I have finally started to attempt helicopter flights. I still have a long way to go, but I can get the litte buggers up in the air, fly my planned route, and crash very nicely. My question is: has anybody purchased the AlphaSim Apache? How is both the aircraft and the company to deal with?ThanksTom

Hi TC1,I have a large number of Alphasim airplanes. One thing that stands out is their VC gauges have horrible refresh rates. The exterior modeling of the planes are nothing short of perfect. When it comes to the Apache, I would do some serious research to see if they've modeled ANY of it's systems, which I doubt.

I don't think they've done any in-depth systems modelling. What you get is a great looking model, a fairly good VC (I think they've made improvements in their output here over the last year or so), great paintjobs. For the Apache they haven't worked round FS's limitations on helicopter flight/systems modelling as far as I know, so it'll operate like the default Bell 206, but probably feel slightly heavier. IMO - I haven't bought it because we're on an economy drive, but I do have other Alphasim stuff and I'm always tempted by them.Mark

There is only one place for helo sim enthusiastshttp://www.hovercontrol.com/Alphasim don't do the systems modelling of the complex addon masters like the Nemeth brothers or Dodosim but they certainly do have their place in the scheme of things. Their exterior models are stunning and many enthusiasts supply enhanced or replacement files to take the visual model to the next level, so they are a useful step up from the defaults.Allcott

Allcott,This evening I grabbed the Bell 47 out of AVSIM file library. I looked at hovercontrol last weekend and my only disappointment was that many of the helicopters found there lacked any sort of a manual for operating a downloaded model. Other than that, if you can't find it at hovercontrol, then you are not going to what you are looking for at any other site. It is in deed a very complete site.ThanksTom