Should be right around the corner. Getting released today!
Can’t wait for the a Airwolf livery 
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Oh really??? Yea!! Today is a good day! I hope it’s in the next few hours, busy most of the weekend.
Best show ever LOL.
Yeah, shouldn’t be too far away according the rumors.
It was my fav series when I was a kid
Sadly no A model 
Hopefully I’ll wake up to it.
Roll up, roll up Grab Airwolf here
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Initial feeling - this is a riot!
Niggles::
- Doors are rather low poly, just like the 500 - most of the time not something you care about, but the ■■■■ things are right in your face. Some of the interior texturing needs some work too. The dash & overhead are clean & sharp enough. Switch default positions need some work.
- Some switches are the wrong sense for their mouse clicks
- No manual in the package, just a startup checklist without pointing out where buttons are. Fortunately I usually just push things until it works anyway, but it’d be nice to know if there’s features like being able to swap the GPS unit, etc. There are things I want to bind like the rotor speed beep governer that I have no idea if I can and if so, what to bind.
- Beep trim is super aggressive ( easily tweaked with something like Notepad ). No force trim, juist beep trim.
- It’s a little rigid, just like all MSFS helicopters I’ve tried, which given all of them are a bit like that isn’t really it’s fault, I think. Practically all MSFS aircraft are too, but there’s far less excuse there because they don’t have to be, it’s just how people are setting them up.
- If you stick your face in the model, the texturing falls down from current MSFS best. It’s ok at a distance, although the profuse number of rivets can look a bit cell shaded/cartoony. Keep the camera t the end of the rotor & it’s all good.
Some more after some more time in it:
- You have to do some wierd & awkward juggling with the throttles after a cold start, or you won’t get equal torque from both enignes. - Edit: if you gradually advance both throttles together rather than sequentially you avoid that one.
- Noticing a bit more inop/partially operating stuff - there’s an AP panel that seems not to do anything ( I don’t care personally ), what looks like a fuel computer doesn’t have anything like as many modes as it should ( to be clear I don’t know if it is a fuel computer, it just looks like one ), there’s a lot of missing buttons on the overhead, no force trim, no auto-trim.
- Still wants to turn right a little bit - this was a major problem in the 500E ( and I think a lot of helicopters ) earlier, it’s been mostly fixed & if you’re not trying to go dead straight you won’t notice.
- Tilting the rotor changes torque demand quite drastically, even with the collective on the floor.
Quirks:
- Dropping out of ETL is really harsh even if you time it so you drop into ( or should ) ground effect - might be realistic, something to be aware of though.
Good stuff::
- Super fun to fly - turns you into a complete hooligan
- Taxiing is easy - just crack the collective a bit & tilt the rotor, then drive it like a plane.
- Very satisfying amount of wokka, plus great engine & ambience ( althiough please do a better landing noise
) - A lot of paintjobs, as usual. Suspect there’s a bunch of 3rd party ones waiting to be ported over too.
Yeah, I’d recommend it, and the 500E with the above caveats - think those are the two I’d give a thumbs up to atm with a cautious thumbs up for the H145 - the latter has a lot of system depth, but the basics need a bit of sorting still ( which would help all the automatics a lot ). If you’re looking for a super deep helicopter experience then MSFS isn’t the sim for it ( I have the perspective of a couple of thousand hours in DCS helicopters, a number in XP12, and er, 2 in a real Jetranger ), but those two are probably the cream right now - it’s a low bar and I’m not even sure you can do what you might call a “study level” helicopter in MSFS yet, but Cowan has it on the flying experience atm, and the H145 on systems. If you could somehow put the two together…
They both have problems - Cowan has been making progress on the 500E so I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt about post-purchase support at the moment but it’s early days to see if he’ll round off all the edges & fix all the details. However, it is good fun & I’m enjoying the thing ( and I’ve been enjoying the 500 ) despite everything.
Maybe in a year we’ll have something resembling an aircraft the big boys from the fixed wing side would put out.
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Does this Cowan bloke sleep?
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To be fair these were all available in X-plane already, so it’s not starting from complete scratch. I think he’s run out of things to port now though, so might be a while until there’s something else.
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I asked Cowan if the Utility (UT with skid) will be bundled… apparently this will only be the ‘B’ variant (with landing gear.) Would love to have both on release. He did mention that the variants (206b and 206L3) didn’t go over well so we may not see a Utility version. Either way this will be an instant pick up for me.
Anybody care to comment how well the gear works? In the Taog Alouette III it is a bit tricky to get the machine rolling forward.
Hello!
I won’t buy the helicopter. I have bad experiences. I bought all the helicopters made by Cowan Simulations for MSFS. I trusted the developer. Over time, I realized that the developer does not care about quality.
I corresponded a lot with the developer, sent my comments and suggestions, reported errors. I sent a multi-page document. He acknowledged the mistakes, knew about them, and promised to fix them. No errors were corrected.
The cockpit contains many angular elements, deformations, and texture errors. The perfection and visual appearance of the cockpit is very important. We see it all the time, it is right in front of our eyes. The modeling of the helicopters is also inaccurate in several places. Very disappointing.
Several forum users stated that all Cowan products are unfinished, beta models. Large-scale model production. They are right.
I believed in the developer. I trusted him and bought the product. I knew it wasn’t perfect, but I trusted that the bugs would be fixed in future updates and it would improve the products. I no longer report errors to him. It’s unnecessary, I always get the answer that you have a lot of work, a lot of time… Ridiculous…
Carenado, Flysimware, Hype, update their products every two weeks. They make continuous improvements and improvements to their products. That’s correct.
Regardless of the above, I love and fly Cowan helicopters daily. I hope it will get better someday. I wrote down my experience so that those who value quality know what to expect.
I respect the developer and thank you for your work!
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It’s a valid point, and I sorta raised it, although not so strongly. To add a counterpoint he did fix a couple of my issues with the 500E - not all and it also has some obvious issues around the cockpit model, but other more immediate problems have been mostly corrected.He has no more old models to port in, so let’s see what happens next…
I taxi’d it around an airfield a bit, behaves like an aircraft, really. Can pull too mch collective easily & pick the rear wheels up, but that’s something you can do in every heli sim ( unless you have a motion platform, I guess ).
Having some issues lighting off the second engine today ( doesn’t seem to matter which is second ), wierd one - it does actually light but doesn’t appear to give me any torque. This is where a manual is really appreciated :S
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I think the first focus should be on the flight model, but that is just my opinion. And after the first updates, all three Cowansim helicopters that I own (206B3, 500E, H125) handle quite well.
There is another thread in this forum section called Plenty of room for improving the helicopter physics, flight model and controls that has some interesting insights into the different handling characteristics of different rotor systems. I think Cowansim handles these differences quite well.
Unfortunately I have to focus on work this weekend, but I am really looking forward to getting the Bell 222B. The rectractable landing gear is a first for an MSFS helicopter, quite interesting.
Oh gawd… I didn’t get this chopper yet but I can see myself forgetting what I’m flying and forgetting to lower them before landing more than once
On that note, I did a lovely practice Spitfire aerobatics display at Duxford the other day, some of the nicest moves I’ve pulled off yet. Then came in to land, perfect approach —- but I forgot about the wheels!! I did screen record myself but almost too embarrassed to publish that 
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: coughs in an MV-22 accent :
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A bit off topic (sorry for that), but this is the same Spitfire story, but IRL … :
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There is a warning when you get below 55 knots with the landing gear up
I had a first quick flight. The cockpit is quite cramped and full of instruments and dials, so this is a very different experience compared to to a 206 or MD500. The wheels work quite well, nosewheel steering might need some fine tuning. I had some trouble trimming for cruise flight, but maybe I just need to get used to it. Once while trimming, the helicopter did a back flip, although im quite sure I was not even close to a retreating blade stall.
Quick summary: Interesting helicopter, quite different from the others we already have in MSFS:
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This one is still on my watch list
I will admit, it hardly flies like a helicopter, it’s a unique experience even from other V/STOL aircraft available in the MSFS.
I wish we’d get a medium-lift helo. MH-60 would be optimal.
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