresholds — per-category curves applied to this airframe
- → Full scoring methodology reference — complete breakdown in the help docs