Auto start and shutdown don’t work, and neither does the switch for Pulse Lights. All else has been great so far and is a blast to fly.
Yes, helicopters have both a “throttle” and a “collective.” The “Throttle” controls the engine RPMs. The “collective” controls rotor pitch. I DO know the difference.
To further boggle your point, the throttle axis works fine on the Cabri. It IS specific to the 407.
9 Likes
Which control assignment/binding are you assigning to the twist grip to make this work in the Cabri? There are like a dozen different “helicopter throttle” assignments, and some of them are acting weird when I try them (e.g. not detecting anything when I move the twist grip, while other ones do detect).
The twist throttle on the collective is tied to LVAR “L:CollectiveGrip, Percent”. It’s not tied to any default in-game control binding in the interior.xml (it probably should, but it’s not), so you need to use third party app that allows you to make custom axis tied to LVAR (e.g. Axis and Oh’s).
I used “Set Helicopter Throttle Axis” and I have it reversed. Working fine.
I have some notable gripes with the B407. It’s one of my favorite helicopters, and I have been flying the DF407 in XP for years. I had high hopes for this aircraft, but it is far from the standard of the Cabri G2 (congratulations to Asobo on that one…great 1st impression for me).
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There is no control over the throttle. You can modulate the animation of the twist grip, but it does not appear to be linked to any variable or axis. You hit the starter, engine lights off, and goes all the way up to flight RPM.
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Engine parameters are off in general. I immediately exceed the MGT limit when hovering in ground effect. MGT then drops precipitously in forward flight.
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I can only obtain ~82% torque at max collective…pulling the collective all the way in a turbine helicopter, at sea level, should blow that off the scale. This 407 is way too slow…it should easily attain 130 KIAS in forward flight without approaching max continuous limits. The real 407 has a reputation for being a fast single with plenty of power.
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The stabilizers are ineffective. Tons of left pedal required in forward flight, the attitude for cruise flight seems excessively nose-low.
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Incorrect animation of the control push rod that comes off the base of the pedals. The push rod also should have a grommet, or at least a hole in the sheet metal where it goes into the center section of the panel. Lazy modelling.
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Graphical artifact on the AMPS gauge when the starter is engaged.
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Some switch positions are incorrect when the aircraft is loaded cold & dark: GEN should be off. AVIONIC MASTER should be off. Left boost pump is on but the right one is off (think they both would be off). Fuel shut off is ON, but the guard is raised for some reason.
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Voltmeter shows 28V on battery power…at first anyway, it drains too quickly. It should start around 24V. The voltmeter shows that the GEN does gradually charge the battery up to 28.5V, but that just isn’t how electrical systems work. You would see 28V immediately upon turning GEN on.
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No engine exhaust effect. Too bad because MSFS has such a nice heat blur effect.
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Radio stack configuration is odd. There is a GNS530 but also a nav/com #1 radio, which is superfluous since the GNS has the radios already. If they deleted the first radio, they could move the audio panel back to the slant panel where you can actually get to it (it’s below the collective right now).
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There is a switch on the overhead for a radar altimeter, but no radar altimeter on the panel.
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Sounds: The thunking sound from moving the controls is too loud. The touchdown/skid sounds are absolutely thunderous, no matter how soft the touchdown. The sound samples of the engine and rotor are high-quality, but I don’t hear any change in the rotor in response to big collective changes (engine, yes, but not the rotor), no “blade slap” when turning or descending. No modulation of the tail rotor sound as you move the pedals. The sound environment of the Cabri is so rich and wonderful and the 407 is so lacking in comparison.
34 Likes
I have crashed every single heli flight thus far. Which is about normal for me.
I go up fine but seem to come down at the same speed !!
Its me. I need lessons.
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Hello,
with this SU11 I’ve wait what especially this heli will shows. I have for stick controlled aircraft my simple joystick with throttle as next stick, also used for collective control for helicopters. No changes in my controls profile. Start on Aprone and start engine with Autostart. Then it comes and I did all things what I wanted to do. No problem with first t/o from place, very stable and control was ok. Somehow I see that collective reacts little bit with some little timeout, not reacts quickly as I do with collective. I did hover, side moving, back move and rotate on place, forward speed and of course landing. Without any crash at first time. Looking good to me but need probably some next updates, maybe that collective because that little timeout after my reaction is little bit crazy but you can work with this after while quite ok, it’s habbit. Will do next tests but for first I wanted to know and was very curious about flight characteristics and control of heli. To me very good as first test. I think Nemeth did good work to my opinion. I need say also that I fly with max realism every time with MSFS2020.
I can say also that I had many hours with Nemeth Design very realistic Mi-2 and Mi-17 helicopters and I think is very good step in this sim.
Update: what i forget to say, I missing maybe during t/o rotor tendency to rotate and need compensation with pedal. This I leave to pro guys to say their opinions.
Update2: solved with Assistance menu set to more realism instead had set HARD already.
Are you the guy who made the SF260 liveries for the Jrollon bird?
By competition I mean comparable helos from DCS, Aerofly and X-Plane and the general handling. Those are the benchmarks for me. Im pleasantly surprised how good the msfs helos are in comparision.
2 Likes
In the Bell 407 or the Cabri ? My SET HELICOPTER THROTTLE works fine in the Cabri but does nkt work in the Bell
1 Like
Flies nice so far. But I could not find a way to bind a key for the force trim button on the cyclic? Perhaps I missed something?
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Yep. and C525B at AVSIM and other places
That function does not seem to exist yet. But, you can use the hat trim if you bind the new “rotor trim” commands.
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Had a quick fly about in both choppers and the flight dynamics felt pretty good. A lot of practise will be required to master them though. Using a t.16000 flight stick with twist grip rudder.
Not sure if there is a trim function but it is quite hard work keeping constant forward pressure on the stick.
First impressions very happy, thank you MS/Asobo.
Yes, thank you! I already found the hat trim bindings and they work. But as the force trim button is kinda essential to realistic helicopter controls I was hoping that it is also available and I was just too blind to find it 
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Can’t figure out how to bind “force trim” (on the cyclic) to anything. Please help, I’m looking for an assignment that when I press it the trim remembers the in-game position of the cyclic stick, while allowing me to return my stick to neutral…
What worked for me was removing the Thrustmaster Boeing Yoke Pack from the computer as there was conflicting controls.
After that, the joystick worked fine, it is possible to fly
Tip: Set up tail rotor trim and longitudinal rotor trim and your flights will be better
Decrease the control sensitivity as much as possible.
1 Like
The 407 is pretty cool, but the rotor head turns anti-clockwise, or counter clockwise for us in the states on the In real life Bell 407.
So when you add collective, you should have to use left pedal to counter the increased torque, and right pedal when lowering the collective, to counter the decreased torque.
It is backwards, and flys like a Euro helicopter, like ASTAR 350.
Wonder if they just carried the dynamics across from the Cabri helicopter, which probably has the rotor head turning clockwise like Astar.
PS. I have 1300 Hours IRL in Bell Jetranger.
8 Likes