As someone who has real world flying time in the Bell 47 (G4, UK army) I am thoroughly delighted! My previous helis in flight simulation have the twistgrips mapped to the “propeller” lever and I am used to the “unreal” methods too - left side of left hand operates collective, left forefinger & thumb “twist” power up and down. One day I might bother with a “proper” set of rotorcraft controllers.
Anyway, I did first flight without the manual. The startup screen caught me out at first, but hey, it was logical - follow the simple guides. So click all the switches - they were all where they should be. Start, warm up, fly. I must confess to setting sensitivity in the Flyinside options to medium from the outset - without a bum feel, no heli in an MS flightsim has yet convinced in “max reality mode”.
But otherwise: from paying the bill to first hover and flight in around 15 minutes. Well done Flyinside!
Now please can you give us a G4 variant with a turbocharger? Remember the aviation definition of turbocharging is "…to maintain sea level power at altitude.
Another wish: please add the various radio boxes that are mounted on military versions and the casevac baskets. (I’ve been a live external passenger - it is fun, especially when you have a camera with you. Pity it’s nearly 50 years since I did that. No clue where the pictures are anymore)
Oh yes - a tip to new simheli peelows: it helps if you remove the springs from your HOTAS flight controllers because you don’t want a self-centering cyclic.
Well the thing is you have to start and end slow in every flight, so you need to understand and practice it, I’m just saying with speed it reduces the workload and become more airplane like to fly and so that much easier. The fin provides aerodynamic directional stability when air flows over it, well in most helicopters anyway, not sure the 47 does anything much given it’s open structure, probably reacts more from drag than flow control.
Now that I have had a couple of flights, I have my first bugs to report:
The elevator is not animated. Pity - form the G2 on this was titled by fore and aft cyclic movement
1a. If done, don’t forget the control cables (also tail rotor)
Swashplate animation is “iffy” - I’m a rotorcraft engineer and once seen, things like this grate
For a later update: please add an open doors option, not just on/off
Pilot and pax leg positions are also irritating
If you do add a G4 - don’t forget the sliding windows in the doors.
I don’t recall when these were added - but didn’t Bell 47s have a yellow line painted on the bubble to give the pilot a horizontal reference?
Sorry for not being too detailed in my comments earlier…
Swashplate: if you look from pilot’s eye view and turn round, operate the controls - the control rod ends move in the swashplate levers and slide through the metal rather than rotate smoothly.
oops - too quick on the ctrl/enter - I forgot to say: I love it! I really do. Like I said, I was primarily a helicopter tech in my army days, but I did get many “you have” hours and my favourite pilot was a guy called Barney Southgate - he used to fly in the Blue Eagles helicopter formation. Gave me a lot of insight into what rotary wing flight was all about.
Flying isn’t difficult. If it was, they wouldn’t put pilots in them - the technicians woulld fly them. besides - even after a full career in aerospace, flying is still something that is best taught at Hogwarts.
But you also found a lot without that line while looking for those pictures
I also watched quite a few video’s about this heli not found one with this yellow line present so far.
( Imho it spoils the nice bubble view )
May I humbly suggest that it would be nice to be also have the option to configure the flight settings from a stowable tablet in the Heli much like the H-135 does? It doesn’t need to always be present/folded and ruin the aesthetics, just have a logical place to click for it to pop up and click the tablet’s home button to vanish (carenado waco for example does this as well as others).
Congrats on all the positive feedback you guys are getting, I’m tempted to pick it up but I’ve been spending too much lately! It’ll go on the wishlist instead, looks like the perfect machine for VR safaris!
Thanks great work and I bought it straight up. All we need is a Mash version
I will say it takes a bit of fine tuning of the controls in realistic mode for it to not have small but constant pilot induced oscillations in the hover.
To fly it like my experience in an R22 I had to increase the throw on my joysticks by re calibrating with longer throws and it needs 10 to 15 in the stability setting in your app as I was told the 47G was less “squirrely” than a R 22 . Other than that its all good!
Just so everyone knows we’ve got an update rolling out today, with some nice fixes. It’ll be available on our website, and Heli Manager can take you to the download too once it’s live.
Rick will be showing it off on his Twitch stream at 12pm ET - Twitch
Never tried a heli.
Is this playable with a yoke and trottle (I have the saitek with the pedals) or do i really need a flightstick.
Is there a huge difference in playability?
And if I do need one which do you recommend?
Thanks.
besides - even after a full career in aerospace, flying is still something that is best taught at Hogwarts.
