Observations after using the S300 for a few hours:
- TRIM BUG was back for me after a sim restart (+ cold and dark start), again very easy to work around by taking off with trim breaker set to OFF and a TRIM reset button press (NOTE: you can turn trim on again during flight to enable trim) BUT this can lead to “interesting” nose-up situations as you simultaneously try to control the pitch with your HOTAS while fumbling about with the mouse to re-engage the trim breaker! Once re-engaged trim works great in flight.
- As with most helis you will need to use trim to relieve pressure on stick grip.
- It is hard to trim to perfect level flight, and tiny trim adjustments need to be continually made
- The hours counter doesn’t currently work and stays stuck on 1/10
- It handles very smoothly and feels great to fly, overall it’s a very nice flying experience.
- As others have noted the sounds are a bit Cessna GA like rather than a heli but it is a small piston engined heli.
- Smooth running and very easy on CPU & FPS
- It’s more fun to fly than some of the better known helis
- Over speeds seem to be tolerated/no price to pay
- Need to use a mod to get GTN650
- Can require quite a bit of fine cyclic control during landing especially in wind.
- Heli seems to be under controlled compared to other helis (see XBox controller tweak in release notes below) so the default helicopter profile with X&Y cyclic -50% sensitivity works fine, but for Y cyclic axis I have set the Extremity dead zone to 25% to give me some finer lateral cyclic control (better for take offs and landings esp in wind)
- Not sure I’d attempt to fly it without a HOTAS though
- I can see why the ratings are polarised, but the issue that is driving them is easily worked around. It is certainly not deserving of a one star, probably more like a 4* with a few caveats
- IMO an underrated hidden gem
- I can see me flying this a lot more it has a fun factor
- Currently a bargain in the marketplace sale
RELEASE NOTES
For those without release notes, they are actually embedded in the manifest.json comments fields. Listed below for your convenience.
VERSION 1.0.5 RELEASED FEBRUARY 28, 2024
- model and texture fixes, corrections
- minor flight stability tweak
VERSION 1.0.4 RELEASED NOVEMBER 8, 2023
- New simplified flight dynamics to accommodate using of Xbox controllers
VERSION 1.0.3 RELEASED AUGUST 15, 2023
- Cockpit light tool tips correction
VERSION 1.0.2 RELEASED JULY 18, 2023
- Reduced cyclic and rudder responiveness
- Additional flight dynamics tweaks
VERSION 1.0.1 RELEASED JUNE 22, 2023
- Trim error fix.
A few screen grabs from a flight around the Isles of Jura and Colonsay, Scotland this morning.
