I re-installed this aircraft in FS002 on Friday after a long spell away from it. (I don't really fly FS2002 for anything else at this point, but hadn't un-installed it for some reason...) As stated here earlier, I have been frustrated that many of its unique features do not work in FS2004 - I'm talking about the incredible autopilot and flight director/coupler. Having spent several hours with it over the weekend in FS2002, I must once again declare that this is one of the finest freeware FS aircraft ever made, and certainly it is the best helicopter in terms of real-world systems simulation.It definitely takes some time to get set up correctly, but I now have a custom CH Control Manager map set up for it (combined with a custom dauphin.cfg), and it is a real joy to fly. I did two coupled ILS approaches today and other than the fact that I could not get the Touch Down feature to work correctly, the approaches went really well. The only caveat is that the documentation is a bit sparse - and it is ESSENTIAL to read it and understand it thoroughly to get the most out of the Dauphin - and it helps to have some familiarity with fixed wing autopilots to really get on with it (although it is a slightly different beast than any autopilot I've seen in an airplane).---This post is merely remind everyone that there is a *great* FREE FS helicopter out there, but it's a reason to keep FS2002 around - all it takes is some time to get it going. I purchase payware fixed-wing FS add-on airplanes on a semi-regular basis and I hold Antti's work up there with more than one product that I've paid $ for... but - I'm not holding my breath for the autopilot/coupler stuff to get fixed in FS2004, so I'll be keeping FS2002 on the system for *just* this aircraft.In closing, if I can be of assistance in getting the dauphin.cfg set up for anyone, post here and I'll try to help since I just went through this again.Dave Blevinshttp://www.flightfactory-simulations.com/h...ster_banner.jpg

The Dauphin is one of my favorites too. I fly it in FS2004 mostly because I don't use all the fancy bells and whistles. But even in FS2002, I could never get it to work the way I thought it was supposed to. I'm talking about his most recent versions here, not the originally released version (which worked just fine in FS2002). I'll agree that the documentation is a little spartan; it seems to assume that the user has knowledge of heli systems in general as well as knowledge of autopilots in general .... neither of which was true in my case! lol But I still find it fun to fly and use it quite often. -Lindy :-rotor:-wave

>The Dauphin is one of my favorites too. I fly it in FS2004>mostly because I don't use all the fancy bells and whistles. >But even in FS2002, I could never get it to work the way I>thought it was supposed to. I'm talking about his most recent>versions here, not the originally released version (which>worked just fine in FS2002). It's a shame you couldn't get it to work... With things properly configured - i.e. with the console panel gauge enabled and the stock FS2002 joystick disabled - the Dauphin flys very differently than other helicopters - as you probably know that gauge is intercepting the game controllers' inputs and doing its own thing to them before passing them off to the flight model. IMO it's a lot easier to fly than the '206 (for example).Although I have not flown a real helicopter with the SAS/ASE system, the cyclic response of the Antti Dauphin feels very much as I would expect the real thing to - i.e. fairly damped and smooth. I have two buttons on my joystick configured for the SAS/ASE switch and the force trim override, which works very well...BTW, the Apache has a similar system, where in the ASE mode you have to press the override button to get the cyclic to do anything. I believe these aircraft are flown in that mode most of the time in (non low-level) cruise flight - obviously it decreases the pilot's workload a bit.cheers,dB.http://www.flightfactory-simulations.com/h...ster_banner.jpg