How real are the realism settings?

[Guest]

Hello Chopper Heads!I've been reading some conflicting reports about how real the realism settings are. On this board, I've read some who say that anything less than one or two notched below max is "cheating." Meanwhile, I hear real helicopter pilots say that 50%-70% is more realistic because a Bell 206 isn't nearly as unstable as the high realism settings make it.Personally, I can fly pretty well on super high realism settings, but the swinging around that happend with the smallest finger preasure seems a pretty extreme (and my passengers keep asking for Dramamine!)What's the scoop? Do I just need to keep practicing my stick control?Steve Bertrand

[Guest]

Hi SteveI believe that I would be right in saying that the full (Hard) setting of 'aircraft realism' in unrealistic and unrepresentative of how a real Bell 206 behaves. The setting of one notch below this is probably as close to the real thing as the current flight model that MS have given us allows. This helo flight model is based on the Cessna and as such has various characteristics that are NOT found in a real chopper. These include the strong tendency to lose height when moving sideways or backwards.PeterWHappy Hovering

[PeterR 9]

I fly at one click below maximum and it's comfortable. The difference between the two is drastic. I guess you could adjust for each particular helo and build a table of values but that's a lot of work. However, if you fly one particular chopper all the time, then tweaking the setting sounds reasonable.