4 hours ago, jcomm said:

Cera Sim AS365 Engines Won't Start - YouTube

AS365 Dauphin II CeraSim (Cold&Dark Start Up) - YouTube

Thank you.  Will study these videos.

 

 

15 hours ago, spilok said:

Thank you.  Will study these videos.

 

 

Thanks again.  Shift+1 opens the menu for starting the 365!

Even if the engines are running when you start the Dauphin, if you go to the Control Automation Panel (shift + 1) and click the Ready To Fly box, the GPS, attitude indicator, etc. turn on and the Dauphin is completely ready to fly.

Steve

Edited October 31, 20232 yr by sab12
additional info

5 hours ago, sab12 said:

Even if the engines are running when you start the Dauphin, if you go to the Control Automation Panel (shift + 1) and click the Ready To Fly box, the GPS, attitude indicator, etc. turn on and the Dauphin is completely ready to fly.

Steve

Correct!

Hey guys, I found something very awesome regarding helicopters.  There's a free program called HTR (Helicopter Total Realism) which is like an outside physics engine that allows helicopters to fly much more realistically in FSX and P3D by modeling helicopter physics that don't exist in FSX/P3D.  This is going to be really a long post so if you are interested to feel what it's really like to fly real life helicopters in P3D then you should keep reading, otherwise you can skip this.

It was originally developed for FSX but it works in P3Dv5, I tested it myself and it works fine.  I've used it for FSX in the past on occasion but I kind of forgot about it but this thread got me thinking of trying it in P3Dv5.  If you want to take flying helicopters to the next level and see what it's really like, than HTR will take you there.

HTR is absolutely amazing in what it can do for FSX/P3D helicopters.  I can say it really does make them feel much closer to how helicopters feel in DCS World and X-Plane 11 & 12.  I've flown helicopters in all those sims so I have a good comparison and I have to say HTR is pretty good, still not quite as good as helicopters in the other three sims I mentioned but pretty close.

Here's the download link for HTR:
https://www.helisimmer.com/downloads/fsx/tools/htr-helicopter-total-realism-1-6#google_vignette
 

How to use HTR:

-First download and run the HTR installer, not inside the P3D folder, anywhere else is fine.

-First, start P3D (or FSX if you still enjoy using it like me) and load a flight with a helicopter, then run HTR, it's a seperate outside program.

-On the HTR UI interface, click the "Open Configuration" button and choose a helicopter configuration file that best fits your helicopter (more on this later) and the HTR physics should automatically kick in, if not, click the "Reload Configuration" button.

-That's it, the helicopter should feel very different now, and much more difficult to control.  Chances are you will crash the first couple times or more when you take off but that's normal.  You'll need to learn to fly all over again.

Real life helicopters are a quite a lot different than fixed wing aircraft and are much more difficult to control for a novice.  Just be patient and practice, practice.  Don't give up, you'll get the hang of it.  Once you do, you will love the challenge of it.

Make sure to read the PDF manual that comes with HTR so you can learn more about how to use it.

HTR Configuration Files:

HTR .cfg files are needed to make a helicopter fly right.  Each helicopter model will need it's own configuration file specific for that helicopter.  HTR does come with 16 different helicopter .cfg physics files.

You can find them located in (drive):\HTR 1.62 SE\HTR 1.62 SE\dynamics

These are the files you will see.

It is extremely important that you use the correct profile for the helicopter your flying.  The unfortunate thing is like I said, HTR only comes with 16 profiles and so many helicopters out there may not have a configuration file for it.

What I've been able to tell from the names of the configuration profiles are all FSX helicopters have one.  Including the Robinson R22, Bell 206B and Augusta EH101.  If you happen to have a copy of FSX than you can install it and copy over the Bell 206 and EH101 helicopters to P3D, they should work fine from what I've read.  For the R22 you can just use the one in P3D, it's the same.

There's also seems to be generic config files like the Bell 407, Blackhawk and CH-47.  I can testify that the Blackhawk config works with both the Virtavia and LM Blackhawks in P3D just fine.  The Bell 407 config seems to work well with the Milviz 407 model.

There's also a Chinook profile that works with three different Chinook models, it has links to those in the "chinook readme.txt" file.

There's others that seem to be for specific developer models.  I'm guessing by the name that one is for the Just Flight Robinson R44 and the config files that begin with "nd_" are for Nemeth Designs helicopters. https://www.nemethdesigns.com/

There are three config files that I just can't figure out though, and those files that start with "MD".  Does anyone know what developer that might be?

A really big question I have is where the h*** can I find more configuration files for more helicopters?  Does anyone have any idea where to find them?

I did lots of searches on the web using different search engines, etc. and came up with nothing at all.  There has to be somewhere uploaded on the internet some HTR .cfg helicopter files somewhere.

Edited November 1, 20232 yr by Kalnon

I wanted to add some more information I found out which is good news for anyone wanting to try HTR.  There are more configuration profiles that HTR comes with than I though.  Apparently I missed another folder with user made configurations which you can see here in the dynamics_user folder:

I also learned by opening up these cfg files, many contain information as to what specific developer/model it was made for.  The one for the 412 is for the Cera Bell 412 for example and the 407 in the standard dynamics folder is for the Milviz 407, etc..

Sadly though I still haven't found a configuration profile for the Cera AS365 😔

Edited November 6, 20232 yr by Kalnon

I tried HTR many moons ago when Sérgio (Helisimmer) told me about it.

I honestly can't recall the experience. By that time I was a lot more of a DCS-World player, having ended up on that sim not because of the base theme, which I hate, but because neither P3D or XP offered me such detailed flight dynamic models...

P3D / FSX aren't definitely the best platforms for rotary wing and their "exquisite" flight dynamics, but nowadays my go-to experience are airliners, not even sophisticated GA, so, P3D is by far the best platform for it, having tested all other available.

But I am surely up to a new experience with at least one of those Cera shoppers 🙂 and to testing, again, HTR !

Edited November 6, 20232 yr by jcomm

2 hours ago, jcomm said:

I tried HTR many moons ago when Sérgio (Helisimmer) told me about it.

I honestly can't recall the experience. By that time I was a lot more of a DCS-World player, having ended up on that sim not because of the base theme, which I hate, but because neither P3D and XP offered me such detailed flight dynamic models...

P3D / FSX aren't definitely the best platforms for rotary wing and their "exquisite" flight dynamics, but nowadays my go-to experience are airliners, not even sophisticated GA, so, P3D is by far the best platform for it, having tested all other available.

But I am surely up to a new experience with at least one of those Cera shoppers 🙂 and to testing, again, HTR !

As long as you use the correct configuration profile's you'll still have fun.  No it's not DCS World but it's still fun.  P3D helicopters are not perfect even with HTR but that's ok in my opinion, HTR makes them close enough to be really interesting.

I don't know which version of X-Plane you flew helicopters in but X-Plane 11 helicopters are pretty dang close, not as good as DCS but close.  X-Plane 12 is even better.  I think X-Plane 12 is just about caught up with DCS when it comes to helicopter physics in my opinion.  I love flying helicopters in X-Plane 11 & 12 and with having all the best scenery for XP11 and simHeaven global autogen scenery for both installed, there's tons of places to go flying them, not to mention there's loads of actual helipads all over that you can land on.