Hi friends,
I have been flight simming for a very long time, but other than a long discarded combat simulator, Jane’s AH-64D Longbow, I really have never flown helicopters. now I think it’s time to broaden my horizon. Alongside warbirds, I think helicopter missions, would be awesome in VR, which I am just starting to use. My normal flights are 3-10 hour tube-liner flights, and I can’t be bothered to keep the headset on that long, but flights less than 1 1/2 hours VR is amazing.
So, for the folks who like flying helicopters, I’m looking for advice on which payware helicopter I should start with, my criterion are pretty simple;
- As much functionality as possible, all the gizmos on the AC should work, I hate switches that are ‘inop’ and I do enjoy geeking out with all the systems.
- It doesn’t have to be the fastest, but I want a helo that has some speed, to cover longish distances without getting tiring.
- ideally, it would be on the marketplace, and eligible for career mode missions
And a couple of questions;
- Do helicopters have the ability to trim? I took a quick flight in one of the default helicopters, and it was pretty fun, but I had to maintain constant forward pressure on my spring loaded yoke, and my default yoke setup was not trimming the aircraft, I can see this getting tiresome over a longer flight, I assume I couldn’t trim because I hadn’t set up the controls correctly, but maybe helos don’t do that?
- Do helicopters have autopilots?
The ability to trim, and the availability of autopilots would be helpful, the autopilot less necessary than trimming I guess.
Quick sightseeing/VIP transport, passenger oil rig services, and maybe S&R are what I’m thinking, not necessarily heavy load/cargo or other overly specialized helicopters, maybe this stuff could come later.
Please for all you helo buffs out there (I know you are out there, I saw all the requests to get helicopters into MSFS several years ago). What helos would you recommend given the wishes I have enunciated above?
edit I am exclusively on MSFS 24 now.
Many (and nearly all these days) have autopilots, and every helicopter I know of has rotor trim. You can set up this function in MSFS under something like “rotor trim lateral/longitude” (I am not in front of it for precise wording.
If you use 2020 the recently released Mil Mi-2 is an awesome systems-simulation of this Soviet-era helo, but it’s slower and not on the MP. There is unofficial 2024 functionality with more features (and a native 2024) coming later.
If you use 2024 the Miltech Bo-105 just released and is great, but it doesn’t have an AP in this edition.
Also look into any of the Cowansim models, which are on the MP.
EDIT: Also look into anything by Taog, and the Miltech Chinook and MH-60 are good too.
The Miltech Bo-105 thread is what finally inspired me to post this, I had a look at the Cowansims, maybe one of the 206s would be a good start.
In the real world, smaller helicopters don’t have trims or autopilots but some bigger ones have, particularly the most modern ones.
The helicopter cyclic and pedals are usually very lightly “springed” (or no “springs” at all) because they aren’t meant to be centered most of the time and the collective only has some friction, to allow the pilot to remove his hand briefly.
You usually would want to put light springs and an extension on a joystick and lighten the pedals, but that’s not an option for everyone so it’s ok to use trims to “gamify” it, even if the real world counterpart doesn’t have them.
I heard good things about the Taog’s Hangar OH-6A Cayuse/Hughes 500C, but haven’t tried it yet. Have you thought about the default helicopters? Of those I find the H125 good for beginners, the Cabri and the R66 are a bit twitchy. They are all pretty simple though and the H225 would be a better choice for what you want, but it’s still quite buggy. Maybe the Chinook would be the best and it’s fast, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Thanks for your response, interesting knowledge. I do think the H225 would be close to what I want, but for good or bad, I’ve become a bit of a snob respecting the default AC on MSFS and MSFS24, having bought things like Just Flight’s Pipers, PMDG’s Boeings and Fenix A320s and comparing them to the default planes., but I get your point, I should get my Helicopter license, do some missions with the default ones, then decide if I need to spend money on new ones.
The ship that I find with a very nice and predictable flight dynamic is the Shrike 530F. Minimal pendulum affect. With a well set up control profile it hovers and flies very well.