All,

 

I have discovered something but some of you may have tried it.

Take on Helicopters: http://takeonthegame...ia/screenshots/

Has anyone tried it? There's free demo I will try today. If it is a true heli sim, heck I will buy it and play that. I think they are using same weather engine as in Arma 3, but I could be wrong which looks like it uses Simul weather engine.

 

Any heli pilot who tried please comment on the flight model.

 

-lk

 

Seems avims has some coverage on this here: http://www.avsim.com...light/Helo.html

 

P.S: Looks like the flight model is between arcade and sim.

I've got it, and bits iof it are excellent, and bits of it aren't.

The cut-scenes etc get tedious but aren't repellent (unlike TDU 2, the Hawaii/Ibeza driving game).

The FM is OK, supposedly better with the new 1.05 patch, which I haven''t tried yet due to Flight.

I would recommend it.

Cheers

Keith

I spent quite a bit of time with the beta, and found it very fun and interesting. I also found out I am terrible at flying helicopters =)

 

It is worth downloading the beta for sure, but Flight came out before I pulled the trigger on the full game, and was more engaging for me. I plan on picking it up if it goes on sale on Steam.

It's pretty good, there are 'fps-like' elements to it which mean you can do walkarounds, get out of the helicopters and the like, and you do find things which need repairing and adjusting when you do that. The missions can be tough, but the flight model, which is very good, can be set on numerous difficulty levels with lots of assists if you feel like you need them. there are ad-ons for it, notably the latest 'Mil-24 'Hind', which add more combat-type stuff to it. If you ever played Operation Flashpoint, you will know what to expect. Here's a vid of it which I made when it was in beta:

 

 

Al

Curious, yesterday I opened a topic about an another game with very really good flight simulation scenes inside and the (moderators?) closed the topic....no feedback received...

: /

Beautiful sky. I hope these for flight....

Some quick pics of the Hind expansion for TOH. With this you can take on the Mujahideen whilst you are also taking on Helicopters...

 

 

 

 

Al

I did a fair bit of heli flying in Arma II multiplayer, and whilst using Track IR to deliver live troops to a hot LZ was great fun, I always felt the flight model was a bit ho-hum. So my interest in Take On Helicopters never quite translated into purchase, and then Flight came along...

 

My biggest beef (and there were a few) was that without constant input, Arma choppers would 'topple' into a dive. So if you had it in a 45 degree bank and let go of the controls, it would continue rolling on its side, quickly crashing. I've never flown a chopper in r/l but you have a rotor with a great big weight hanging below it, logic would suggest it'd have to behave in the opposite manner, i.e. quickly level off when left to its own devices. Do any of you here have r/l experience with helos? Are my expectations wrong? Are the topply characteristics still there in Take On?

 

Oh and can those floating HUD displays be turned off? Cheers!

Yes, the flight model is unstable, but that's what choppers are like. Yes, you can turn off all that HUD stuff if you like.

 

Not really experienced with choppers in real life, I've flown in plenty of them and I had a go at the controls on a Bell chopper once (and I do mean once LOL), on that occasion I couldn't keep the thing under control at all for any appreciable time, the pilot stayed on the controls lightly when I had a try, and he had to take over after something like about 6 seconds. He said it was usually the case that an instructor would let you handle one control while he did the others, then introduce another, then another, and that it was tricky to master even when doing it that way.

 

My conclusion: choppers are not stable, they need a lot of practice to suss out and fixed-wing experience is of virtually no benefit at all, other than in knowing what some of the instruments are for. I'd certainly kill myself if I tried to fly one for real, and I consider myself a pretty good real world fixed wing pilot.

 

Al

It really depends on the flight characteristics of the helicopter, and also whether it has any sort of stability augmentation system integrated into it. As far as flight sim-wise, the only thing I find even slightly comparable to real life is the FSX Dodosim and the DCS Blackshark, the Dodosim on level 5 being nearly perfect to what I remember a jetranger actually feeling like. That airframe has nothing to assist in stability; you fly it 100%. Helicopters can be rather unforgiving when it comes to control inputs, and that is difficult to model in a simulation. I don't think too many of the simulation companies really do much homework when it comes to helicopters, either. I've tried most of them and I don't get past 5 minutes before I become disgusted. It is unfortunate, because helo's can be really fun and challenging to fly.

Putting the FM aside, the best thing IMO about TOH is, in most missions, you glance to the side and there is an animated passenger/co-pilot who speak, and also passengers in the rear. now would that not be a cool feature in Flight, instead of just a voice in the ether. As the Seattle area is highly detailed it doesn't seem to affect framerates.

I never even got the hang of the Fsx choppers! :Monkey:

Hmm I am a big fan of helicopter sims, I may have to check this one out - I was not well aware of it .

It's history is quite funny. BI, the developing studio, originally started the Operation Flashpoint series, then had to create a new one - ArmA. It's all about infantry warfare, but they included armor and airforce with basic level of simulation. Then they realized that they could enhance the level of simulation by concentrating on one subject only, which are the copters. So they made a new game, a spin-off: take-on helicopters. I am looking forward to see how much of the new FM will they be able to translate to ArmA III.

I've never flown a chopper in r/l but you have a rotor with a great big weight hanging below it, logic would suggest it'd have to behave in the opposite manner, i.e. quickly level off when left to its own devices. Do any of you here have r/l experience with helos? Are my expectations wrong? Are the topply characteristics still there...

My understanding is that helicopters are inherently unstable. I think of them as balancing on top of a column of air - rather than hanging under a support. This is why they need constant corrections rather than hands-off stability... Of course in the hands of an expert (which I'm not) they can hover steadily in a gale. Amazing machines, really...