Why wee need a SA315b Lama in MSFS! Who wants one?

Discussion Hub Aircraft
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Who else would like to see the legendary SA315b Lama in MSFS 2020?
I know so far no helicopter flight model is officially supported from the side of Asobo and Microsoft.
But vote here if you want a Lama.
When enough people want one, then maybe Asobo/Microsoft will develop one for their helicopter DLC, or third party creators can start to develop one as soon as possible.
The developers also check this forums to find out what kind off stuff is most wanted. :wink:

If a developer reads this, please let me know if you are thinking about developing a SA315b Lama or if you maybe already work on it.
I need one, I mean look at the scenery in MSFS, you need a helicopter with good view, like the Lama (and the Bell 47 we have already) and we need a helicopter with high altitude performance for the high mountains. :mountain_snow::helicopter: And we need a turbine helicopter with steam gauges. And we need the howl of the Astazou turbine and the iconic lattice tube tail.

Iā€™m sure in the lifespan of the sim we will see at least one Lama freeware or payware, but Iā€™m here for a good detailed payware model.
Iā€™m ready to pay a good amount of money for a immersive one with proper flight physics, good optical view and sounds. Yes thatā€™s what Iā€™m waiting for in this sim, more as any other thing.

Who wants one?

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To be honest: never heard of it.
After googeling it I found it to be related to the Alouette helicopters and that it held the record for highest altitude for helicopters for quite some time. So it gets my vote.

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Without a specific flight model for a helicopter itā€™s useless and a waste of time.
Look how bad it is the H135. :frowning:

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I havenā€™t tested it yet, neither have the Bell 47. They are not my favourite models and for this the Bell 47 is not so cheapā€¦ Maybe I will give the H135 a try, I heard good and bad things about the flight model.

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The H135 isnā€™t bad. It just has some flaws. But itā€™s still impressive what they managed to do with the standard MSFS flight model.

The Bell 47 is a lot better and has an ā€œexternalā€ flight model which is started from a separate app. Iā€™m quite happy with that one.

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I have tested now the H135 and the R44. The H135 has for me terrible flight characteristics in comparison to X-Plane 11 or DCS. It feels for me like on rails and for example when you change your collective or cyclic it changes altitude like stages or go from one notch to another, not stepless.
The R44 on the other hand feels a bit better - it uses ā€žAirland FSā€œ developed by Fred Naar - and to have in mind, itā€™s an alpha version. The flight model here is, (english isnā€™t my native language, so itā€™s not so easy to find the right words to describe) from german translated we say ā€žspongyā€œ, donā€™t know if you can say this like this in english. I mean the chopper feels to heavy, and to less sensitive for itā€™s size, it feels like I would fly an MI-8. :wink:
And the indicated speed feels way to slow, compared to the visual movement of the ground. I think this is because the movement in the air is calculated in the external software Airland FS and therefore it doesnā€™t match the in sim moving speed. First I thought my simulation rate could be in slowmotion, but that wasnā€™t the case.
I donā€™t want to be negative, Iā€™m a positive person in such things. I appreciate the time the developers invest in this projects and offer it to the community for free. Me for my part, will wait until the helicopters will be official supported from the sim, and hope the developers will invest their effort in a good proper flight model when the things are in the sim which need to be there. And then for sure I will use the models, donate the devs, and buy a model even if it costs, 40 dollars or more, if it has a good flight model and system depth.
But yes, also the possibility exists, that the flight model in Airland FS evolves far enough to be great.

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the 135 is great!

what do you find so poor about it?

imho the FM is as ā€œrealisticā€ as all the other aircraft. :slight_smile:

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edit: tbf all the additional helis are great but none translate the ā€œaliveā€ feel to the user and imho its the same with all msfs aircraft (and other sims).

I think the heli devs are doing great with what they have.

we gotta temper our expectations.

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As you mentioned the FM lacks a lot. And as I mentioned in my post before this:

And here again a point which I sign.

Here I donā€™t agree with you. In DCS and X-Plane some helicopters and planes give me an ā€žaliveā€œ feel. :blush:

Yes this is true. And for now we have to temper our expectations but I hope that they will raise the bar, and that high expectations will be exceeded. :smiley:

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Edit to my comment above: I did download the new version of Airland FS and did try the R44 again. Now it feels different, in a positive way. It feels more sensitive. I use the same settings as before, cyclic and pedals sensitivity 50% and flight model 100% on ā€œProfessionalā€. Iā€™m a bit confused now, I donā€™t know if it is the placebo effect or if there is a real difference. For me the heli seems to react better.
I now have to test it again for a longer time.
Maybe we get or have now good helicopters sooner as I thought. :grinning:
I installed Airland FS now in the community folder. Before I did install it on another drive because it was somewhere mentioned to better place it on another place as the community folder to avoid failures. I think it was mentioned in the R44 manual. In the Airland FS manual was the community folder also mentioned in the older version. But I think this couldnā€™t be the problem, because I could control it but with a bad flight physics feeling and in a slow and heavy kind and manner.