I'd recently flown two (B2B) flights with the iniBuilds A330-300, using liveries from two separate repaint packs I'd picked up a while ago from the MSFS2024 Marketplace...one pack was for Pax and the other for Cargo. I've been always fond of the Cargo liveries (especially) those of heavy airliners. They have a distinctive appeal (workmanlike and pragmatic...🙂...painted over with a basic white color scheme, and toiling in their own unsung world without much fanfare...🙂...), unlike their flamboyant and colorful pax counterparts. I've not flown here a Cargo airliner in a while, and therefore it felt strange to be NOT adding the pax component of weights to the Payload section of the aircraft. 

In my decades of (RW) long-haul travels with live cargo (yours truly included in it...🙂...), I've witnessed a few (and occasional) instances of rude behavior (and tantrum outbursts) from (unruly) passengers towards the cabin crew. My personal philosophy, though, has been always to be courteous, supportive, and polite to the members of the cabin crew, since I cannot imagine how those people perform their (challenging) tasks with such professional decorum, day in and day out, stretched over (grueling) long-haul stints, each lasting anywhere between 8-to-15 hours up in the sky...(not, of course, that, during my own such travels, I would forego the (modest) request for that 2nd serving of a certain kind of beverages...when it's appropriate...🙂...those things always seem to taste slightly better at 35,000 ft...🙂...or is it just my imagination...) ...Anyway, this time, aboard my aircraft of this flight, there would be surely no unruly behavior nor outbursts from passengers nor any uncalled-for requests for certain special beverages...because there are no pax here on board...🙂...Cargo and freight do not exhibit any such human tantrums. Cargo is always silent, peaceful, and well-behaved...🙂...throughout the flight no matter how long it is...Oh well...we'll see...

My last post was about a long-haul (4,000+ miles) trans-oceanic flight with the (civilian livery) Lufthansa A330-300 aircraft. This post here is about an overland ~1,000 miles flight with the cargo variant of an A330-300 in the colors of FedEx, widely considered to be the world's largest cargo airline and often referred to as the "freighter giant". The Airbus variant here is specifically an A330-300P2F (Passenger-to-Freighter) conversion of the A330-300 pax (base) model that I'd flown before. Such (P2F) aircraft conversions are usually performed by 3rd-party Aerospace design houses under the (watchful) auspices of (and approved and supported by) the original manufacturer. You might have heard of such passenger-to-freighter conversions also with Boeing aircraft types, especially of (737, 747, 767, 777), with notations such as -BCF/-SF/-BDSF etc. 

In recent times, such (P2F) conversions have become popular with cargo airlines because:

1. It gives a new lease of life to the ageing airframes that are no longer suitable for commercial travel.
2. It is a highly cost-effective process for creating a freighter as opposed to manufacturing one from scratch, meaning airlines are able to acquire freighters at a much lower cost.

FedEx is particularly known for (and has a long history of) converting (former) passenger aircraft to freighters (in addition to purchasing new-build freighters). This is especially true for Airbus aircraft. FedEx is a prolific user of e.g., converted A300-600s and A310-200s/-300s. Interestingly, FedEx's current fleet shows 64 A300s (and no A310s) while its historic fleet shows 70 A310s and 7 A300s. So, FedEx has already phased out is A310 fleet, the last revenue flight with this type, operated 5 years ago. However, there is no record, I can find, of FedEx operating (or ever having operated) any Airbus A330-300 based freighters, images of which type you see in this post (this Reg. ID N850FD below is actually of a RW (FedEx) Boeing 777F). So, please consider this a fictitious livery, nonetheless quite appealing...🙂...it indeed looks good in the FedEx uniform...

This (fictitious) A330-330P2F, in the colors of FedEx, is shown here to be equipped with GE engines (just as the RW FedEx 777F N850FD is), whereas you might recall that the (RW) Lufthansa A330-300, of my previous post (and on which I'd travelled IRL...🙂...) ...was equipped with RR engines. For this flight, I fly this A333P2F, simulating the RW flight (waypoint sequencing) of an A300F4-600, flown this past Sunday, between FedEx's Main Hub (KMEM) Memphis/TN, and its other (major) hub, down south in (KMIA) Miami/FL (see my EFB Map route below). It's a 2-hour flight of about 1,000 miles, and I've chosen to fly at half the actual flight altitude of 33,000 ft...to get that special (and magical) feeling of flying just above the carpet of the cloud layers below… 🙂…(see images)…And for a bit of (extra) excitement, I've (artificially) set the weather to "Rain & Clouds"...

The iniBuilds A330, on this outing, performed once more flawlessly...within my domain of knowledge, over this (relatively) short-haul flight. The flight navigation was mostly automated, from just after takeoff to just before touchdown, by the (FMC managed) lateral and vertical guidance. I've approached and landed on ILS Runway (KMIA) 8R via KROME transition with 3,000 ft altitude constraint.

Hope you enjoy this collection of pictures of this Airbus A333 freighter variant...flying here in fictitious (FedEx) colors...in my virtual world today.

It was a fun flight in rain and clouds, and I wished to share a bit of it with you.

Thanks for viewing...!

Edited May 6, 20251 yr by P_7878

Very nice set of shots...thanks for sharing! 😉 

Beautiful shots, like this model for a FedEx livery.. 

cheers 😉

Will, pmplayer:

Thank you for the comments...!

Glad you liked this fictitious FedEx colors on this A330 Freighter...🙂...