The title can seem misleading, but it's true, at least to a degree.

SInce I started learning flying helis in XP11/12, and since I actually learned to not die on every flight, to hover, to take off and land steadily without any panicking, I must say that airplanes are not fun anymore. At least not fun comparing to flying helis.

Helis engage your brain and senses so much, that airplane flying just became boring. Let me describe fast:

- With helis, your brain is occupied with so many axis and movements, and it actually feels like trying to find a center of gravity of the dinner plate that stands on a chopstick. Constant battle. But when you master it, it's INCREDIBLY satisfying.
You must recalibrate your brain for Z axis, controlled by collective, and you don't let go of the collective, especially in crucial phases like take-off or landing. You are finding balance in pitch and roll during hover, and must focus also on yaw, which is controlled by anti-torque pedals. If you lose focus on just one of these 4 things (height, pitch, roll and yaw), you will find yourself in a problem instantly. Again, I'm talking about crucial phases, take offs, landings and hovering. Cruising is simple when you find the balance.

But then the classic airplane is this:

- Set the flaps, push the throttle, use a bit of (right) rudder to keep it on the centerline, and pull the stick or yoke when it reaches the rotation speed. After that is all chilling out. Small stick/yoke corrections, set throttle to climb power, or use AP. You might even use some rudder during coordinated turns, approaches, and that's all.

Listen. Before you get mad at me, for doing shallow comparisons and start debunking all of this that I wrote, I must say that I'm in flight sims over 20 years. Probably started in FS4.0, but properly started learning stuff in FS98. I was GA and Airliner guy for all of these 20 years, and I understand all the advantages and limitations that airplane flying have comparing to helicopters, especially in real world. Safety and economics are surely on airplanes side. It's an amazing feeling when you start up the turboprop like TBM 900 set up the flight plan, and enjoy the 1000km trip over many interesting areas that you can enjoy from 30000ft. It's a sort of meditation for me. So, yes, I can truly understand why some people don't like helis and all the panic when trying to learn and fly them. Helis are not for the faint hearted, and surely not for people that want relaxed (meditative) experience in a flight sim. It's more like an adventure, spiced with a bit of adrenaline. Maybe bush flying is closest to that experience?

For me, learning to fly helis while being persistent and patient, crashing in God knows how many test flights (probably over 50), learning to keep that plate on a chopstick in balance, is the best decision I made. It gave me much more reason to fly now, as I was kind of over-saturated by A to B airplane flights.

All of that love for helis grew A LOT more after my few visits to Balkan Helicopters heliport, which is very close to my hometown. I was going there few times to record the sounds for my R44/R66 soundpacks, and the pilots and staff there were extremely welcoming and helpful. I was even sitting in R44/R66 during engine runups. It made me respect these machines much more. I now approach every helicopter with such a respect, it's not even a joke. Experiencing these machines from up close and personal, gave me completely another POV. Also, @mSparks can say something about Balkan Helicopters also, and can surely put some bonus thoughts on the topic I started. 🙂

Oh, the only thing I need to learn doing properly is auto rotation, but since engines in XP11/12 helicopter addons don't die if you treat them well, I'm not in a hurry.

Long live the blades!

Edited March 31, 20251 yr by Pe11e

Approaching in plane is stable, Approaching in helicopter is constant flare.

100% 👍with the OP feel & thoughts !!!

That's also what makes X-Plane soooooo different from the other flightsim. 

I actually started using DCS more because of the UH-1H by Belsimtek than other reasons... 

There are some really great and even freeware helis available at the .Org. 

My only problem is that I do not own one of those sophisticated control setups for helicopter simulation. I also believe proper helicopter flying simulation requires good peripheral vision, probably VR is the way to go, but too expensive and clumsy for my liking...

Edited April 1, 20251 yr by jcomm

17 minutes ago, jcomm said:

My only problem is that I do not own one of those sophisticated control setups for helicopter simulation.

I just flip my TCA airbus throttle 90 degrees and call it the day for helos, works nicely.

2 hours ago, C2615 said:

I just flip my TCA airbus throttle 90 degrees and call it the day for helos, works nicely.

👍

12 hours ago, Pe11e said:

Also, @mSparks can say something about Balkan Helicopters also, and can surely put some bonus thoughts on the topic I started. 🙂

Balkan heli are a fantastic team, really interesting characters, love em all to bits.

ping me next time you plan on going, I'm travelling a lot at the moment, but they are only half hour drive away if I'm home, be great to sit and chat helis and flight sim over some rakija and good food. renewed my licence with them end of last year, not flown wirlybird IRL since I did a visit to EGCB back in October, mostly due to far to many other commitments.

There's a couple of disadvantages of helos that if I'd known about them beforehand might have stopped me getting so into them, and have me seriously considering adding a plane licence:

If you fly international, you either have to go through international airports (real pain and not cheap) or hire border control to come to you (expensive).

Limited range - need to make fuel stops for any kind of distance, added expense and a pain, especially flying in more remote areas where there is no fuel - the main reason to use a heli...

Quite a bit more expensive per hour to fly, which in combination with the above issues is a killer.

Main thing I need now is more reasons to fly them, panoramic flights scratch the itch, but I could have used a small private plane for 5 or 6 trips already in the last 12 months where the heli just wasn't an option, and have another in just over a week....

X-Plane doesn't have any of those problems, and all the benefits you already mentioned, only excuse I need to fire up XP is a fully charged headset and half an hour of free time.

Edited April 1, 20251 yr by mSparks

22 hours ago, Pe11e said:

The title can seem misleading, but it's true, at least to a degree.

SInce I started learning flying helis in XP11/12, and since I actually learned to not die on every flight, to hover, to take off and land steadily without any panicking, I must say that airplanes are not fun anymore. At least not fun comparing to flying helis.

Helis engage your brain and senses so much, that airplane flying just became boring. Let me describe fast:

- With helis, your brain is occupied with so many axis and movements, and it actually feels like trying to find a center of gravity of the dinner plate that stands on a chopstick. Constant battle. But when you master it, it's INCREDIBLY satisfying.
You must recalibrate your brain for Z axis, controlled by collective, and you don't let go of the collective, especially in crucial phases like take-off or landing. You are finding balance in pitch and roll during hover, and must focus also on yaw, which is controlled by anti-torque pedals. If you lose focus on just one of these 4 things (height, pitch, roll and yaw), you will find yourself in a problem instantly. Again, I'm talking about crucial phases, take offs, landings and hovering. Cruising is simple when you find the balance.

But then the classic airplane is this:

- Set the flaps, push the throttle, use a bit of (right) rudder to keep it on the centerline, and pull the stick or yoke when it reaches the rotation speed. After that is all chilling out. Small stick/yoke corrections, set throttle to climb power, or use AP. You might even use some rudder during coordinated turns, approaches, and that's all.

Listen. Before you get mad at me, for doing shallow comparisons and start debunking all of this that I wrote, I must say that I'm in flight sims over 20 years. Probably started in FS4.0, but properly started learning stuff in FS98. I was GA and Airliner guy for all of these 20 years, and I understand all the advantages and limitations that airplane flying have comparing to helicopters, especially in real world. Safety and economics are surely on airplanes side. It's an amazing feeling when you start up the turboprop like TBM 900 set up the flight plan, and enjoy the 1000km trip over many interesting areas that you can enjoy from 30000ft. It's a sort of meditation for me. So, yes, I can truly understand why some people don't like helis and all the panic when trying to learn and fly them. Helis are not for the faint hearted, and surely not for people that want relaxed (meditative) experience in a flight sim. It's more like an adventure, spiced with a bit of adrenaline. Maybe bush flying is closest to that experience?

For me, learning to fly helis while being persistent and patient, crashing in God knows how many test flights (probably over 50), learning to keep that plate on a chopstick in balance, is the best decision I made. It gave me much more reason to fly now, as I was kind of over-saturated by A to B airplane flights.

All of that love for helis grew A LOT more after my few visits to Balkan Helicopters heliport, which is very close to my hometown. I was going there few times to record the sounds for my R44/R66 soundpacks, and the pilots and staff there were extremely welcoming and helpful. I was even sitting in R44/R66 during engine runups. It made me respect these machines much more. I now approach every helicopter with such a respect, it's not even a joke. Experiencing these machines from up close and personal, gave me completely another POV. Also, @mSparks can say something about Balkan Helicopters also, and can surely put some bonus thoughts on the topic I started. 🙂

Oh, the only thing I need to learn doing properly is auto rotation, but since engines in XP11/12 helicopter addons don't die if you treat them well, I'm not in a hurry.

Long live the blades!
 

Oh, man do I agree 1000% percent with this perspective!!! 🙂

Airliners take too much time to set up, and then you basically just "follow the magenta line" until minimums 2 or 3 (or 10!) hours later.

GA aircraft can be fun around the pattern and such, but again, auto pilot comes heavily into play (unless you fly something like the T-6 Texan II turboprop trainer which doesn't even have an AP!).

So most of my fixed wing time ends up being in military Fast Jets or Warbirds of some sort, where their are (generally speaking) no FMCs with automated flight plan following, and when you do input a flight plan one way of the other, it's usually a point to point Alt Hold / Heading Hold - at best!

And FORGET about VNAV!! 🤣

Helicopters, on the other hand, are exactly as you described - just getting off the ground on even a windless, cloudless, cool morning requires significantly greater involvement in the controls. 

And coming in to land, especially to a hover over a specific spot...? Oh, yeah, it is NOT even close to as easy as it looks. And then even if you do an airfield approach using the pattern & runway, you STILL have to Hover Taxi back to your assigned parking. 

Makes for eating a LOT of "Humble Pie" 🙂

One thing I really enjoy about flight sim helos is the broad choice of addons available, and depending on the Class of the helo, you can have significantly different experiences.

The R-22/-44 are piston engined, absolutely manual machines with no stability augmentation/fly-by-wire, so whatever happens is 100% on YOU!

I really like turbines (mainly because of the sound & power!), but you can still have a good, manual stick and "rudder" experience in birds like the R 66 and Bell UH-1 / 206.

Or you can step it up to turbine birds with Stability Augmentation Systems like the Bell 407 (the JRX is GREAT!) or Bell 412.

An interesting "middle ground" is the CH-47D Chinook by X-Trident. LOTS of stability & augmentation (as IRL), but still 100% steam gauge, AND with the very different flight characteristics of a twin rotor design. (and, man, is it GIGANTIC!)

Finally, if you do happen to like flying sophisticated, highly automated, glass cockpit, fly-by-wire birds like airliners and biz jets, there's the X-Trident AW 109. Not only does it have computerized stab aug, but also a full glass cockpit with IFR capable avionics, and a full 3D autopilot WITH all the "magenta line" capabilities you could desire. 

Heck, it even has retractable landing gear - WITH wheels!! 🙂

I guess one could take the position that all the above is available in Fixed Wing, but like you said, getting a helo off the ground or dropped into a dangerous vertical descent to land without crashing is one of the most challenging AND relaxing(!) flight sim activities I've ever done.

Now, if you want another challenge (and variety is the spice of life!), take the Default F-14 Tomcat out and attempt to do a proper Case I landing on the USS Ford aircraft carrier! It's also addicting! 

Edited April 1, 20251 yr by UrgentSiesta

15 hours ago, jcomm said:

My only problem is that I do not own one of those sophisticated control setups for helicopter simulation. I also believe proper helicopter flying simulation requires good peripheral vision, probably VR is the way to go, but too expensive and clumsy for my liking...

I fly 100% with a ThrustMaster Warthog HOTAS and Logitech rudder pedals.

Would LOVE to get a dedicated helo control set, but room & $$$ make it tough!

I used to do VR, and it is definitely a massive Situational Awareness improvement over 2D, but the relatively poor performance, the constant configuration tweaks, and the difficulties in managing a modern cockpit under the goggles (especially in a must-have-two-hands-on helicopter) just became too much trouble for me. 

So these days (particularly with the sunsetting of Windows VR & Win 11), I'm pretty much 100% flat screen. As long as you concentrate your perspective on "Near Rocks vs Far Rocks" (as Wags from Eagle Dynamics put it 😉 ), it's really a good experience.

12 hours ago, mSparks said:

There's a couple of disadvantages of helos that if I'd known about them beforehand might have stopped me getting so into them, and have me seriously considering adding a plane licence:

If you fly international, you either have to go through international airports (real pain and not cheap) or hire border control to come to you (expensive).

Limited range - need to make fuel stops for any kind of distance, added expense and a pain, especially flying in more remote areas where there is no fuel - the main reason to use a heli...

Quite a bit more expensive per hour to fly, which in combination with the above issues is a killer.

Main thing I need now is more reasons to fly them, panoramic flights scratch the itch, but I could have used a small private plane for 5 or 6 trips already in the last 12 months where the heli just wasn't an option, and have another in just over a week....

X-Plane doesn't have any of those problems, and all the benefits you already mentioned, only excuse I need to fire up XP is a fully charged headset and half an hour of free time.

Don't go getting all practical and letting MONEY ruin things! 😉

(you are 100% right, tho!)

Edited April 1, 20251 yr by UrgentSiesta

@UrgentSiesta

Not sure where to start. Great answers!

I'm a bit contradictory, as I still love flying airliners, A LOT. Especially Toliss A319, enjoying every bit of it. I love pre-flight preparations, listening the pax boarding for 18 minutes, announcements, departing exactly on scheduled time, nailing the ETA within 2-3 minutes, checking out the charts in cruise and approach, following AI traffic, etc etc. When I do the perfect flight, it feels super fulfilling. The main reason why I do only a couple of airliner flights in 3 months is because it requires at least 90 to 120 minute of my free time, and lately I don't have much. When I have an hour to spare, I hop into a helicopter and enjoy every second of the freedom.

I'm exclusively VR flyer. Flying in 2D isn't an option for me. My right eye struggle to focus the monitor after couple of hours, so from that point looking at the monitor is a struggle. Secondly, flying in VR is pure immersion, actually being there. Situational awareness is second to none, as scale and depth perception helps a lot, like in the real world. In XP11, with Quest 2 and Virtual Desktop, I usually see around 60 to 70fps with unlocked frames, which is a nice number. If I end reducing the LOD and scenery complexity, I can fly at 72fps natively, no frame reprojection (72hz mode). It feels like Aerofly FS 4. But since I fly Toliss, over cities and crowded airports, I lock fps to 45, and with frame reprojection I see 90fps in 90hz mode. Works fantastically well, no stuttering or hiccups. There is absolutely no reason for me to get back to 2D, considering my right eye situation and the immersion factor.

Oh, I forgot to mention two big things. I use VKB Gladiator NXT EVO with removed springs. It has customizable dampening force, so it can copy the behavior of cyclic pretty nicely. I highly suggest holding the joystick at the bottom of the grip, the control is a lot more precise. If you hold it in a classic way, you will struggle, a lot.




I also use old and trusty Saitek Throttle Quadrant, with some 3d printed lever extensions, and when I rotate it by 180 degrees, it mimics the collective. Simple and effective. And it rhymes too. 😀

For anti-torque pedals/rudder, I use old and trusty Logitech G25 racing pedals. I use vJoy + Universal Control Remapper app to merge clutch and accelerator axis into one axis, and it works surprisingly well. I use that combo for years. Yes, the pedals do not behave like the real ones, but if I can control the heli perfectly, I can't complain. I would like to have some good pedals like MFG Crosswind, but honestly I don't have a room for another set below my desk.

Maybe some of you remember - I posted a pic of my simple DIY cyclic extension for the old Thrustmaster T16000M joystick. It worked fine in the beginning, and the feel was fantastic. I had so much fine control due to much higher range of movement vs usual joystick grip. But sadly, it seems that T16000M doesn't like the weight of the mounted cyclic extension, so it's unusable around the center detent, both axis jump a lot. 

Currently I'm a big fan of 100% manual helis. Augmentation doesn't make me horny (excuse my French) at all. Current absolute favs are Dreamfoil S300CBi (an absolute gem, feels like a breathing machine), and vSkyLabs R44, with their R66 just behind. Was never a fan of 206s and similar stuff, although I have X-Rotors AW139 which is in league of its own regarding flight performance and characteristics.

 

Edited April 2, 20251 yr by Pe11e

3 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Don't go getting all practical and letting MONEY ruin things! 😉

(you are 100% right, tho!)

not so much the money but how it changes the practicalities.

having to use real airports deletes the #1 benefit of the heli (not having to use airports).

the logistics of having to get fuel delivered along the route compared to just flying there means long hops need to go well out of your way or having a flight planned weeks or months in advance.

financially, for an "ideal" hop without the expense of a pilot and the aircraft at cost, neither is that much more expensive than driving, generally about the same as flying coach. far more convenient and the airport VIP lounges are really cool.

For my international flight during training we went to trebinje:

 

 

2 hours ago, Pe11e said:

@UrgentSiesta

Not sure where to start. Great answers!

I'm a bit contradictory, as I still love flying airliners, A LOT. Especially Toliss A319, enjoying every bit of it. I love pre-flight preparations, listening the pax boarding for 18 minutes, announcements, departing exactly on scheduled time, nailing the ETA within 2-3 minutes, checking out the charts in cruise and approach, following AI traffic, etc etc. When I do the perfect flight, it feels super fulfilling. The main reason why I do only a couple of airliner flights in 3 months is because it requires at least 90 to 120 minute of my free time, and lately I don't have much. When I have an hour to spare, I hop into a helicopter and enjoy every second of the freedom.

Good stuff and good advice, too! I keep meaning to buy an extension tube for my Warthog stick - it's apparently a boon to fine control on all types of airframes, but as you note, especially helos.

I'm kinda stuck for a collective as there's really no decent way to home-engineer a Warthog throttle for that. Just going to have to bite the bullet one of these days...

I save all my cold-n-dark "by the book" checklist flights for (mainly) the F/A-18C in DCS World, with launches from and recoveries to their Supercarrier. I'm sure I never would've made the grade as a USN Aviator, but I read the various NavAir/NATOPS/CNaTra books and try to follow along. 🙂

Similar with my favorite secondary aircraft there being the Ka-50 BlackShark (NATO "Hokum"). A VERY cool co-axial rotor helo that was almost as advanced as the Apache-A when they both came out in the 1980's. It's realistic enough that you have to do occasional in-flight INS updates and other stuff to keep it happy 😎

So while I like the idea of airliner flights, I think I spend too much IRL time as pax on them to really enjoy the extended pacing and relatively automated nature of their operations. So when I do, I mainly fly extremely short hops in one of the 737's, and I'll happily admit to frequently starting up in "ready to taxi" condition with a saved Company Route loaded. 😉

For X-Plane rotary wing, my current fav is the JRX Bell 407. IMHO it has the "just right" balance of hands-on operations with some SAS, steam gauges, & basic GPS. And I've been lucky enough to ride on a few of them over the years, so there's a bit of nostalgia, too.

3 hours ago, Pe11e said:

 

You fly helos left handed?

I have exact same grip on my gunfighter for airliner and GA, I used to fly it with Helos as well, but then I bought right hand grip and switch to it specifically for helo and fighter.

Although I don't have much problem fly with cyclic on left hand, It's not until I got my right hand grip I start to fly helos more seriously.

Interesting discussion and thread, guys! 👌 I always wanted to be a helicopter pilot - but instead got stuck with driving 747s 🤨

Anyway, I love flying helicopters in X-Plane, the best default is probably the R22 (watch my tutorial video in the official X-Plane youtube channel), but there are quite a few great pay- and freeware ones (my favorites are the EC135 from Rotorsim, the OH-48 freeware and the UH-1 and SA315).

Three things help immensely with flying helicopters in X-Plane:

1.) Proper hardware, naturally rudder pedals and independent throttle are a MUST, but getting dedicated heli hardware (I don´t have those) would be optimal

2.) VR - there is nothing to substitute the ability to judge your 3D position with the ability to quickly glance around and the stereoscopic vision to judge distances

3.) Practice. It is an order of magnitude more important than in fixed-wing-flying and while it is important to "know" your correct attitude for hover and the required powersettings, to fly well your responses need to be instinctive and wired into your reflexes...only 10-20+ hours of practice (per type!) will allow you to land/hover well.

Laminar is sporting many well-done heliports, Scenery Gateway artists have fleshed a lot of them out nicely, and LR is also devoting some extra dev care to model those that regular Scenery Gateway (aka Lego Brick) technology can´t replicate, like the recently added KJRB Downtown Manhattan Heliport. Another one is in the making right now, but I can´t spill the beans on that one, yet 😉

Cheers, Jan

 

@Litjan, what 747s do you fly?

I used to be adicted to Aerowinx ( mid nineties last Century ) PS1 and then PSX since 2014 🙂