Helicopters are a must

At this point I’ll take a V-22 or a Harrier jet. Just something I can VTOL with instead of using the slew command

I’ve seen a few of these on ebay and wondered how well they work.

I turned crash detection and overstress damage (whatever it’s called) off. With crash detection, if you are bushwacking it landing on sandbars and such, you will crash if the tires touch a drop of water where often you see bush pilots ski the water to reduce speed before dropping onto the sandbar.

Overstress, sometimes I’ll pause and forget I had the autopilot on, which pauses the plane and not the world, which includes the autopilot. Thus, since you are stationary and the AP is still trying to fly the plane, it doesn’t see you climbing or descending so when you come back and unpause, you immediately soar to the sky and stall or shoot straight down into the ground because the AP has trimmed it fully while you were paused.

You don’t need to hound MS for helicopters, they have already made it clear that helicopters are coming during their development Q&A sessions.

They have said that helicopters and the flight dynamics involved are a different beast and big challenge to get correct.

I wouldn’t hold your breath as the roadmap for the rest of this year as far as updates and releases go (VR for example coming soon) have already been stated, but again, they are working on Helos.

I simply love it … using it for fixed wing a/c with MSFS2020 in front of a huge screen or with Oculus Rift & DCS’s UH1-D in VR … :slight_smile:

Not rushing them, just making clear how much be want helicopters and … maybe … giving a sign to 3rd party devs what the community is waiting for … as an outcome of a much earlier thread we had H135/H145, R44/R66 and Bell 206 Jetranger on the ranks …

And … YES … I definitely want them to do it right, and there is a lot that needs to be thought of, simulation rotary …

3 Likes

Nobody is ‘hounding’ anyone, people are just voicing their wishes in the spirit of a forum called ‘wish list’.

4 Likes

Helicopters are expected in a future DLC.

Fair point, but I think you may have read my post with a bit of a negative tone. It wasn’t intended as such.

Just saying no need to hound they’re doing it with an excited they’re coming tone, not a don’t post in here tone.

1 Like

I hope they will develope a SA 315b lama. :partying_face:

Asobo is a french team and the Aerospatiale SA 315b lama is a french helicopter, maybe there is some hope.
There are also chances for a H125 / AS350 —> Airbus Helicopters —> french manufacteur.

1 Like

While I’m really glad they’re taking time to get the helicopter FM stuff down, it’s kinda sad that they didn’t see helicopters as worthy of being a launch aircraft type. They’re incredibly important yet they’re not even on the cover art or any of the main menu art. Which kind of makes it seem like they were/are an afterthought. So many people brush off helicopters in favor of fixed wing, but then when they finally try a good rotary wing simulation (see DCS Huey or Mi-8) or fly one IRL they start to understand why helicopters are so fun. Helicopters just don’t get the respect they deserve as a platform.

Given the circumstances. I hope this lives up to the hype and the helicopter FM in this sim rivals that of DCS.

6 Likes

I just watched this interview (in german) with the head of MSFS Jörg Neumann and he confirmed that they are (going to be?) working on helicopters and release maybe 4 or 8 different models. But because it’s a new flight model with the need for heliports that have to be modeled and such, the pack will most likely come as an addon which must be bought seperately. One can only hope that premium edition owners might get a discount but on the otherhand, I’ll probably be willing to pay any reasonable price for it :smiley:

Link to the interview (enable subs for english): https://youtu.be/fzNdPRS_MRI

3 Likes

I saw also this interview. :+1:t3: All we need is patience. :raised_hands:t3:

2 Likes

On the last development roadmap I saw in the section early September a teaser. Link: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/uploads/default/c5049d0abf9f97cd22669d78dff4560ed032576d

Maybe helicopters? :thinking: We will see…

I hope they develop a SA-315B Lama :raised_hands:t3::star_struck:

1 Like

If they do helicopters, and I think they will eventually, probably 1 or 2 years down the road, then we definitelly also need better mountains.
FS2020 does a lot of things very well. Terrain and especially mountains is unfortunatelly not one of them yet.
Most iconic mountains, basically the whole alps, do not even really exist. They are there, but often they look nothing like the real thing. Way too smooth, often wrong altitudes, etc.

Check out Disappointing terrain in the alps if you have not yet.
Once they fixed that, and they really have too, then helicopters will also be a lot of fun.

2 Likes

OTH, don’t heli’s do rather poorly at high-altitudes and how many of them have pressurized cabins with a good oxygen supply or emergency oxygen if we want rl sim? Just showing my ignorance here but with a TBM 930 if you’re really ambitious (and have midair refueling?), you might fly over Mt. Everest. Isn’t the altitude limit of a high performance helicopter for hovering not much over 10,000 ft - although a Google search shows a helicopter with a turbo-charged engine can fly as high as 25,000 ft, you’re not going to be doing any real slow sighting with one at that altitude.

Haha well yeah JALxml, you are not wrong, but I’m Swiss, living in Switzerland and we are a helicopter country. I think we have (per person of population) one of the highest helicopter numbers. And that is mainly because of the alps.
Helicopters are needed in the mountains for rescue, for transport, for sightseeing, even for construction…
So helicopters in the mountains is the most normal thing ever for me :D. But sure, they have altitude limits.
One more reason for better detailed terrain actually :).

5 Likes

Helicopters are very important for rescue missions in mountain areas, in all the alpine countries and even in the Himalayas (Nepal, Pakistan) in South America and so on.
A perfect hot and high performing helicopter is the SA-315B Lama, it could perform landings and take offs over 7000 m MSL (22965 ft). It holds with an altitude of 12,442 meters (40,820 feet) the absolute altitude record still held today.
Source: Absolute World Record for Altitude Archives - This Day in Aviation

The Lama is now a little bit old nowadays, today the most used helicopter is in such mountain areas the H125, earlier called AS350.

„In 2005, the AS350 B3 broke the world record for the highest-altitude landing and takeoff, performed on Mount Everest at 8,848 metres (29,029 feet), a title still held today.“ Source: H125 - Intermediate single - Airbus

Also a AS350 reached an altitude of 42500 ft MSL (12954m) - a bit more than the lama but not recognized by the FAI.

And okay you mentioned the altitude of 25000 ft and yes my mentioned altitudes are records under special conditions, but even under normal conditions many rescue companies use their helicopters in mountain high altitude terrain.
Example here: On 29 April 2010, a stripped-down AS350 B3 rescued three Spanish alpinists, one at a time, from the slopes of Annapurna I, Nepal at an altitude of 6,900 m (22,640 ft); this set a new record for the highest such rescue. The record was increased to 7,800 m (25,590 ft), during the rescue of [Sudarshan Gautam] between Camps III & IV in [Everest’s Yellow Band on the morning of 20 May 2013.
Source: Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil - Wikipedia

We can sum up, there are only a few types of helicopters that are able to reach extreme altitudes and this are logically turbine helicopters with only one turbine for weight reasons (but not turbo charged, as you mentioned - turbo chargers are used in piston engines, not turbines)
But also for example the Mil Mi-8, Bell 407, Bell 429, Airbus H130, Airbus AS339, Agusta 109, Kamov KA-32 are able to take off and land in high altitude areas and are used there.

Last but not least, I live in Switzerland and here helicopters are used from many companies for rescue reasons, sight seeing and aerial work to build cable cars huts etc.
Most of the types are H125’s and some SA-315B Lama’s for leighter weights up to a ton. For heavy load they use russian Kamov KA-32 and AS-339 super pumas.

So in summary I think helicopters are even under „realistic“ use superb machines. :smiley::helicopter:
And I can say the same about fixed wing aircrafts: Can you go up to everest hight with an C172 or a Piper Warrior? :wink::wink::wink::wink:

Have a nice day and enjoy. :v:t3:

6 Likes

There are folks protesting respawning as arcade game-like. Maybe in Switzerland heliports will not be a problem but if one wants to sightsee the world by helicopter in FS 2020, respawning in mid-air is a must! (unless they are going to give us C-137’s to airdrop them where we will!). I want a heli, too! :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

Hey guys, now we can vote for this on the top of the first post !!!

3 Likes