WingWing MCDU - First Look
There’s a specific kind of madness that afflicts flight sim enthusiasts. It starts innocently — a joystick here, a throttle quadrant there. Then one day you find yourself seriously evaluating whether your desk can structurally support a full A320 centre pedestal replica. This is that journey, or at least the first chapter of it.
The WingWing MCDU is a hardware replica of the Airbus A320 Multi-purpose Control and Display Unit. It’s the screen-with-many-buttons in the centre of the A320 cockpit that pilots use to program the flight management system, review weather, communicate via ACARS, and generally manage the aircraft’s brain. It’s also the thing that confuses every type-rating student for the first three months of training. They don’t tell you that in the brochure.
What You Actually Get
The WingWing MCDU arrives in a compact box. Inside: the unit, a USB cable, and minimal documentation — which you won’t need because there’s a GitHub repo with more useful information than most manufacturer manuals.
The device connects via USB and appears as a HID device. No driver installation on Windows. It just works, which in the peripheral hardware world is almost suspiciously pleasant.
Physical dimensions match the real A320 MCDU closely enough that if you’re building a home cockpit, it’ll drop into a standard MCDU cutout with minimal fuss. The housing is plastic, but solid plastic — not the kind that flexes or creaks when you press keys firmly. It doesn’t feel like it’ll disintegrate under the stress of a particularly aggressive STAR entry.
The Display
The MCDU uses an LCD behind a smoked bezel, matching the characteristic look of the real unit. The resolution is adequate for its purpose: MCDU pages display clean, readable characters in the classic green-on-black format. Colour rendering is good — the different MCDU text colours (green active entries, amber warnings, white data) all render as distinctly different, which matters when you’re cross-checking a flight plan at 3 AM.
Is it pixel-perfect compared to the real thing? No. The real A320 MCDU has a display lineage stretching back to CRT technology, with specific character spacing and font characteristics that are difficult to replicate digitally. In context though — mounted slightly recessed, glanced at from 60 centimetres — it reads correctly and feels right. Nobody at cruising altitude is scrutinising the pixel density.
The backlight is slightly uneven, brighter toward the top of the display. You stop noticing it after the first few flights. It’s worth mentioning because it’s there, but it’s not the thing that’ll bother you.
The Keypad
This is where WingWing earns its price. The keys — all 45 of them — are satisfyingly clicky. The Line Select Keys (the six on each side of the display used to select entries on each MCDU line) have the correct amount of travel and return. The alphanumeric keys are slightly smaller than a standard keyboard but not uncomfortably so for normal use.
The MCDU keyboard layout is genuinely different from QWERTY: it’s alphabetical, in four rows, with a separate numeric block. This sounds annoying and for the first week it is. You’ll hunt for letters like you’re using a computer for the first time. After that, it becomes automatic. Your fingers find D-I-R without looking, which is the whole point.
# The MCDU key layout (simplified)
A B C D E F
G H I J K L
M N O P Q R
S T U V W X
Y Z / SP ← CLRThe CLR key gets more use than any other. Fact.
Software and Integration
The WingWing MCDU works best with the FlyByWire A32NX addon for MSFS, which is, honestly, the reason most people are buying this unit. FlyByWire’s integration uses a WebSocket bridge between the sim and the device, managed by a background utility.
Setup:
- Install the WingWing desktop application
- Launch MSFS and load the FlyByWire A32NX
- Connect the MCDU via USB
- The desktop app discovers the device and bridges it to the sim’s avionics
- The hardware MCDU now mirrors and controls the virtual one in real time
In practice, first-time configuration takes about five minutes. After that it’s automatic — plug in, launch the bridge, fly. The MCDU responds to keypresses within a frame or two. No perceptible lag during normal use. Entering a flight plan, loading a SID, checking weight and balance — it all feels like the real thing because the data path is real: keypress → hardware → WebSocket → FMS logic.
What Could Be Better
The integration ecosystem is narrow. FlyByWire A32NX: excellent. Other Airbus addons: variable. If you fly the Fenix A320 or other high-fidelity airframes, check current compatibility before buying — this changes as developers update their software and WingWing updates its tooling.
The USB cable supplied is functional but short. Budget for a 2-metre replacement unless your sim rig puts the MCDU within arm’s reach of the computer.
There’s no backlight brightness adjustment. It’s bright enough for a dim room, which is where you’ll be flying at midnight anyway.
Verdict
At its price point, the WingWing MCDU is the most cost-effective way to add a functional hardware MCDU to a home cockpit. Build quality exceeds expectations. FlyByWire integration is excellent. Key feel is genuinely good — better than you’d expect for the money.
If you fly the A320 family in the sim and spend serious time programming FMS routes, V-speeds, and approach procedures, this will meaningfully improve the experience. It’s not a luxury add-on. It’s a tool that changes how you interact with the aircraft — the difference between clicking a virtual screen and actually working the panel.
Does it make you a better virtual pilot? Marginally. Does it make the whole experience more immersive and satisfying? Absolutely.
My partner now refers to the corner of my office as the cockpit. I’m choosing to interpret this as validation rather than concern.
The WingWing MCDU is available through their official store and various flight sim hardware retailers. Prices vary by region. Do your own comparison shopping — I’m not affiliated, just enthusiastic. If you pick one up, come find me in the FlyByWire Discord and we can complain about VNAV together.