14 hours ago, F737MAX said:

 

The AirlandFS external flight module for helis makes any rotary wing aircraft that hasn't been updated to take full advantage of SU11 a lot more lively.

Hasn't the H145 been updated to take advantage of SU11?  If true, does the AirlandFS profile add anything to the H145?

Edited March 12, 20233 yr by Virtual-Chris

21 hours ago, The Moose said:

 

I presume (as i never actually tried it) the arcade mode adds extra stability and reduces/removes torque so no footwork is needed.    If your serious about learning to fly helis then just go full realism and put up with some potential frustration in the beginning.    Arcade modes and assistance just slow down your rate of learning imo.

What do you make of the fact that a real world H145 pilot feels the helicopter is more realistic in Arcade mode?  My take away is that the realistic mode is actually not that realistic. 🙂

When the kodiak 100 was first released, its flight model was heavily flawed and wasn't fixed for several releases. But people loved the fact that it was unstable, twitchy, and flew like a brick 😄 There seems to be an attraction by some here to aircraft that are difficult to fly even if it's unrealistic - they seem to relish the challenge. That's fine, but I have no interest in fighting a faulty aircraft flight model or trying to learn something that's horribly unstable.

Plus, I don't have anything resembling realistic flight controls for a helicopter with a stubby joystick, and cheap pedals, so expecting to be able to control a high unstable aircraft with crappy proxies for controls, is just an exercise in frustration. I'm willing to cut myself some slack and add a couple of stability enhancements, simply based on that alone. 

Edited March 12, 20233 yr by Virtual-Chris

4 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

My take away is that the realistic mode is actually not that realistic.

Something I discussed in the past as well.
I see real (military) helicopters flying low level, tight turns and hovering on a regular base from very close by and none of them look twitchy.
Even the corrections they make to avoid obstacles look very smooth and not twitchy at all.
They actually look like how the Cabri G2 flies in MSFS.
No pilot here, so my observations are purely from the ground. 🙂
But from my observations, I do understand the pilot saying, the H145 flies more realistic in arcade mode.
Some people like to think: the more twitchy the more they must be realistic.

Edited March 12, 20233 yr by bvdboomen

Can anyone recommend a good joystick for helicopters ?

6 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

What do you make of the fact that a real world H145 pilot feels the helicopter is more realistic in Arcade mode?  My take away is that the realistic mode is actually not that realistic. 🙂

When the kodiak 100 was first released, its flight model was heavily flawed and wasn't fixed for several releases. But people loved the fact that it was unstable, twitchy, and flew like a brick 😄 There seems to be an attraction by some here to aircraft that are difficult to fly even if it's unrealistic - they seem to relish the challenge. That's fine, but I have no interest in fighting a faulty aircraft flight model or trying to learn something that's horribly unstable.

Plus, I don't have anything resembling realistic flight controls for a helicopter with a stubby joystick, and cheap pedals, so expecting to be able to control a high unstable aircraft with crappy proxies for controls, is just an exercise in frustration. I'm willing to cut myself some slack and add a couple of stability enhancements, simply based on that alone. 

"More realistic" is a relative thing, I think. There's some context missing. If you check Markus' takeoff and landing video on YT and look at his reply in the comments to Jeff Hiew, he says "The real helicopter with AP on vs. HPG’s H145 AP on, the real one is more steady and responsive in my oppinion. Of course some of it may be because the settings and sensitivities." My take on that would be 1) He's not saying it's wildly unstable, just that the real thing is steadier, to some degree, and 2) that he may not have his controls set up as recommended.

I don't agree with your opinion on the Kodiak - "people loved the fact that it was unstable, twitchy, and flew like a brick". No, actually we didn't. We loved the fact that someone made such a high quality add-on and a lot of us asked the devs to fix those initial issues. They did. You seem to be saying here that a lot of us are happy to be duped into buying and flying essentially word not allowed aircraft, and that we're simply too stupid to realize it. Really?

For controls, I wouldn't say I have anything even close to realistic flight controls for a helicopter either (hardware's in my signature). But from what I gather that's the case for most of us. If you're not happy with your current hardware, a small investment might improve your experience.

The fact is, helicopters are inherently unstable. If that wasn't the case there would be no need at all for things like stability augmentation. And as far as the sim goes they're still a relatively new thing so there's still some fine-tuning to be done.

5 hours ago, CapnCrunch said:

"More realistic" is a relative thing, I think. There's some context missing. If you check Markus' takeoff and landing video on YT and look at his reply in the comments to Jeff Hiew, he says "The real helicopter with AP on vs. HPG’s H145 AP on, the real one is more steady and responsive in my oppinion. Of course some of it may be because the settings and sensitivities." My take on that would be 1) He's not saying it's wildly unstable, just that the real thing is steadier, to some degree, and 2) that he may not have his controls set up as recommended.

I don't agree with your opinion on the Kodiak - "people loved the fact that it was unstable, twitchy, and flew like a brick". No, actually we didn't. We loved the fact that someone made such a high quality add-on and a lot of us asked the devs to fix those initial issues. They did. You seem to be saying here that a lot of us are happy to be duped into buying and flying essentially word not allowed aircraft, and that we're simply too stupid to realize it. Really?

For controls, I wouldn't say I have anything even close to realistic flight controls for a helicopter either (hardware's in my signature). But from what I gather that's the case for most of us. If you're not happy with your current hardware, a small investment might improve your experience.

The fact is, helicopters are inherently unstable. If that wasn't the case there would be no need at all for things like stability augmentation. And as far as the sim goes they're still a relatively new thing so there's still some fine-tuning to be done.

I don’t want to argue, as I agree with most things you’ve said.

As for the Finnish HEMS pilot, I will watch more of his videos to try and capture more of his views, but it was clear to me from that one video we discussed above, that as soon as he lifted a few feet off the ground and started to drift, he was surprised and had wished he set it into Arcade. He immediately made a comment specifically that the real helicopter is more stable. I’m not making it up… It’s there in plain English (with a Finnish accent). 

As for the Kodiak… (Now the following is my perception only). But there were sim pilots - maybe more on the official forums than here - but my recollection was that it was only a few of us that felt the initial Kodiak flight model was flawed. It was very unstable on take off with any load, twitchy in flight, and extremely difficult to use for STOL. We pointed to Ryan’s missionary bush pilot YT channel as evidence the plane wasn’t as unstable as it was in the sim.

Despite that, there were many outspoken pilots that said effectively “you’re not doing it right” until the dev actually came out and admitted the flight model was flawed and would be fixed in an upcoming release.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I see the exact same attitude from some helicopter pilots.  

 

Edited March 12, 20233 yr by Virtual-Chris