It's all go for big name releases this week with the An-2, Analogue Baron and MD83/88 expansion (and across the sim divide the  Toliss A320Neo) so why not add another one to the mix.

This time it's Cowan's Airbus H125 Helicopter (aka the Aérospatiale/Eurocopter AS350B3e Écureuil)

https://cowansim.com/product/h125-for-msfs/

Like the previous Cowan helos it's based on there built-in MSFS flight and engine model and isn't feature complete yet but hopefully now they have their three main models out they can start adding features.

Edited March 23, 20233 yr by Matchstick

Is helisas still inop?

So I bought this right away having previously bought and very much enjoyed their B206 and MD500.  

My initial reaction is not overly happy.  The interior textures around the two system display screens and on the collective look to be quite low resolution (text on the collective is also skewed/distorted), the front panel textures look incredibly flat.  The 3D gauges are noticeably low resolution and do not appear round.  Definitely not up to what I expect from a MSFS aircraft and to my eye nowhere near the graphics work on his other two aircraft.  I’m very confused by what I see to be honest given my good experiences with previous products.

Exterior textures look very nice and there are a ton of liveries as usual.

One other thing I noticed is the throttle only has two settings, idle and flight so you can’t actually turn the throttle all the way off.

I hate to write this and hopefully these are things that can be improved as again, it just doesn’t seem to up to what Cowansim is capable of.  I feel like I bought this from a different developer.  

Edited March 23, 20233 yr by regis9

1 hour ago, regis9 said:

One other thing I noticed is the throttle only has two settings, idle and flight so you can’t actually turn the throttle all the way off.

AIUI that's how the real world throttle works - it just has Flight and Idle settings

-Edit-

Checking some real world checklists that does look to be the case - when shutting down you move the throttle to Idle for 30s to let the engine cool then set the start switch on the overhead panel to Off.

Edited March 23, 20233 yr by Matchstick

Interesting, so no “off” setting?

Reading the engine start checklist it said once the engine RPMs reached a certain % to advance the throttle to low idle, so where would I be moving the throttle from to low idle?  

As it is now the throttle just jumps from idle to flight and back, no gradual rotation of the throttle is possible.

9 minutes ago, regis9 said:

Interesting, so no “off” setting?

Reading the engine start checklist it said once the engine RPMs reached a certain % to advance the throttle to low idle, so where would I be moving the throttle from to low idle?  

As it is now the throttle just jumps from idle to flight and back, no gradual rotation of the throttle is possible.

That's interesting - do you know which model of the H125/AS350 the checklist is for ?
The ones I've found for the AS350B3e just refer to moving between flight and idle and presumably letting the FADEC handle ramping up.

https://mega.nz/file/qwoRXTRZ#LEKtES9Vzw264p28tcHtzZda1Mjf1OfmnjQfR-XsjFU

Edited March 23, 20233 yr by Matchstick

It’s the one that came with the aircraft.  I’m not at home right now so I can’t check so possibly I’m remembering it wrong from my first run throughs last night.

Here's the in-game checklist FWIW

 

Edited March 23, 20233 yr by regis9