This is always one of the weirdest decisions for me. It’s a fictional aircraft, owned by Microsoft - if the button can’t be given a purpose in the sim, just don’t model the button.
I noticed this when I was trying to get the burners to work, I’m not getting any visual evidence they are working like they were in 2020 version. So how to make afterburners work then, or are they but with no flame? Ok, this craft may have thrusters with no afterburner, but there is no flame which was visible on 2020 version. Anyone else not seeing flames?
-eelis-
A few observations:
I dipped into CowTown’s YouTube VOD on the Pelican and saw him fall inexplicably out of the sky more than once. “He must be doing somethng stupid,” I thought. Then I flew the Pelican and did exactly the same thing myself (which, of course, doesn’t entirely rule out stupidity).
Anyway, the lesson is: if you’re travelling at high speed and want to stop, don’t close the throttle then switch to Hover mode. You’ll fall out of the sky.
The Pelican, at standard spawn-in weight, will hover at 67% throttle. Reduce the throttle to that (you should probably keep the centre MFD on ENGINES by default) before you switch to Hover mode, and when you do switch you’ll find you slow down about as fast and come to a safe hover.
The Pelican was designed to be an object in a video game. It had to look good, but I doubt the designers spent an age agonising over pilot ergonomics.
So it’s quite difficult to see out of, especially in VR. I found it helpful to set up two custom views:
This one simply shifts the pilot view a little to the left, so that the massive right canopy framing bar insn’t so close to the centre of my view. (Note I get a better view than the image represents, because it’s left eye only whereas I see a combination of both eyes).
This one shifts the view centre and up. What’s the advantage of that?
Well, now I can turn my head and see out of the upper side windows, which in the standard view might as well not be there. If you’re flying in flatscreen you might need a separate custom view for each window.
I confess I’m not interested in whether or not the Pelican can reach space; I’m more taken with its combination of low-level supersonic flight combined with the ability to land anywhere.
Its only competitor for this, I think, is the F-35. But the F-35 is a real-world aircraft, and I take its real-world limitations seriously. One of which is that it would be disastrous to attempt a vertical take-off or landing on any but a specially prepared suface, and even a STOL take-off or landing on a soft strip would probably destroy the strip. So not an aircraft I’m willing to land anywhere.
This is not a well-developed aircraft. As pointed out above, it can’t taxi, and takeoff is annoyingly ‘sticky’. And there’s a high-pitched engine whine that gets really, really annoying really, really quickly. And I could add a few more points.
Nevertheless, I’ll probably buy it. Partly because of what it can uniquely do (unless I’ve forgotten an aircraft somewhere) but mostly because if I don’t it would be the only Microsobo payware aircraft I don’t own.
Completionist, much?
I was excited to try this one out for two reasons:
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Hover ominously over significant human cultural landmarks to feel like a UFO visitor (hovering over St. Peter’s square in the Vatican was fun).
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To go to space. Needless to say that I was bummed hitting the service ceiling at around flight level 400 (although I’ve seen others here making it to 600).
It’s a fun toy, but not something Asobo/Microsoft should be asking money for, especially not if they didn’t even manage to make this one leave the troposphere, or have a smooth transition between hover and cruise mode.
This still works, even with the Peli24 streamed (put in community24 folder). Only thing is the texture on the nose camera and whatnot is pink checkered. Me, personally, can def live with that. Would be awesome if @LordFrites would update for the native one, but it’s probably a side project forgotten 
Mad props if they do though! <3
Has anyone else noticed that when hovering and using the external camera, there is a fairly quiet helicopter-ish “whoup-whoup-whoup” sound?
And there is no ’flame’ coming from engines.
-eelis-
See report: Halo D77-TC Pelican missing engine FX in 2024
I didn’t mind it in 2020.I downloaded it in 2024 and tried it.Not really impressed. Not as good as 2020 for me.I’ll leave it.If you like it then by all means,enjoy.
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