This thread convinced me to buy the TAOG H500C.

I watched a couple of videos on how to fly a helicopter, and assigned the axes.

Started at Manhattan heliport, managed to take-off, buzzed round the Statue of Liberty and "landed" in central park. This is fun!

I use a HOTAS and rudder pedals for all my flying so that is a reasonable fit for helicopters. It does mean I just have a single throttle instead of the 2 action collective.

I tried following the lessons and it all went well until I got to the part where the instructor says they are going to stop assisting to correct the sideways movement from the tail rotar . I was expecting there to be a slight motion I was ready to counter but instead the helicopter started going backwards and up and was completely out of control. 

I have since tried freeflight with the assists all turned of and I just can't get close to a steady hover or height control. I don't know whether it is better to persevere or to turn on some of the assists to start with.

14 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I fly everything, including helos, with the ThrustMaster Warthog HOTAS

This is what I use for helos as well, plus my rudder pedals.  I almost bought a collective from Virgil a few years back, but due to Canadian sanctions on Belarus at the time the import duties would have been prohibitive.  Thankfully, Virpil contacted me to inform me of this and gave me the option to cancel my order.  Great service on their part, they could have just left that as my problem to deal with.  I will buy the collective from them someday.

There are many great helos in MSFS, all with different flying experiences.  The aforementioned Taog Huey and 500C are great, I also love the MH-60 and the Miltech Chinook.  The Chinook is a really nice, heavy, steady helicopter.  I’ve also bought the Cowansim S-76 (primarily because this is what my local air ambulance uses) and do enjoy more than I have some of my other Cowansim purchases.

If I could have one helicopter wish it would be for a Sikorsky Sea King.

 

Edited January 25Jan 25 by regis9

1 hour ago, regis9 said:

This is what I use for helos as well, plus my rudder pedals.  I almost bought a collective from Virgil a few years back, but due to Canadian sanctions on Belarus at the time the I portent duties would have been prohibitive.  Thankfully, Virpil contacted me to inform me of this and gave me the option to cancel my order.  Great service on their part, they could have just left that as my problem to deal with.  I will buy the collective from them someday.

There are many great helos in MSFS, all with different flying experiences.  The aforementioned Taog Huey and 500C are great, I also love the MH-60 and the Miltech Chinook.  The Chinook is a really nice, heavy, steady helicopter.  I’ve also bought the Cowansim S-76 (primarily because this is what my local air ambulance uses) and do enjoy more than I have some of my other Cowansim purchases.

If I could have one helicopter wish it would be for a Sikorsky Sea King.

 

Like minds. I recently got the HOTAS Warthog as well, and I use exactly the same helis, for the same reasons 🙂

35 minutes ago, qqwertz said:

Like minds. I recently got the HOTAS Warthog as well, and I use exactly the same helis, for the same reasons 🙂

Have you downloaded the MH-60 repaint that represents a Canadian forces Cyclone?  That was one I requested over at flightsim.to.

16 minutes ago, regis9 said:

Have you downloaded the MH-60 repaint that represents a Canadian forces Cyclone?  That was one I requested over at flightsim.to.

I have to look at that. I haven't used the MH-60 for about 2 weeks because I got a bit frustrated with the missions for it in the MilTech mission hub. Nothing big, but sometimes you have to be at a particular place, there are no visible clues, and even if the distance indicator says you are spot on, mission control thinks otherwise. I don't mean to complain, overall the MH-60 and the mission hub are great products; I just needed a break.

3 hours ago, regis9 said:

collective from Virgil

That would be Virpil?

On 1/24/2026 at 1:14 PM, tttocs said:

This is what has always stopped me.  I know a realistic experience will require at least somewhat proper controls, and I've not been able to justify getting appropriate controls not knowing how much I'll really get into it.

It does look like a lot of fun, though.

Too many hobbies - not enough time or money!

 

Scott

I just use my throttle/prop or mixture control for the collective - a good approximation.

4 hours ago, regis9 said:

If I could have one helicopter wish it would be for a Sikorsky Sea King.

Well, then…!

not only is one being made, it’ll be brought to us by none other than Taog’s! 😁

it was announced last Nov, and recently was reposted on Reddit. 

IIRC, their HH 65 will release first (which works just fine for me)

5 hours ago, tttocs said:

my other primary flight controls consist of yoke

Yep, I do believe a stick to be necessary. A yoke just doesn’t align with rotary wing movement the way it does with fixed wing. Hovering would be (even more of) a nightmare! 😎

and if you do ever decide to go that route, do get a stick that can take extensions 👍

4 hours ago, bailout said:

I use a HOTAS and rudder pedals for all my flying so that is a reasonable fit for helicopters. It does mean I just have a single throttle instead of the 2 action collective.

I tried following the lessons and it all went well until I got to the part where the instructor says they are going to stop assisting to correct the sideways movement from the tail rotar . I was expecting there to be a slight motion I was ready to counter but instead the helicopter started going backwards and up and was completely out of control. 

I have since tried freeflight with the assists all turned of and I just can't get close to a steady hover or height control. I don't know whether it is better to persevere or to turn on some of the assists to start with.

Whatever keeps you trying is what you should do!

The biggest challenge in flying helos is to realize that over-controlling is the source of most problems. 

When hovering, your movements on the stick should be measured in millimeters or eighths of an inch at most.

this is mostly caused by the extremely short gaming control sticks most of us have, whereas most IRL helo control (cyclic) sticks are quite long  

conversely, rudder pedal inputs can be quite large when hovering or esp during speed changes. 

a huge help for this is to significantly increase your Extremity Dead Zone for both Cyclic axes in Control settings:

once in the Cyclic Lat/Long, go to Tweak Action Curve,

set both Sensitivities to 0

Set Extremity Dead Zone to around 0.2. this can be adjusted higher to make it easier while you learn, so experiment!

As with most other addons, youll find that you want to fine tune this on a per addon basis  

Also VERY important to set and use the SET Helicopter Force Trim Release Button control. It allows you to trim out stick deflection forces so you can let your spring-centered joystick sit at center.

AND to complement it, also set the Rotor Trim Reset to instantly undo the above (it WILL save you sooner or later 😉)

Further, many of the helos support the standard trim controls, but only use them to fine tune once you’ve set using Force Trim above.

Finally, helos will, to a much greater degree than fixed wing, need more or less constant re-trimming on all 3 axes any time any setting is adjusted. It sounds exhausting at first, but it becomes second nature  

When I was first starting out, I quickly got frustrated.

My breakthrough came after setting aside about 30 mins to do nothing more than hover taxi around an airfield.

SMALL movements, and stay AHEAD of the controls (helos have significant momentum).

🤙

 

6 hours ago, bailout said:

I use a HOTAS and rudder pedals for all my flying so that is a reasonable fit for helicopters. It does mean I just have a single throttle instead of the 2 action collective.

I tried following the lessons and it all went well until I got to the part where the instructor says they are going to stop assisting to correct the sideways movement from the tail rotar . I was expecting there to be a slight motion I was ready to counter but instead the helicopter started going backwards and up and was completely out of control. 

I have since tried freeflight with the assists all turned of and I just can't get close to a steady hover or height control. I don't know whether it is better to persevere or to turn on some of the assists to start with.

 Check out some videos on YouTube by Matthew Crawford -let's fly !

It has helped me a lot to fine tune the sensitivities of my old Hotas X.

6 hours ago, Rimshot said:

That would be Virpil?

Yup!  Stupid iPhone autocorrect 😀

6 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Well, then…!

not only is one being made, it’ll be brought to us by none other than Taog’s! 😁

it was announced last Nov, and recently was reposted on Reddit. 

IIRC, their HH 65 will release first (which works just fine for me)

Wow how did I have no idea about this, amazing!  That made my evening, I’ll have to go look for the announcement.  Thanks!

The Taog 500C is definitely one of the best flying models I've come across so far.  I still use my FFB2 stick (using the little slider for heli throttle), CH pro throttle (for collective), and Saitek combat pro pedals (soon to be WINCTRL!) 

The sounds are quite good as well.

I do wish, however, that he would fix the integration with the TDS GTNxi.  (I'm not sure if the PMS suffers from the same issue).  I cannot switch to GPS from VLOC, the CDI doesn't deflect/deviate off center (unless in VLOC), and the LPV GP just stays at the level index.

Finally the TDS is far too bright at night and is in dire need of emissive coding in his xml file.  Oh, and it doesn't auto detect for HTAWS.

The helicopter is somewhat pricey so I'd hope that this basic navigational feature could be fixed.  I last asked for it on the MSFS forums in July or August of 2025 but I've seen no fix in sight. It's a great "just flying around" helicopter but in the case you want to do actual simple navigation utilizing the GPS, it's not a good helicopter imo.  

 

 

1 hour ago, ryanbatc said:

The Taog 500C is definitely one of the best flying models I've come across so far.  I still use my FFB2 stick (using the little slider for heli throttle), CH pro throttle (for collective), and Saitek combat pro pedals (soon to be WINCTRL!) 

The sounds are quite good as well.

I do wish, however, that he would fix the integration with the TDS GTNxi.  (I'm not sure if the PMS suffers from the same issue).  I cannot switch to GPS from VLOC, the CDI doesn't deflect/deviate off center (unless in VLOC), and the LPV GP just stays at the level index.

Finally the TDS is far too bright at night and is in dire need of emissive coding in his xml file.  Oh, and it doesn't auto detect for HTAWS.

The helicopter is somewhat pricey so I'd hope that this basic navigational feature could be fixed.  I last asked for it on the MSFS forums in July or August of 2025 but I've seen no fix in sight. It's a great "just flying around" helicopter but in the case you want to do actual simple navigation utilizing the GPS, it's not a good helicopter imo.  

 

 

I agree with you  

But it gave me an excuse to buy the CS S-76 for IFR, soooo…. 😎