I was ignoring common issues in the rotoary FM at the moment - there’s hardly any feel of going in & out of ETL & even ground effect in any of the native MFS rotaries I’ve tried, let alone more esoteric things ( I think people tend to make a bit too big a deal of VRS - it is something to be aware of & should be there, but I have chatted with multi-thousand hour instructors who’ve never got anywhere near actually being in VRS ). RBS is not an esoteric thing & ought to be properly and naturally implemented, and I don’t understand if they’ve made this supposedly fantastic CfD rotor model how it isn’t.
This is not the area to be ranting about that, but it’s probably worth bearing in mind what’s a MD500 problem and what’s a core problem.
Thanks @PathlessSpore60 until Asobo fix this bugs I will not buy any helicopter based on their flight model. I already have the B206 from Cowan but I didn’t like it for the bugs the Asobo flight model have. The rest of it is great but a proper flight model is all I want.
Just about to get this (but am a GA pilot : )
1)what throttle command in the MSFS options are you mapping to mouse (assume mouse wheel?)
2)Also do you have a date or ETA when this will land on platforms like orbx? (get most of my add ons from here)
Cowan not requiring you to run separate flight model software outside of your sim every time you fly was a selling point for me compared to the Fly Inside stuff. It’s not perfect though, for sure.
For instance.
Hard to make it go straight & level. It always wants to turn right and you basically have to counter with constant left bank because your feet aren’t enough.
Also, I’m new to flying choppers, but I keep seeing experienced pilots talk about how important trimming is when flying helicopters. It seems like though the trim is not very precisely adjustable. 1 small trim click will almost always push you beyond where your trim needs to be. Is this me just not knowing how trims in helicopters are supposed to work?
You don’t map a command to the mouse wheel. Using the mouse means using the mouse in the virtual Cockpit to move the throttle like you would interact with any other switch.
As @mdapol mentioned above, I’m just using the mouse scroll wheel to adjust the throttle. No additional setup necessary. It was also mentioned in the Q&A today (Around 39min mark) that the governor issue would supposedly be addressed by Asobo for SU12. So, hopefully Cowan will be able to fix it when that update comes in March.
As far as other store releases, no idea. Marketplace for Xbox and PC for sure, as confirmed in Cowan’s Facebook post. Not sure what other vendors he is considering, but seeing as the 206 is on ORBX, I would assume the 500 would be dropping on there fairly soon.
I’d say “most”, but not so much these days, helicopters don’t have beep trim. If you see someone talking about “force trim”, then it’s a button to centre out stick forces in what is the current neutral stick position - for sim sticks with self-centring then usually it’s a hack of that solution so it effectively recalibrates the joystick with the current helicopter centre as the physical centre of your joystick, but there’s seemingly no easy solution to implement that in MSFS currently.
Regardless, yes the MD500 trim is far too aggressive in pitch, and in flight roll trim is seemingly entirely useless.
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I will run an external FM if it means I get a good experience. If someone can knock up an Airland FM for this I’d use that in a heartbeat.
Not for nothing but the author of the 407 improvement mod on .to managed to get rid of the right turning tendency, so it’s possible to get rid of it. In fact they fixed a few of the stock FM shortcomings. If they can do it for free, surely a payware dev can figure it out.
There is no external flight model software with the Flyinside 206. It uses WASM to do its custom stuff, just like the PMDG 737 or the Asobo 310. WASM is a part of MSFS.
Yes, there still is a launcher app for product activation/protection , settings and updates that needs to be started at the beginning of a flight. But once the flight has started you can close that app again and the flight model will still work. Why? Because it’s not external!
Also, the marketplace version has no launcher app. Its functionality is fully integrated into the sim. Updates and copy protection are already handled by the marketplace and the settings are being handled in game.
Flyinside says they are planning to bring that solution to the version outside the marketplace as well.
Yeah, mostly by increasing the static bank angle of the main rotor - I’m experimenting with the 500 at the moment but I’ve been deliberately trying not to learn how to mod this game because from past experience it’s a black hole that’ll suck out all my energy fiddling with the rotor is easy enough, the a/c will be out of trim to start up but that’s probably fixable. It’s also possible the static tail needs more effectiveness too.
there is a lot wrong with this flight model…
I can be patient and wait for Cowan to do what can be done on their end - as well to wait for MSFS to
produce a bit more helicopter flight modeling on theirs
Meantime - flying this is not a priority at all…much as I had hoped it would be.
Still waiting for basic things to be fixed like fuel system for piston engines, so I think it’s probably better to try and get t he best of what we have without Asobo ( or you could be PMDG ) and hold out some small hope for the future. If it’s not actually fixable, then the FI way of a custom flight model needs to be the way forwards.
This thing does not have a rigid rotor, correct? coz you can certainly just put the stick over & roll without dying :S along with doing various other things that’d get you similarily killed ( admittedly every other native helicopter is the same ).
This issue was also present in the first version (native msfs flight model) of the RSP R44, we had to push to much on the left pedal or lean to the left to keep the flight straight.
The developper changed the settings for the vertical stabilizer.
The MD500e is an early version, i hope a first update soon.
I’m confidant in cowan
Because of the tail rotor, most helicopters have the tendency to drift to the side, and to counteract you have to bank a bit. This is normal. However, I find that some simmers think this is not normal and then complain about it.
From the FAA book:
" Helicopters usually hover left side low due to the tail rotor thrust being counteracted by the main rotor tilt."
I had this i think there is a fault with the fuel valve or maybe the ignition keys if you dont touch the fuel valve and just turn keys on as needed it works if you pull out the fuel valve and push it back in it seems to kill it
Found it awfully twitchy on first flight , decided to readjust my sensitivities and it became a dream ( that also improved 206 for me too) love this Heli
Normal in hover, yes but in cruise, with weathervanning effect and the vertical stab, you don’t need so much left pedal to keep the flight straight.
The higher the speed, the less you need to apply an antitorque pedal.
Yeah, I eventually boiled it down to ignition & hit starter - I’m rather more used to trying to spin the turbine up first & introduce fuel, but it never seems happy with that. Then again MSFS & fuel systems…
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I set the main rotor bank angle to 6, which seems to help it go straight but now every time I bank left it overtorques horribly. God knows what’s happening there.
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French & Russian helicopters tend to have the rotor spinning the opposite way to most American ones, so those tend to tilt the other way too ( and drift the other way ), unless like the Mi-24 they’ come pre-tilted out of the box. None of them should need any appreciable pedal in flight aside from a squeeze cornering.
fiddling with the rotor is easy enough, the a/c will be out of trim to start up but that’s probably fixable. It’s also possible the static tail needs more effectiveness too.
) and hold out some small hope for the future. If it’s not actually fixable, then the FI way of a custom flight model needs to be the way forwards.