I see where Nemeth Designs rotorcrafts are all 50% off til Christmas at SimMarket. I love a 1/2 off sale.Is there one single model that tops the Nemth lists? Nothing special in mind, heck, I can't even fly a helicopter, but I want one. I have a zillion heliports in all my addon scenery that I have never landed on.I searched on 'reviews' but couldn't find anything recent for FSX. How about the EC-135 vs the EC120B? Wrong one? Any recommendations? Thanks.Ray

Sounds like me a year ago. :( Then I picked up their MD902 - the speed and range sold me.I can't say I'm a great helicopter pilot a year onward, but it's a very nice machine and I can get to where I want to go without injuring the air too much.Plus its nice for exploring a well done scenery area - Bornholm Island, pretty much any interesting ORBX area, etc.Yes I did spend some time one day hovering around KCVG, playing "WKRP traffic reporter."

Sounds like me a year ago. :( Then I picked up their MD902 - the speed and range sold me.I can't say I'm a great helicopter pilot a year onward, but it's a very nice machine and I can get to where I want to go without injuring the air too much.Plus its nice for exploring a well done scenery area - Bornholm Island, pretty much any interesting ORBX area, etc.Yes I did spend some time one day hovering around KCVG, playing "WKRP traffic reporter."

Thanks for the info. I will check out the MD902.ray

Nice - that was exactly the question I was wondering about, so thanks for posting the thread. my main quetsion is, however, how detailed their helis are. I would actually like a heli similar to the Cera Sim helicopters. Do they share the same level of system simulation?

Many of the daily ORBX posters are crazy about the DodoSim chopper.Ray

Many of the daily ORBX posters are crazy about the DodoSim chopper.Ray

yep, the dodosim is all about the advanced flight characteristics and all others are unfairly compared to it on a regular basis. If that is your thing, then there is no other that comes close.I have all the nemeth helis and all have pros and cons, like any other addon.. My favs are the huey and the A109 simply becasue the visual models are fantastic, especially the VCs. The defender is fun to fly, easy on the frames and I like the passenger options. the MD902 is great for ambulance flights and has a nice VC. I like the EC120 mainly because i spent so much time in the FS9 version.I am pretty sure that once the new AS350/AS355 gets released it will be my main flying machine!

Many of the daily ORBX posters are crazy about the DodoSim chopper.Ray

They're the PMDG of choppers from what I understand.

yep, the dodosim is all about the advanced flight characteristics and all others are unfairly compared to it on a regular basis. If that is your thing, then there is no other that comes close.I have all the nemeth helis and all have pros and cons, like any other addon.. My favs are the huey and the A109 simply becasue the visual models are fantastic, especially the VCs. The defender is fun to fly, easy on the frames and I like the passenger options. the MD902 is great for ambulance flights and has a nice VC. I like the EC120 mainly because i spent so much time in the FS9 version.I am pretty sure that once the new AS350/AS355 gets released it will be my main flying machine!

Excellent, thanks for the post. So, knowing what you know, what is your overall recommendatoin for a first helo. I only fly FSX/accel, like nice VC, getting old and can't see small, dark stuff, have lots of time for fly. I have lots of nice addon scenery to checkout.Ray

Thanks for the post!

Speaking as an enthusiastic newcomer to helicopters - have been flying them almost exclusively for the past couple of months - I'll vouch for the Dodo. One of the nicer things about it - not too often mentioned - is that the flight model is highly configurable. There are five levels of difficulty built in. At the lowest level, it flies like the default 206. Each additional level adds more features to the flight dynamics. The top level adds realistic engine management. The difficulty settings together with the excellent documentation make it a very good learning platform. I found it easiest to fly at the highest difficulty setting - not sure why, but that option seemed to add a finer degree of control along with all the squirrely characteristics. Maybe just my eccentricity, though... The engine behavior is somewhat Accusim-like and there's persistent maintenance as well.The VC isn't the best - clean enough, but it's reminiscent of default aircraft. Clean and readable, though. There are some tweaks available at hovercontrol.com that improve it - there's an HD panel, and also a mod that increases the reflectiveness of the cockpit glass, which to my eye adds a lot of atmosphere.Something else worth looking into - there's a nice freeware program available at hovercontrol called Helicopter Total Realism (HTR). It basically takes over the flight dynamics from the helo and runs them through its own module. Makes them more Dodo-like, basically. Writing a profile is farily complicated (you have to enter a lot of data about the helo in question) but there are a number of profiles available for download. Running the program with a pre-written profile is easy - you load the helo in FSX, then launch HTR and it auto-detects the helicopter if there's a profile available. I've been using it with the Nemeth Huey and it adds a lot.Among the other Nemeth helos, the AW 109 seems to be recommended most often - but use of the new, updated flight dynamics patch is recommended. It's reported to be hard on some systems. I don't own it myself.The Aerosoft Huey also has its admirers but some detractors too. Read forum threads (especially on hovercontrol) for more detail.One more thing - you may want to spend some time tuning your joystick response through the payware FSUIPC. Helos need fine control and a different response curve than you use in fixed-wing may be helpful.I've found some real enjoyment in helos. What's nice about them, for someone like me who has very limited time for simming, is that you can set up a half-hour local flight that's genuinely challenging. It's also nice, after 25 years of fixed-wing simming, to lean an entirely different way of flying.Last note - I don't know if you've tried the X-Plane 10 demo or if you mean to, but for what it's worth, the X-Plane helicopter flight model is very good - said to be better in many respects than the FSX one. The FSX model apparently needs a lot of modification - Dodosim offloads a lot of the flight dynamics into its own custom modules, much as A2A does with the Cub and other fixed-wing aircraft. The same thing happens in X-Plane (I'm not one of the people who buys into the inherent superiority of the XP flight model) but the basic helo model is reported to be easier to work with. Good XP payware includes the BK 117 by ND Art and Design, and the R22 and 206 by Dreamfoil. Flight controls in X-Plane also need tuning, but from the opposite end of the spectrum - you'll want much less sensitivity than default, vs. FSX where you want much more.Hope this helps.

Excellent, thanks for the post. So, knowing what you know, what is your overall recommendatoin for a first helo. I only fly FSX/accel, like nice VC, getting old and can't see small, dark stuff, have lots of time for fly. I have lots of nice addon scenery to checkout.Ray

I would say the huey then as it's got the most uncomplicated panel and the graphics are very well done, perfect for just tooling around. If you want I can post an image of any of the VCs, just let me know.

I would say the huey then as it's got the most uncomplicated panel and the graphics are very well done, perfect for just tooling around. If you want I can post an image of any of the VCs, just let me know.

Nemeth's Huey or Aerosoft's? Thanks for the recommendation.Ray

Speaking as an enthusiastic newcomer to helicopters - have been flying them almost exclusively for the past couple of months - I'll vouch for the Dodo. One of the nicer things about it - not too often mentioned - is that the flight model is highly configurable. There are five levels of difficulty built in. At the lowest level, it flies like the default 206. Each additional level adds more features to the flight dynamics. The top level adds realistic engine management. The difficulty settings together with the excellent documentation make it a very good learning platform. I found it easiest to fly at the highest difficulty setting - not sure why, but that option seemed to add a finer degree of control along with all the squirrely characteristics. Maybe just my eccentricity, though... The engine behavior is somewhat Accusim-like and there's persistent maintenance as well.The VC isn't the best - clean enough, but it's reminiscent of default aircraft. Clean and readable, though. There are some tweaks available at hovercontrol.com that improve it - there's an HD panel, and also a mod that increases the reflectiveness of the cockpit glass, which to my eye adds a lot of atmosphere.Something else worth looking into - there's a nice freeware program available at hovercontrol called Helicopter Total Realism (HTR). It basically takes over the flight dynamics from the helo and runs them through its own module. Makes them more Dodo-like, basically. Writing a profile is farily complicated (you have to enter a lot of data about the helo in question) but there are a number of profiles available for download. Running the program with a pre-written profile is easy - you load the helo in FSX, then launch HTR and it auto-detects the helicopter if there's a profile available. I've been using it with the Nemeth Huey and it adds a lot.Among the other Nemeth helos, the AW 109 seems to be recommended most often - but use of the new, updated flight dynamics patch is recommended. It's reported to be hard on some systems. I don't own it myself.The Aerosoft Huey also has its admirers but some detractors too. Read forum threads (especially on hovercontrol) for more detail.One more thing - you may want to spend some time tuning your joystick response through the payware FSUIPC. Helos need fine control and a different response curve than you use in fixed-wing may be helpful.I've found some real enjoyment in helos. What's nice about them, for someone like me who has very limited time for simming, is that you can set up a half-hour local flight that's genuinely challenging. It's also nice, after 25 years of fixed-wing simming, to lean an entirely different way of flying.Last note - I don't know if you've tried the X-Plane 10 demo or if you mean to, but for what it's worth, the X-Plane helicopter flight model is very good - said to be better in many respects than the FSX one. The FSX model apparently needs a lot of modification - Dodosim offloads a lot of the flight dynamics into its own custom modules, much as A2A does with the Cub and other fixed-wing aircraft. The same thing happens in X-Plane (I'm not one of the people who buys into the inherent superiority of the XP flight model) but the basic helo model is reported to be easier to work with. Good XP payware includes the BK 117 by ND Art and Design, and the R22 and 206 by Dreamfoil. Flight controls in X-Plane also need tuning, but from the opposite end of the spectrum - you'll want much less sensitivity than default, vs. FSX where you want much more.Hope this helps.

This is really great, Alan, Good insight is hard to find nowadays. I really appreciate you spending the time to pull it all together for me. I do like the A2A Accu-sim approach to near reality.Ray

If you want I can post an image of any of the VCs, just let me know.

Michael,Thanks for the offer to post an image. Yes, I would like to see a VC shot. Ray

Michael,Thanks for the offer to post an image. Yes, I would like to see a VC shot.Ray

Hi Ray, here is a quick shot from the ND huey, hope it helps. There are also a bunch of great repaints for it from Matt Levi in the library.

Hi Ray, here is a quick shot from the ND huey, hope it helps. There are also a bunch of great repaints for it from Matt Levi in the library.

Thanks. I will download some repaints and check them out.Ray

I have actually been eyeballing the CeraSims Bell 212 for some time. How was it? How well are the systems simulated, and does it fly well?