So during the latest dev stream the lack of trim in the H125 came up and Asobos response to this was that the variant modeled in the sim doesn’t have that. I thought ok, that’s fair, but I couldn’t really drop it since I have a hard time believing that real world operators fly this thing in high precision missions without trim so I did a little digging.
As most of you may know this helicopter was originally developed by Eurocopter under the designation AS350. According to Wikipedia the first variant to be renamed to H125 was the AS350 B3e but it seems like all previous variants are called H125 here and there so I’m not really sure about that so the fact that it’s called H125 in the sim doesn’t really give us any clue to which variant they have modeled.
However, the specifications given in the sim is:
Engine: Turbomeca Arriel 2D
Cruise speed: 150kts
Max altitude: 12 999ft
Range: 340 NM
And the only variant powered by that engine is the AS350 B3e (Wikipedia and page 13 in this EASA publication) so that must be it right?
Well, looking at the specs for the AS350 B3e only the engine and range seems to be correct in the sim. From one spec that I found (here):
Maximum speed (VNE): 155kts
Fast cruise speed: 140 kts
Range with standard tank: 344NM at 127kts
Service ceiling: 16550ft
So, how about the trim? Well, I haven’t been able to find any information about that for the B3e variant but I did find a flight manual for the B3 and from what I can find the main difference between those two are the engine and FADEC. So, what does the manual say?
So, what variant did they model? Seems to me they have implemented some kind of home built version with a mix of things from all the way back to the prototype.
I looked into this for the exact same reason, cyclic has an adjustable friction mechanism best I could determine, However us home pilots don’t have this functionality on most sticks, Asobo really should add a trim function just as Cowan did with their bird
Well adjustable cyclic friction may be a thing but as I wrote the variant with the engine Asobo has chosen does have 3-axis trim/autopilot. They need to be consistent!
The range is not correct. Currently the in game H125 consumes about 260kg of fuel / h of flight at 125kts. With a 460kg fuel tank that gives less than 250nm range.
I’m not sure how and under which conditions they calculate the range, but that seems to be a too big of a difference to just be a matter of weather etc.
Concerning the issue of helo stick (cyclic) trim, the argument that the real world aircraft does not have stick trim doesn’t make sense to me. My flight sim controller has a centering spring that returns the control to the center position if I let go of it. Does the real aircraft without trim or with the trim turned off do this? The ones I’ve seen don’t. What we’re asking for is the ability not to have to constantly hold the controller agains the spring pressure.
For the models that implement the trim control, this is finally working well.
I believe trim is now available on all default helicopters in MSFS2024. Confusingly there are various flavours of trim commands available. Along with the longitudinal and lateral cyclic trims there are Force Trim and Quick Trim which both accomplish the same type of trim control. That is press and hold the button while returning your control stick to neutral to set this as the new neutral. For the H125 you should use Quick Trim to accomplish this. Force Trim doesn’t work on this one. Quick Trim has worked on all helicopters I’ve tried it on so far so that’s the one I am now using by default.
