Compared to XP11/12 and DCS, this feels a bit too stable and the cyclic is a bit ineffective. Large inputs are required to maneuver. Nevertheless, it’s a very good start and it’s not bad at all. With a few improvements over the next couple of updates we should have a very solid helicopter sim. Congratulations Asobo!
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Felt quite twitchy to me but then again I am quite bad at helicopters! I managed a quick flight around New York, managed to somehow land back on the helipad and took off again for some more flying. My second landing attempt ended with me in the water though.
There’s some new helicopter assistance options that I disabled. Maybe I’ll have better luck with them on. Just need to swallow my pride
It does feel unusually stable for a helicopter. Does anybody know if it’s that stable in real life, maybe because of its modern design?
Holding the Force Trim button does nothing for me. How do I make it work? Thanks.
Turn off the two helicopter assistance options, then the controls will be far more like your expectations.
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Thanks - I had a quick go on the New York flight and found it far too stable. Like a fly-by-wire helicopter, it was almost hand-off the entire time. Nothing like I was expecting from my DCS experiences. Hopefully it’s just a case of this scenario having artificial stability enabled. I always run will no assistances but didn’t look for new ones in the menus. Will try again tomorrow, thanks for the heads up 
The modelling looks nice, sounds are good if a little quiet. During shutdown and spin down I noticed the blades don’t lift with full collective at lower RPM… just an animation thing, nothing important. The sounds did change nicely and RPM dropped much faster as the rotors were biting at the air though, and that’s obviously more important!
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I’ve already done so. First thing I discovered actually 
It’s still way to stable for a helicopter.
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Yes, completely agree. We’re not quite there yet when it comes to helicopter flight dynamics, but it’s a very solid start I would say.
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I put positive curves on my stick for the first time ever in MSFS 
My suggestion: try bumping the response curves to +25 or 30%. It’s different than XP for sure, but that change will get you in the neighborhood I think.
Spent much of the afternoon in the Cabri (after finally letting go of the flawed 407). I’m struggling to qualify the difference from XP in words, but yes…there might be more stability, maybe momentum is more pronounced. But I also think I can see now that there really is a good framework for the physics. And honestly, people who fly sim helis usually point to XP as the benchmark, but how many of us actually have the qualifications to say that it is? Can’t wait for more RL helicopter pilots to try MSFS40 and weigh in.
The new assists being on by default is a bit of a nasty trick. Feels much better without them. My main point of comparison for a good helicopter flight model is the Bell 47 (though I do have some time in the DCS Huey as well), and this is definitely less squirrelly. But I’d expect that from a more modern aircraft. I spent some time leading up to release watching videos of the real thing, and this seems to fly pretty similarly.
One thing I noticed is that it wants to pitch up pretty strongly starting about 100 kts. It’s a big change from the Bell 47 which will happily let you stay nose down all the way to the Retreating Blade Stall threshold. The Cabri fights back more before it gets there. I don’t have enough experience with IRL choppers to say which is right or if it’s a difference between the types.
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hmm, well ok then, I don’t find it stable with them off until you get into some forward speed, but this may be to do with individual controller types and setups being more or less suitable for the task. It’s early days yet, I’m surprised they didn’t make scalable inputs available, it’s either full dead or at their set point based on some hardware configuration they tested with.
According to Asobo this is the best and closest aircraft model they did to the real aircraft. They were working with the manufacturer Gimbal on it and spent many hours on the development.
It is very realistic in my opinion. I managed to fly it just fine, but then again I have flown hundreds of hours in X-Plane helicopters and also have the full control setup.
Helicopters are hard to fly. Head over to Helisimmer.com as well. They have good tips on helicopter flying. Also, remember to look at the flight lessons in MSFS 2020. Sadly I didn’t see helicopter training yet but I am sure it’s on the way.
I see the starter written on the collective but how do you make it start there is no switch and turning the front of the collective is turning the throttle
At the moment I am just using autostart
Assign some control to “toggle starter 1” should work.
Had a couple of short test flights and really enjoying the new helicopters. The modelling on the Cabri is really nice. I have a t.16000 controller and MS have included a default helicopter profile for it which I’ve tried today. Most of the assignments I ended up changing. The default twist grip assigned to incremental tail rotor adjustments just had me spinning in circles after take off, first one way, then the other. Changing it to tail rotor axis seems better for now, but requires constant pressure until you get some speed up. Setting up the trim properly on the hat (without the default button 1 + hat setup) is also a great help.
Managed to land in a field so far, I’ll need to work up to landing on helipads!
Not sure how you actually start this Helicopter.
The only way I can start it is by Autostart.
How are others string from cold without autostart?
There is no start switch at the end of the collective.
It’s got a pretty good checklist built in, which I followed. There’s a couple of switches that were new to me. The “plasma” switch above the head is the “starter”. That threw me off without the checklist. You’ll eventually have to lift up the protective cover over the clutch to engage that to get the rotor moving after starting.
The checklist is essential here. It’s in the top menu in-game.
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Thanks for the info but I did follow the checklist and switched the Plasma and the mag and the clutch but it still doesn’t start.
I see people mention the Gov switch at the end of the collective but I can’t get to it or see it.
I have tired binding the Gov starter to starter 1 but still no joy.
On the checklist, if you click that eyeball looking icon to the right of the “Governor” line, it’ll move the camera and highlight it for you. That’s how I found it, lol.
I’m reading a lot of “the helicopters aren’t flyable” and “total disaster” and “what has Asobo done?!!!11eleven”.
Well, I assure everyone that both helicopters are perfectly flyable. If they aren’t for you it’s either an issue with a wrong hardware setup, simply lack of practice or a bug that needs to be fixed but that is affecting a small number of people.
I control helicopters with the same controls as fixed wings using the Thrustmaster Airbus Joystick and Throttle Quadrant: I have the stick set to the aileron and elevator axis to control the rotor (the so called cyclic for going left, right, forward, backward), the throttle lever to the throttle 0 to 100 axis to control the collective (prop blade angle for going up and down) and a twist grip set to the rudder axis for, well, controlling the rudder (tailrotor). On top of that I assigned the Longitudinal Rotor Trim to the coolie hat on my stick to relieve the pressure required on the stick to keep flying forward.
I haven’t checked yet if you need to control the engine RPM in the Asobo helicopters, or if they are governed automatically, but they flew fine without it, at least when starting with a running engine on the runway. Might be required for engine start from cold & dark, at least in the Bell 407.
I haven’t tried flying helicopters with the Xbox controller, but I’m pretty sure that requires at least the rudder assistance in the options to be activated to be any fun. A gamepad just isn’t cut out for realistic helicopter flying.
And yeah… if you have never flown helicopters: that is something that requires more than 30 seconds of practice to get a hang of. No instant gratification here. It might be frustrating at the beginning but is well worth learning, because helicopters are some of the most fun you can have flying. Switch off the crash detection and overstress features in the options and just keep hovering, just keep hovering …
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