I’m looking for a stable helicopter or VTOL craft for sightseeing.
I wanted to buy the Got Friends Mini 500, but because the CowanSim MD 500E was on sale, I bought that one. But after perhaps 10 tries or so, I am giving up on it, because it is just impossible for me to do a simple straight hover even with the 500E. I keep on chrashing.
I only have a Hotas X with Saitek pedals and a Saitek throttle. I am guessing that that is part of the problem. This because people who do get the MD 500E to hover straight on YouTube, they need very big and professional controls. And I am not going to do that, I am on a budget, and do not want to spend so much just to control a helicopter in a sim. So what ever I choose, I want to be able to control it with my Hotas X and Saitek controllers.
So now my question remains, what would be the best craft for sightseeing in MSFS? I was thinking of the Mini 500, but because flying the 500E was so difficult, even after study of tutorials etc., and 10 tries, I am suspecting that the MSFS helicopter dynamics perhaps just make it impossible for me, and I should not buy the Mini 500 also, because then I would only crash too. And it would be the same as with the 500E
So regarding my search for a good craft for sightseeing, I have the following questions to you, perhaps you can help me:
Does somebody own both the CowanSim MD 500E and the Got Friends Mini 500? If so, is the flight model of the Mini 500 much easier to control then the 500E? And is it much easier to do a simple straight and level hover with the Mini 500, as opposed to the 500E? Because I want to buy the Mini 500, but if it is just as unstable and hard too fly as the 500E, frankly it would be a waste of money.
I tried the HPG 135, the free Airbus H135 helicopter. And that went much better. But, these Airbus helicopters feel a bit ‘fake’ for me, like it is not a real helicopter anymore, and this is because they are completely controlled by the automatics. But they are an option for me. But I do not like the not so good visibility from the cockpit for sightseeing. So my question about this is: is there a helicopter, that is much stabler then the 500E, but does not feel so fake stable as the Airbus? But that is stable enough so that I can control easy with my Hotas X and Saitek pedals? So is there a middle ground between the almost uncontrollable 500E and the ‘too stable’ Airbuses?
Does somebody know of any other good options out there for sightseeing (not the drone, that is not fun), instead of a helicopter? Important for me is that the visibility from the cockpit is great, that is why I choose the 500E and Mini 500. It could also be a VTOL craft, at this point I am open for all options, I just want a good craft for sightseeing. But a plane is not so good, because I want to be able to hover for sightseeing.
During my flying, and after watching YouTube, there seem to be different “altitude regimes”, where you collective, and thus your helicopter reacts differently, according to you altitude. This is also something that I noticed. 50% collective does not do the same near the ground as it does on 500 feet. Can somebody explain these regimes? At what altitude do you go from one regime to another? Or are there no different “collective regimes” in MSFS?
If you can help me with my search for a good craft, that would be great. Or if anybody can answer some of these questions above, that would also be helpful.
The Bell 47 will have the best view! You are surrounded by plexiglass and you can easily remove the doors. If you want easy, just select EASY mode fro the flight model and crank up the stability. Set the slider to where you are comfortable and go flying!
If you ever want to learn more about helicopter flying you can simply change your settings as you become more experienced.
I have both the MD500E and the Mini 500, but it’s been awhile since flying them, I can’t recall if one is easier to fly than the other. It sounds to me like you may just need more practice in helicopters, and probably will need to adjust controller sensitivities.
For me, picking up into a stable hover took a while to get the hang of, and I have no where near mastered it yet. If you can pick it up and transition through ETL without too much drama, flying is easier than hovering.
You could try the Cabri Gimbal G2. I think it will meet your needs and is a good one to practice helicopter flying with.
Lastly, yes, hovering in ground effect will need less collective than higher up.
I have Taogs HUEY and Aluette III plus Cowans MD500, R66. All of them are good but the easiest for flying is Aluette III and has the great cockpit view. I fly choppers with gamepad on full realism, Aluette is most lenient.
I have the Cowan md500. It is challenging to fly just like any helicopter. In flight it has a tendency to bank to one side so you will have to constantly tilt your joystick to counter that, quite heavy actually. Because of that I don’t really enjoy flying it. I don’t know if that’s realistic behavior. A lot of people have noticed the same issue. Cowan hasn’t acknowledged the problem yet nor have they provided any fix and I don’t think they are still updating their helicopter.
All cowans are to sensetive.
Do a new controller preset with just 75% sense on cyclic and its going to calm it down for you.
That is a must.
But I would not call the 500 a good one for your purpose, its a nervous sportscar basically.
Cabri is probably the best, calm and good view, and its easy to see the collective input on the dash, not all choppers show that, it helps A LOT in hovering and landing.
My personal favorite right now is the Cowan R22, you need to fly it with a 75% sense setting as with all cowans, but its very rewarding, not perfect but lovely to fly and discover things.
I dived into helicopter when the Wasp had been released as I found this appealing. I think I got the basics on flying a rotorcraft, but at the end (and the weird control configuration) I postponed this to FS2024 to try again.
So for sightseeing there are IMHO a few other option:
The Gotfriends Astro. If you can wait and planning to upgrade to FS2024, this (or a variant of this) will be part in this version.
The Ornithopter. Free and has great hover support, but limited visibility.
Every bushplane (XCup, Zlin) or Ultralight with a large dome (e.g. VL3).
The Toprudder 103. Very slow, great visibility, some people reported great in VR, for me this was also a great learning plane for landing taildragger.
Reduce your sensitivities (especially the for the 500E, try it at like 50%, you can raise it up as you learn) and set up the weather so you can face into a slight head wind as you practice hovering, it can help stabilise you. Eventually it will just start to click.
You can easily fly the 500 with a hotas and standard pedals but as been mentioned before you need to set up your sensitivities. One thing i do is alter the extremity dead zones, you really don’t need the full range of movement in a helicopter so i keep it almost linear with a slight curve but quite a big dead zone on all controls ( pedals and stick)
Pedals
I think the Got Friends EA-7 Optica is a great and inexpensive sightseeing airplane. It’s slow, quirky, and just plain cool. And you can bring your pets along for the ride.
For sightseeing, I really enjoy the Got-Friends Astro One. Also the Mini-500. I have the Cowan 500 and like it too but it behaves like a bigger, heavier aircraft. Faster too if you want to cover ground, though. The Astro One is a bit slower than the Mini 500 but will cover ground pretty well. And you can land it just about anywhere.
There’s a Microsoft version of the Jetson One (what the Astro One is based on) coming in FS2024 depending on where it gets placed in the various package tiers. Don’t know much about the MS version but the little personal quad copters (octocopters actually) are a blast.
The Cabri is perfectly fine for this. For the HOTAS, the twist grip resolution is far more accurate than the TFRP’s. The TFRP’s are tough even with taildragger aircraft. Start with the twist and turn on ONLY tail rotor assistance. It’s still full heli control but that assist takes over the constant pressure for basic stabilization. Numbing the heli any more than that doesn’t teach you anything, you should learned nuance from the beginning. When you have all the basics down, you can try removing the assist. Loosen the tension on the HOTAS base as much as possible. The throttle works pretty well as a collective, but the centering notch is a hindrance, which can be removed if willing to take the effort.
Technically, without true SOTP, you will always be slightly behind the heli as holding torque in real life is intuitive as keeping balance while walking versus reacting only to visual cues and you should be using dampered/non spring loaded pedals.
I want to thank you all for your comments. I read them all, but as these are around 13 comments, it is too much for me to answer all individually. But again, thank you for all your input.
I think I am give the free Cabri ( https://nl.flightsim.to/file/36054/hcg-cabri-g2 ) a try. And if that does not work out, perhaps I will consider the free Airbus H135 again. But I am not going to pay for another helicopter, if I am not completely sure that I can do a stable hover.
Also I looked at all the sensitivity options already, so there is nothing to win there anymore. Even with my sensitivity dialed down to -80, in an attempt to get the heli to hover straight by increasing the sensitivity, was not the solution. So only a different flight model, only a much more stable flight model then the 500E, will make the difference.
Almost nobody said something about these regimes on different altitudes, while that is a significant thing. I can get no information about that also. I guess I will find it out myself if I have more experience then.
In general, with around 10 crashes or so, I am amazed, how uncontrollable the helicopters are for the average simmer in MSFS, and also that there is not so much good information to counter this. The helicopters you buy often do not even have a manual that explain that. I only once crashed a plane in MSFS after around 60 flights or so. But with helicopters I keep on crashing, it looks almost impossible if you have no very expensive controller.
Ok, the problem might be to much collective, just set it and forget it basically, in normal flight, around 40 is enough, higher and lots of trouble cones. but when hovering you need to find the sweetspot, and you need a little bit more, since you loose the lift generated buy forward flight.
Finding this is easier in the cabri since you see clearly on the dash how much collective you have.
And then balance it with cyclic and a bit of pedal.
Turn off weather so you dont have to fight wind
Just stick with the Cabri, it takes a lot of time. When you can approach a moving ship, swing around in one smooth move, keep pace flying backwards and land that, then worry about other helis. For 2020, that little bird is no apologies solid within the current sim limits.
Buy the CAS piper cub for fixed wing low and slow excellence
