Run, don't walk, this is one fantastic heli. Just took her up for a quick circuit. Truly amazing VC, easy on the frames and a great exterior, handles well also!!THANK YOU Nemeth Designs!!!(now all we need is an AI version, hint, hint)Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir Internationalhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/119179.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/119180.jpg

I'm not normally interested in fling-wings, but this one looks intriguing...After a bit of detective work, I finally found the file, which suffers from a complete lack of any description and no "preview" pictures, either in the index or in the Zipdive. No wonder it's only had 501 downloads so far; few folks will even know what it is!... ;)nd_ec120b_fw.zip

Very nice indeed!!! VC has very very smooth refresh.Excellent workDave---------------------------------------------------System Specs:Athlon64 3500+ ClawHammer @ 2.3mhzECS NForce4 A-939 Mobo (1g FSB)1.5G of OCZ Performance PC3200 Ram (Dual Channel)ATI Radeon X800Pro PCI-E (Catalyst 5.5 @ 520/540)SoundBlaster Live 24bitSaitek Cyborg EvoWinXP SP1

Yep, it even flies rather straight and level with the right amount of juice, nice airfile!I would also suggest to the Nemeth folks that they sell their obviously hard work a bit better in the library..Thanks for the heli guys!-Dasher7

I understand that Helicopter models in FS are not very realistic.Did this copter compensate for it? Does it fly pretty realistically?Barry

That's available here:http://library.avsim.net/sendfile.php?Loca...=ftp&DLID=68395Thanks!Larry

That looks like a very nice helicopter! To bas Im not good at flying helicopters. I can take off and fly but I suck at landing them!

I understand that Helicopter models in FS are not veryrealistic.Did this copter compensate for it? Does it fly prettyrealistically?Barry, not sure what info you are going off of, but the helis in FS are not that far off from what I have read and it depends on your settings for both realism and controls. I have never flown a real heli, but have seen plenty of posts by real world rotory pilots over at Hovercontrol that have both good and bad things to say about the way MS implemented rotory flight dynamics.There are a few real world pilots that are intructors at HC and they use the default jetranger for training. This ship is a bit more sensitive and has a good feel to her. If you fly helicopters in FS, you WILL enjoy this one.I am real picky on visuals, being a 3D designer myself and usually there is something in most VCs that detracts from the realism for me, haven't found any such thing in this VC yet and I have about 20 hours in her already.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

Hey there!I am not a rw pilot and thus don't know how ms helis fly in comparison to real heli's, but (!) flying in FS can be a real pain because of the constant pressure you need to put on the joystick. Actually, in many FS helis you cannot take your hands of the stick for just the briefest moment without the heli going wild. This CANNOT be realistic. Or can it? I just cannot imagine real world flying with a single pilot if leaning over to reach a button would immediatly throw the entire ship off course. Agree?Now the reason I said the 120 airfile seems good is that you CAN actually reach for the coffeecup without hitting pause, once in cruise, at least.RW pilots?-Dasher7

>Actually, in many FS helis you cannot take your>hands of the stick for just the briefest moment without the>heli going wild. This CANNOT be realistic. Or can it? Oh yes it can! First rule of helicopter flying .... NEVER take your hand off the cyclic. Second rule of helicopter flying .... NEVER take your hand off the cyclic ... and so on.What FS cannot emulate exactly (yet) is the cyclic pitch attained when, in a real helicopter, you push the cyclic forward. In a real heli, the blades angle to give more bite as they pass over the forward part of the aircraft (or sides, or back, depending which way you're trying to go) relative to the pressure on the stick. This mechanism is what makes helicopter gearing so incredibly complicated (and keeps many fixed wing flyers well away from them for that reason, LOL). FS does not model this mechanism in the true sense, but does a pretty good job I reckon. Yes, you need some forward cyclic pressure most of the time, but if your helicopter is properly set up, this should not be too difficult for you to accept.This latest EC120B flies very nicely indeed. That said, apart from being a little twitchy, the default Bell is a really good job I reckon and I fly it often in VC mode. Nothing much wrong with the Robinson, either, which is probably easier to handle, in fact. FS helis have come a long way in recent years and with stick and pedals properly configured are a blast to fly. Personally, I'm trying to work out how to configure a collective on the side of my seat, which if achieved will make me REALLY happy.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumont[a href=http://www.swiremariners.com/cathayhk.html" target="_blank]http://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg[/a]

I'm not a real-world helicopter pilot, but that said, I have been fortunate enough to fly twice from Montreal, Canada, to Fort Worth, Texas, by helicopter (with Bell test pilots). The first trip was in a Bell 412, the second in a 206L. In the 206 I was just a front-seat passenger, as the cockpit only had one set of controls, but the pilot did do a couple of autorotations to show me how it was done, etc., and after whole two days in the cockpit I had a pretty good feel for how the flying looked (at least) and how much work the pilot had to do. I can tell you, he was pretty tired at the end of the day.Autorotation was quite straight forward - maintain 60 Kts forward speed, and pull the cyclic just before touchdown. The pilot said that in his many years of experience (some 6000 hours of helo time, on many types), the 206 was the safest and easiest helicopter to autorotate.In the 412, I was able to get 13 hours of logable flying time. Under strict coaching and supervision, I was allowed to fly the helicopter in cruise, and later to practice some hovering at one of the many airports we landed at, plus a little sideways flying!My impressions of flying the 412, after many years of rw GA flying? The helicopter was unbelievably sensitive to stick input in cruise. The slightest movement produced an attitude change. It took some getting used to, but other than that, it flew just like an aircraft.Once we were in slow flight or hover, the controls changed immensely. Even with some slight help from an autostabilization control, which just helps a little, to control the helicopter took huge control movements, like steering a huge pot (at least to my inexperienced ways!). Pedal movements were equally big. Still, I could keep it there. The pilot turned off the autostabilzation, and I could no longer control the helicopter at all, and passed the controls back to the pilot (who, of course, made it look easy!).So, with that VERY limited experience, I have to say I haven't found a sim helicopter that feels like that 412. They seem not sensitive enough in cruise, too easy in hover. Landing seems hard, but that may be because there's not enough visual reference to really let you coordinate the controls with the final few feet. They all seem pretty switchy, though. I recently bought the Dodosim realstart 206, though, and like it a LOT. It 'feels' a lot like what I remember the 206L feeling like, even though I didn't get to fly it.The 412 pilot I few with said that for landing, one way is to look at the horizon, more or less, and not look at the ground.Incidentally, I had a Bell 212 pilot over a couple of years ago, and he flew the default 206 in the sim - he said IT was very realistic. I left him alone with the sim, and two hours later, he was still flying the 206!Anyway, I can really recommend the Dodosim 206! You may find it easier to land, too. Now I just have to try an autorotation.... :)Mike F.

Here are my comments on how "real" the FS9 helicopters fly... I've said many of these in similar threads before.FS's helicopter modeling is fairly good for the normal phases of flight. Some aerodynamic things are not modeled - e.g. vortex ring state (apparently it *is* modeled with the Dodosim add-on), but the general feeling of lifting off, hovering, cruise, approaches, and set-downs are not bad at all FOR A $70 PC SIMULATOR and IMO it's better than X-Plane's modeling by a long shot. (This is a point of endless debate and I'm merely stating my opinion based on many hours with both sims.) It *is* quite difficult to hover and in particular to do an approach to a hover/set down in FS9 but IMO that's due to the lack of peripheral visual cues when you're flying with a single monitor.The biggest, and in my opinion heinous, omission in FS9 is that the need to push the appropriate anti-torque pedal as the collective is moved is almost non-existent. I sure hope they fix this in FS10.The second biggest problem (for me) is in autorotational flight (initiated by pressing ctrl-F1 and then lowering the collective almost to its minimum). The stock Bell exhibits what I would term "massively excessive main rotor inertia", meaning that at the bottom of the auto you can milk the thing along for ages before it finally runs out of steam. On he other hand, the R22 is totally broken and cannot be autorotated to the ground successfully - no matter what you do the main rotor RPM will decay away and you'll fall out of the sky.A more minor issue is that in the Bell (and all other aftermarket helos I've flown) you have to actually *add* a bit of collective rather than keep it fully lowered during autorotation, else RRPM will decay uncontrollably.Another minor issue in autorotation is that, once you're established in a stable auto, the RRPM never varies with pedal or cyclic input. One of the (many) challenges in an auto is to keep the main RRPM "in the green", and this is not modeled at all.(explanation of the auto: http://www.copters.com/pilot/autorotation.html)The EC120B that is being discussed is actually pretty good in the auto, and it reminds me of SteveH's 206 for FS2002 which was excellent for its time. This is one of the best freeware helos that I've seen in a long time, and I posted something to that effect in the Avsim helo forum recently to that effect.I'll close by re-iterating that helicopters, unlike most fixed wing aircraft, are inherently unstable by nature and taking your hand off the cyclic of any non-stability-augmented helicopter for anything more than a few seconds or maybe slightly more if it's well-trimmed (and note that the 206 has no trim even in the real ship) will have you upside down and probably your day will end poorly 8^) .Dave Blevins

Yeppers, another great Nemeth FREEWARE add-on.Over 4500 Downloads here as of today. Thanks for the heads up.Regards,JoeGrab My FREEWARE Voice recognition Profiles here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=58334]Cessna 172 Voice Profile[/a][a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=60740]FSD Avanti Voice Profile[/a].You will need the main FREEWARE Flight Assistant program to use it, get it here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=genutils&DLID=39661]Flight Assistant 2.2[/a]

Is there no 2-D panel, or is something wrong with my install?Thanks.Jim

What's a 2D????? ;-)Nope, no 2D panel Jim, no need for one, but I think there is one for it at Hovercontrol by Rob Finney.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International