2 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

For me the most telling part of that survey was how the sim platform used "most of the time" was MSFS at ~68% (66% - pc, 2% - xbox), with the second place platform at ~15% (page 40) ... and then in terms of what everyone thought were the most important flight simulator factors: #1 was "realistic aerodynamics model", followed by "realistic world graphics" (page 42)

So for the group of surveyed Navigraph users who can easily be classed as serious simmers, for whome the most important sim factors are realistic aerodynamics and realistic world visuals, the #1 sim platform is MSFS by a wide margin, by more than 4 times the next closest (not surprising though). Should be interesting to see how the 2023 survey pans out.
 

Yup. Every year, the Navigraph survey shows that the most dedicated flightsim hobbyists are switching over to MSFS and now, the most dedicated flightsim hobbyists are on MSFS by a huge margin.

9 hours ago, OverTheEDJ said:

Can anyone recommend a "stable" 3PD Heli? I know that word is very subjective.

 

I am using a Virpil stick with a 200mm extension coupled with sensitivity settings, and I still can’t seem to iron out the twitchy behavior / exaggerated pendulum effect of the default 407. I have the same issue with the freeware R44.

 

The only 3PD addon that I have is the HPG H145 that I fly 100% of the time; and the trim release "hands on" flight model is pretty good.

According to Belatu42 on the official forum (a real heli pilot who flies Robinsons a lot) "The FM on the RSP/Airland R44 with native physics is really good, It flies like an R44, very convincing."   He rates the Asobo heli physics highly and I've never seen him have any "stability" issues with any of the current offerings.  (His Youtube channel (Belatu42) is a good place to check out, he has "mini reviews" for most of the MSFS addon helis there and he knows what he's talking about)

So I think the problem is not native/non native helis in the sim, it's that you need to tune your controls 😉

I cant say I've had any issues with any of the third party helis in the sim or the Cabri. I've not flown the 407 since launch so cant comment on that one. (It goes without saying that you should never buy a heli from MScenery though)   I do have a separate profile for Cowansim helis and the Alouette III that has all cyclic sensitivities at 50%, all the rest I'm running linier, 100% sensitivity with a 15 year old joystick and some cheap pedals and can keep everything under full control. 

Personally I love the S300 CBi, The Allouette III, The Cowansim MD500 and the FlyInside B206 the most. I would say the S300 and Alouette are the most "stable" of the lot, but then again all of the helis in the sim are "stable" once you're used to their individual quirks.  Every heli in every sim ever will feel unstable after flying the H145 though!

 They all fly great for me and many others, though what has become very clear is people are having wildly different experiences with the helis in MSFS which appears to be down to controls as there really isn't any fundamental flaw in the native heli FM from what I can gather from RW heli pilots.    For what it's worth i can jump from the DCS Huey to any heli in MSFS and don't need to adjust any more than I would jumping between two completely different MSFS helis, say the H145 to the R44.  

EDIT:  Just a heads up, if you do end up buying the S300 CBi at any point get it direct from Nemeth, not from the marketplace. I think it's still on v1.00 in marketplace. We're on v1.03 now on the direct from developer version.  .V1.00 had a pretty bad bug that marketplace users still haven't got a fix for.

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by The Moose

2 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

Yup. Every year, the Navigraph survey shows that the most dedicated flightsim hobbyists are switching over to MSFS and now, the most dedicated flightsim hobbyists are on MSFS by a huge margin.

With the two Aircraft and Avionics updates -- and another AAU coming before year's end -- MSFS is now a finely tuned IFR (Instrument Flight Rule) simulator. But some dismiss the importance of the beautifully realistic scenery in MSFS as "eye candy," or "only good for VFR" (Visual Flight Rule). Just remember, however, that every pilot who ever lived -- from the Wright Brothers to Charles Lindberg to Chuck Yeager to Neil Armstrong all began their flying careers using VFR, not IFR. So MSFS now boasts the best of both worlds, VFR and IFR. 

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by David Mills

1 hour ago, David Mills said:

With the two Aircraft and Avionics updates -- and another AAU coming before year's end -- MSFS is now a finely tuned IFR (Instrument Flight Rule) simulator. But some dismiss the importance of the beautifully realistic scenery in MSFS as "eye candy," or "only good for VFR" (Visual Flight Rule). Just remember, however, that every pilot who ever lived -- from the Wright Brothers to Charles Lindberg to Chuck Yeager to Neil Armstrong all began their flying careers using VFR, not IFR. So MSFS now boasts the best of both worlds, VFR and IFR. 

Yup, I agree. MSFS has the best default G1000, G3000, G5000, GNS 430, and GNS 530. MSFS probably has the best default GA avionics suite right now for a civilian flight simulator.

Well, I have to totally, or almost, disagree with the opinion that MFS's flight dynamics for rotary wing are even acceptable 😕

EDIT: The above will stay "striked through" until I get my hands on the Nemeth C300 evaluated in the following video:

Nemeth Schweizer AG S300CBi in MSFS2020 | Real Helicopter Pilot Microsoft Flight Simulator Gameplay - YouTube

Heck, the guy is a rw heli pilot, so, I have to take his opinion for good 😕

As a long time friend of Sérgio, I know his work and praise his dedication to the "cause" of flight simulation, and remember the day we asked Austin for a bunch of DVDs with XP8 for testing purposes and writing an article on the then recently debuted Helisimmer web site 🙂

He's main focus has always been rotaries, and I know Sérgio, just like many of us, looks forward into a better flight model at least for FS 2024, but to be honest as it is right now MFS's heli FM  is far from acceptable, sorry 😕

I think Sérgio in that article while excluding AEFS from the final list, due to the limitations  in terms of World Scenery, does nonetheless classify it's FM as: "Fantastic flight dynamics", an exclamation superior to the classification of all other including XP...

IMO XP's rotary wing ( and not only ) flight dynamics is far superior to that of MFS. I even find it superior to DCS's extremelly customized UH-1H and Mi-8 FMs which I used for quite a while.

Unfortunately I never used a version of AEFS with helicopters, but Sérgio did and finds it, from that strict POV, the best AFAIK.

I do believe Sérgio, just like many, including me who also use MFS far more than I would expect given the many quirks with it's flight dynamics and overall physics and weather models, "has to close his eyes" to the physics given the gorgeous looks, scenery and functionality of MFS.

I ended up doing all of my tubeliner flights in MFS only. I recently tried P3D v6, but after a few days, well, and even with the PMDG 777 as my only payware airliner there, I had to accept that all taken into consideration MFS 2020 has to be my choice... 

But I have no doubt abut which sim I pick if it's rotaries I want to play !  That's only possible ( for me who do not own ARMA and left DCS for good ) with X-Plane, now Xp12... I have to try AEFS though, because as Sérgio himself told me, it's really unique in terms of flight dynamics for helicopters.

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by jcomm

3 hours ago, jcomm said:

IMO XP's rotary wing ( and not only ) flight dynamics is far superior to that of MFS. I even find it superior to DCS's extremelly customized UH-1H and Mi-8 FMs which I used for quite a while.

Well thanks for your input but I think I'll trust the guy who focuses on rotaries and the many real world heli pilots who say otherwise 

16 hours ago, OverTheEDJ said:

Can anyone recommend a "stable" 3PD Heli? I know that word is very subjective.

 

I am using a Virpil stick with a 200mm extension coupled with sensitivity settings, and I still can’t seem to iron out the twitchy behavior / exaggerated pendulum effect of the default 407. I have the same issue with the freeware R44.

 

The only 3PD addon that I have is the HPG H145 that I fly 100% of the time; and the trim release "hands on" flight model is pretty good.

In terms of stability (and in my opinion, realistic flight models) it doesn't get any better than the FlyInside Bell 206. There's a whole range of settings you can apply with the small app that comes with it. Adjusting up or down to suit your abilities is a snap. No need at all for the sim's built-in pilot assistance.

Of all the helicopters I've tried over time - and it's most of them available in msfs - this is the one I fly the most. I'm not a real-world pilot. I was lucky enough to get about 15 mins. at the controls of the real thing with a pilot friend at one point.

A lot of people seem to like the HPG145 for the stability. I think it's good too, but be prepared to spend some time getting everything set up. The stability augmentation system resets the trim axes every time you change the cyclic position. For me I find it's very clunky and abrupt when that happens - with your hardware setup you might have better results.

Edit: just reading your post again and realizing you already use the HPG145. Maybe you could comment on how you find the automatic trim reset?

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by CapnCrunch
Missed some of the OP's comments before posting

I don't like the default 407. No feeling to fly a heavy heap of metal at all. It reminds me why I didn't like the helis in P3D. On the other side, I love the Asobo Cabri .Relatively simple and a good feel. I didn't feel like buying anything else for a time. The only drawback for me is that she can't fly very high which is an issue in mountainous terrain. And that Asobo doesn't seem interested to revisit the programming.

 I am very much tempted by the Alouette but the dev sells her only with a new small e-commerce company affiliated with FS.to. 

7 hours ago, jcomm said:

As a long time friend of Sérgio, I know his work and praise his dedication to the "cause" of flight simulation, and remember the day we asked Austin for a bunch of DVDs with XP8 for testing purposes and writing an article on the then recently debuted Helisimmer web site 🙂

He's main focus has always been rotaries, and I know Sérgio, just like many of us, looks forward into a better flight model at least for FS 2024, but to be honest as it is right now MFS's heli FM  is far from acceptable, sorry 😕

IMO XP's rotary wing ( and not only ) flight dynamics is far superior to that of MFS. I even find it superior to DCS's extremelly customized UH-1H and Mi-8 FMs which I used for quite a while.
...
I do believe Sérgio, just like many, including me who also use MFS far more than I would expect given the many quirks with it's flight dynamics and overall physics and weather models, "has to close his eyes" to the physics given the gorgeous looks, scenery and functionality of MFS.

This talking point about the extent of disparity between the flight dynamics of MSFS and other legacy sims is a stale one, and I'm sure comforting to those that Sergio mentions as candidates for getting triggered by his statement 🙂 .. But ya I'm going to have to disagree and go by my own experience with various sims and what I actually see/feel when using various aircraft with MSFS as it stands now (of course aircraft developed properly by the respective aircraft devs), and also go by actual experts like Sergio and many others (including IRL pilots) who all say that the difference ain't all that, sorry 😕 

Your "belief" that Sergio "has to close his eyes to the physics given [MSFS's] gorgeous looks" is more a hope it sounds like to me, and one that decidedly slides to the lowest ends of plausibility given that Sergio says the exact opposite. Unless of course you're sagely enough to read his mind and are suggesting he actually is saying the opposite of what he is really thinking lol.

Now when it comes to other aspects of simming the differences are stark and plain to see, and I won't get into which way for MSFS, but Sergio also touched on those obvious points in his comparison.
 

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by lwt1971

8 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

On the other side, I love the Asobo Cabri .Relatively simple and a good feel. I didn't feel like buying anything else for a time.

Very much agree, the Cabri is a neat little heli and well modelled for a default bird (MS/Asobo also said they focused more attention on its development from the ground up). Waiting to see what high fidelity helis come out in the near future and eyeing Sergio's reviews of those.
 

6 hours ago, jcomm said:

Well, I have to totally, or almost, disagree with the opinion that MFS's flight dynamics for rotary wing are even acceptable 😕

EDIT: The above will stay "striked through" until I get my hands on the Nemeth C300 evaluated in the following video:

Nemeth Schweizer AG S300CBi in MSFS2020 | Real Helicopter Pilot Microsoft Flight Simulator Gameplay - YouTube

Heck, the guy is a rw heli pilot, so, I have to take his opinion for good 😕

That's a nice endorsement of the Nemeth Schweizer AG S300CBi, especially if Belatu42 is a real world helicopter pilot, as it says on his Youtube page he is a real life helicopter pilot. I would be interested to know which helicopter he flies in real life and whether he has flown the Nemeth Schweizer AG S300CBi specifically in real life.

But even if he hasn't flown the Nemeth Schweizer AG S300CBi in real life, given that he is a real world helicopter pilot, I think his opinion on the helicopters that MSFS has to offer still has value.

As I pointed out in an EDIT of my post above, after watching that youtube channel where the author tests a couple of Nemeth addons, I decided to give at least one of those a go.

I don't get aircraft for free for testing, so, while I got the ones that come with MFS Premium Deluxe (to which I recently upgraded from the Standard Edition) so I tested the two default helis, was offered by a friend the Bell 47G and bought the Bell 206 both by Flyinside.

I am not convinced by either the Cabri or the two FlyIndside models, quite on the contrary, but I'll buy the Hughes 300, which was actually the only helicopter I had the chence to get my hands on in the early eighties ... I recall faintly the details, but it was surely a memorable experience :-), so, I'll give this Nemeth model a go and report back. Maybe it makes me finally find that indeed the rotary wing flight dynamics presently available in MFS 2020 can really be used to create plausible helicopter models.

 

 

28 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I would be interested to know which helicopter he flies in real life

Mainly Robinsons.  There's vids of him flying R22 and R44 and In his Cowan 206 review he says he's flown the R66.   Pretty sure he said he'd not flown an S300.

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by The Moose

30 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

But even if he hasn't flown the Nemeth Schweizer AG S300CBi in real life, given that he is a real world helicopter pilot, I think his opinion on the helicopters that MSFS has to offer still has value.

As with all opinions that's specific to his use case which appears very VR focused ?

Ok, so...

I did buy the Nemeth S300, installed it today, played for a while.

What do I think:

.) It's probably my preferred right now among the total 5 I own - Cabri and 407 default MFS 2020, Bell 47 G and 206 oth FlyInside, now this Nemeth S300;

.) Wasn't able to properly perform an autorotation and I believe I followed the correct procedure ... Always crash, and get what I would call innacurate response to collective inputs and pitch;

UPDATE: I was finally able to perform a few successful auto-rotations. Requires adaptation to this S300 model, but it's doable. OFC can't say it's realistic because I never did it in a real S300 ...

.) Wasn't able to enter VRS;

.) Wasn't able to notice any sign of LTE, even in a strong wind;

It's the best among the 5, but I can't consider it a good helicopter flight model.

Edited July 27, 20232 yr by jcomm