Hi guys,

Am thinking to jump in to a helo for some low flying for a change... Ive done some looking but nothing like getting comments form those who have them in sim..

Whats the best helo to nab at this time?

Cheers

I am satisfied with the default Cabri which is generally given a thumb up by heli experts. A simple aircraft  (as simple as a heli can be …) but a good feel. Only thing, she does not climb well above 7/8 000 feet. I felt like buying the Taog’s Alouette 3 but she is only sold by FS.to which has been pretty erratic the recent months.

Ask two sim pilots and you will get three opinions at least. I have quite a few in the list  but the only one I'm coming back from time to time is the Alouette. Oldstyle fun. And as a consuming user I don't habe a problem with fs.to.

you have the H145 with rescue mission, very nice!

I thought someone put it well in another thread, and would basically agree:

For pure realism and feel, FlyInside's Bell 206 is a great choice. For a total system-based helicopter, HPG's H145 is a good bet. And since someone mentioned the Alouette III by Taog's Hangar, it's also worth your time, especially since the last update with a new engine variant. Having flown just about everything heli that's been released for the sim so far, those are the three I keep returning to. The 206 is my favorite overall.

Get DCS World instead of MFSF  and really enjoy yourself.

 

 

 

 

As mentioned the Cabri is pretty good. I've really enjoyed the Alouette 3 and tend to gravitate towards that (then again I also quite like the real thing), and the Squirrel (CowanSim) is quite a handful. Probably also worth looking at CowanSim MD500E. I have no experience with the other MD (530), and the H145 is an easy-to-fly add-on (cannot comment on whether this is realist or not). Definitely worth looking at both FlyInside offerings: modelling and textures not that good but flight behaviour is very good. The freeware helis are not nearly as good as these listed.

As a reference point: I'm far too poor to fly helicopters in real life, but come from years of heli flying in X-Plane – many of those generally regarded as fairly lifelike in behaviour – and have beta tested a few releases for X-Plane. So not a complete word not allowed. 

I second the recommendation of the CowanSim MD500E. It's needs a gentle touch at slow speeds, but it is nimble like a fighter jet. Really fun to fly.

I'll add my vote for the H145. Alouette as well in second place, but unless you've done helis quite a bit (and even then, as I'm not a fan of the Cowan graphics), definitely not the MD500E.

I think H145 beats all competition considering all features like autopilot, sas, wx radar and etc 

Thanks guys, really appreciate the feedback...

Definitely the H145 if you want to be able to let go of the controls and the aircraft keeps flying itself.

But the other ones mentioned are super cool too as long as you don't mind flying manual all the time. Trying to land the Alouette on top of the Everest as it did IRL is a worthy challenge!

49 minutes ago, iborg1979 said:

Trying to land the Alouette on top of the Everest as it did IRL

That was an AS350 B3, not an Alouette. There's a good article and video link here: https://verticalmag.com/features/landing-everest-didier-delsalle-recalls-record-flight/

As geeky as it looks, the Cabri is actually a great choice to start with, flies well and is pretty fun. 

For a good ol' bare-knuckled authentically raw and visceral heli experience, the FlyInside Bell 47G still deserves very high marks particularly since it recently received a very nice major update and is a real pleasure to fly, although it still uses legacy elevator/aileron trim instead of the cyclic longitudinal/lateral trim assignments introduced for helis.  That doesn't seem to have any negative impact on the flight characteristics since it is very trimmable for almost hands-off flying now, it just requires some quick additional control binding for folks who have dedicated assignments for rotary-winged a/c.

I'm using it to fly missions in NeoFly 4 and although it isn't very fast it sure is a great way to visit small fields in rugged terrain and one fantastic challenge to fly with heavy payloads over mountains.  My wife says that my mustache grows noticeably with each flight which is a little surprising to both of us since I didn't even have a mustache prior to purchasing it.  It's just that good.

Edited September 14, 20232 yr by Stoopy

7 hours ago, Stoopy said:

it still uses legacy elevator/aileron trim instead of the cyclic longitudinal/lateral trim assignments introduced for helis

The real-world helicopter has no user-trim features at all, so I'm not sure what kind of results you'll get if you've tried to bind and use that since it's not implemented (but may still work).

Thankfully they did adapt the cyclic axes to the new MSFS bindings for those, so it is for sure much more stable and fun to fly now. Slower than molasses unfortunately so I won't be flying it much even after the update. But as you said, it can be fun in certain situations.