Am I an idiot or what?I just can't fly the helicopters in FS2004, not even the standard Bell 206 Jet Ranger. In fact, I can fly them easily if I turn all the "Aircraft Realism" sliders to "Easy". But I don't like these settings because I like to fly the aircrafts with more realism.The problem is when I turn the sliders to a more realistic level, then the helicopter are very unstable and impossible to fly. I have already flew a real helicopter, and I have not experienced such an instability.Does it mean the helicopter flying is not "as real as it gets" in FS, or did I miss something here?Thanks for any help.Eric

Thats a common problem with Bell in FS. They are saying that if you put the G factor or something like that lower, then its more realistic. The Bell just cant find the way for stable flying, it always wants to mess something up. Its not like this at all in real. Try the R-22 because it is most realistic in FS. I learned to fly it after few hours of practice and now I can do everything with it.

Thanks for the info, I was looking for a good helicopter model to practice.I have tried the EC-120 Colibri, which is beautiful but not easy to fly, and also the Hughes MD-500, which is also nice but seems very unrealistic to fly.I will try the R-22 (I guess I can find it in the AVSIM library, right?)Eric

This site proved helpful many times:http://www.hovercontrol.com/Rick

The R-22 comes with FS2004 I think.

The R-22 is default with FS2004. And the Bell 206 is perfectly flyable in FS. Granted, it's actually more difficult than real life helicopters because after all there is no 'feel' and minimal sensory feedback, but the default Bell is a wonderfully stable heli in FS IF you have your settings correct, controllers properly calibrated and your frame rates at a decent figure (which is generally not a problem.... most simmers keep their FRs as high as possible). The general consensus is that the General Realism slider should be one or two clicks left of full for best results. Go visit Hovercontrol and read up on the suggested settings and you'll be rooftop landing the helis in no time.-Lindy :-rotor:-wave

I'm able to fly both the FS9 Bell and R22 helecopters with good success.What I found is that you need to turn the realism settings to half of realistic and I use CH Products USB rudder pedals to control yaw.This makes a huge difference. Also I switch to a joystick from my flight yoke for flying the helecopters. If you have rudder pedals, be sure that you disable the z-axis (twist) on your joystick if it has that feature.If you don't have rudder pedals, you can use a "twisting" type joystick, but it is more difficult to control yaw in the helecopters with a joystick as oppossed to using rudder pedals.It also takes a little time to get used to approaches and landing in the helecopters and the key to getting good at that is practicing hovering in the helecopters for a while.In real-life helecopter training, 80% of the flight training involves hovering in stationary positions for long periods of time.Finally, be sure you use easy, steady, and smooth power adjustments in the helecopters, abrupt changes in power make controlling any helecopter challenging. Smooth power adjustments to control rotor speeds are a must in FS9. Hope this helps!Happy SimmingScott :-)FAA Certified Flight Instructor - KCOSCFI, CFI-I, ATP

Yes, the R-22 is provided in FS2004, you're right. I forgot this because I have removed almost all the standard aircrafts from FS, except the ones used for the AI. I will put the R-22 back.I have rudder pedals, and they are very useful to fly helicopters. I even think the heli are impossible to fly without pedals!! Anyway, I will adjust my settings according to the Hovercontrol site suggestion, and I will give it another try. I can easily understand it is more difficult than in real life because of the lack of "feeling".Thanks for your help !!Eric

Hi Eric, I'm just wondering how you removed the default planes? I havent tried just deleting the aircraft folders but is that how? Does it cause any problems?

You are not alone those are beasts to fly where the R22 is a lot easier. As mentioned Rudder pedals help a lot and TrackIR even more.I am happy if I can land within 50 metres of the intended spot without crashing lolBut then I have just about everything to full realism 1 or 2 nods down. But the R22 behaves a lot better than the Bell that

In fact, I didn't really delete the aircraft folders, I just moved them into an "Archive" folder, so I can easily put them back in FS by moving back the folder to its original location.I did this because I was tired of having so many aircrafts that I don't use in my aircraft list.Warning: You should not remove aircrafts that are used by the AI traffic, I guess it may cause an FS crash.Eric

After haven't flown helis in FS2004 for a long time, I recently start again and found that I can now fly all of them (R22, Bell, Hughes 500 etc) with an great accuracy. I guess I learned flying the helis by use the "SAR 4" program. A nice little 'game' where you are a heli pilot on SAR missions. The graphics are very good (you only fly helis low and slow) and the missions are not easy at all. Biggest drawback is that the helis didn't need the pedals but the normal steering is good. Esp. most of the missions are on high wind settings and you must often put you heli down on a tanker or ocean cruiser. So now I could take any heli in FS2004, even in bad weather condition, and fly to every plave where the heli could get too. I must say it is a whole new experience of FS2004. For training I try to make every landing on the numbers of the runway, is there no heliport there.I have only set the 'General realism' setting one notch down. Rest is on highest settings.I observe that I must have at least 15-20 fps to hold the heli on a stabil hover in windy conditions, anything below could be difficult. Also I use the Virtual Cockpit for flying. I know that most heli sites recommend the 2D cockpit but I need the ground view for better alignment and to see the speed over ground.

Thanks for everybody's help !!I have just reduced the 'general realism' slider to 2 or 3 notches below maximum, and all the helicopters are now fully flyable.I enjoyed flying the helicopters, for me it was like discovering a new game in the game ;-)Eric

Practice really does make perfect. I have about 300 sim-hrs in the 206 and consider myself a "reasonable" pilot ;-)BestsMartin

>Practice really does make perfect. I have about 300 sim-hrs>in the 206 and consider myself a "reasonable" pilot ;-)>>Bests>MartinBut he is the only one who does :-))Steve