Media Hype Train has announced that they have released the first helicopter for Microsoft Flight Simulator. In fact, you can download it right away.
no its not the first heli in msfs 2020 !
if he says it is he lies !
Woah, calm down. No need to call anyone any names. The article explains it all. They are aware of the limitations although, I would like them to be a bit more careful when they present it as a āhelicopterā since itās still a long way from being one.
Some people might not be aware of how helicopters behave and get a false notion of how they are supposed to work.
Good article, I think you have made a very fair appraisal here. Itās a hack, an experiment rather than a full helicopter, but if it causes a stir and gets Asobo to bring us a proper helicopter flight model any sooner, then itās doing good work.
I say good luck to the guys.
Thank you! Iām glad you liked it!
I donāt think it will get us helicopters earlier. Asobo and Microsoft already have a roadmap and they are planning on releasing helicopters in 2022. A year to bring develop them is not too much time. If anything, I even think it may be a bit short, if they want to do everything properly.
It will be a challenge for them to be able to fulfil their plan, let alone make it happen earlier. We can sure hope that it happens, but I rather have them spend enough time to nail this. We sure donāt need half an attempt.
Hello Sergio, first of all thanks for the work and help to many simmers, you have many solutions and great posts.
I find the post a little to nagative, sure there is al lot of work to do, but in less than a week there are a lot of updates and improvements.
Since vs 0.70 i was able to assign al the axis for my pro flight trainer and it works fine for now, also you say it, its need a lot of work but i believe that they can do a lot in a short time.
The fact that these guys introduces a heli in this fs2020 and we have not to wait to 2022 for a heli, i find it amazing. I hope that fs2020 will speed up, so heliās will fly like heliās.
But before that happens, i like it to fly this heli as it flyās now and see the world of fs2020 in the perspective of a heli, knowing that there are great improvents are comming.
Sorry for my poor english
Keep up the great work!
Harry
Hi Harry. Thank you very much for stopping by. And thank you for your kind words.
I donāt think I was negative. I wanted to address the project, even knowing itās not finished (especially since it was released, so people could use it) and I wanted people to understand exactly what the project is and what itās not, being as neutral as possible.
If itās something I try to do on all my articles is to be honest and fair to everyone. You arenāt going to see me bash or praise something just because I can. And I wonāt say anything positive or negative without backing up my opinion. Even if itās just my opinion.
You know helicopters are much more than something that moves vertically, sideways and backwards and hovers. Right now, this project is pretty much that. And even those movements feel awkward and nothing like a helicopter in any of the other sims.
Like I mention in the article, I understand and appreciate the challenges the authors have faced (I think itās more than one). I respect their work and commitment.
Unfortunately, this is not a helicopter yet. Iām not saying it canāt be in the future. Right now, itās not. And by saying this I am not taking away any value from what they did or being negative. Iām just being honest.
I canāt, in full conscience, tell my readers āhey, look at this, what an amazing achievement! Itās a helicopter! It behaves like a helicopterā. It really doesnāt behave like one. It replicates some of the basic movement, yes. You can certainly enjoy yourself and fly slowly around structures of hover in an amazing valley and let all the scenery sink in. It CAN be fun. Thatās for sure.
But itās still not a helicopter. And, in a sense, it worries me that a lot of people are having their first contact with āhelicoptersā with this project as they may get a completely wrong notion of how helicopters work. When actual helicopters hit the sim (and considering Asobo fulfills their promise of doing them properly ā which Iām sure they will), they will probably feel frustrated because they will have a hard time controlling them and nothing will be as they are expecting to be.
This may get some folks to give up on helicopters and/or to start bashing Asobo, because they made it so hard on them.
Now, if they do manage to replicate the flight dynamics of a helicopter, I will be on the front row applauding, thanking and praising them.
Thatās not the moment yet. But I hope that moment will come.
Hello Sergio,
Thanks for the comment and i fully agree with you. I hope that we can some day in the same front row applauding.
Harry
I think you need to revisit this helicopter as they are developing it so quickly as to what you reviewed and what I am flying today is markedly different.
Ok the cockpit still does not have a lot of moving parts to it but its being tidied up on a weekly release basis.
Yes it flies like a helicopter now and they have managed to get torque effect and translational lift in the the advanced flight mode.
IMHO they have already exceeded FSX and P3D in terms of the flight model and I guess are working on the more advanced effects like VRS and Auto rotations as we speak.
I think you should update this review as there is no doubt they have the first helicopter model as I wont be going back to fixed wing ever again in this sim.
OK I know its not Aerofly or X Plane but you know what as a real pilot all that VRS and Auto rotation discussions are really left of field as you want your helicopter in a normal flight profile 100%of the time and these guys have done a good job to do that.
Does this match the performance of the real 135, probably not but then again I donāt think many of the FW do that in MSFS anyway.
This site needs to stop dissing out on these guys and start supporting them and stop making excuses for the piss poor performance of the Asobo developers as this freeware group have seriously put them to shame. Asobo should hire them to fix up MSFS for us heli simmers!
The article is an honest interpretation of the project, as it was released at the time it was written. There was no over-hype and no bashing either.
I could have not covered it at the time at all ā and I wasnāt really considering it as I thought it was too early ā but, since it WAS released and since so much hype was built around it, people started to ask me, some folks were saying it was very realistic, and I felt like I had to say something about it so that expectations could be met by those that didnāt try it yet. Or by those that now think helicopters behave like that.
I could have gone the easy way and either praise it to the skies or thrash it to the ground like most content creators seem to like to do nowadays. Instead, I tried to be as analytical as possible and lay it as it is, no thrills, no frills.
And I did. I was completely honest and sincere in everything I said so that people could have a straightforward, unbiased, no-hype, honest opinion of what it was. And what it wasnāt.
Saying something is great when itās not, just to jump onto the bandwagon does not serve anything except get people frustrated when they realize something is not what they expected it to be. And people would start questioning everything I would write about any product. I take it as my responsibility to provide an honest opinion and help people understand what the products I write about are all about.
That is quite a tricky balance. And, still, not everyone will be happy because I am not hyping or thrashing and go all wild and crazy.
Yes, I do get excited over some products now and then, but thatās because I honestly get excited about them for being so good. So, when you DO see me get excited about something, you should know itās not a fake, for-the-likes, excitment. Itās the real deal.
That being said, Iāve been testing all the versions of the 135 that came out and I am in contact with the developer. Itās much better, yes, but itās still lacking and it still feels like flying a drone. I have also seen someone saying that itās better than FSX and P3D but I donāt think it is. The lack of inertia alone is quite a big deal.
Yes, it is quite fun to try, yes they did a great job, and they are progressing nicely. And yes, I will revisit it in the future once it improves a bit more. More than VRS, I hope they fix other areas that are far more important such as IGE/OGE, improved torque, improved ETL, side-force from the tail rotor, and autorotations.
All this is something the dev team is looking into based on the feedback provided. I am not sure they will be able to make everything work properly (mainly because I donāt think itās their goal to add all that in the first place). I am waiting for some of these areas to be improved to do a second write-up about it.
I am giving the team some more time to mature it a bit more. I donāt want to write 15 articles about it because they released 15 versions. I want to do a proper follow up, showing their progress.
About Asobo, I donāt need to āmake excuses for themā. They are more than able to defend themselves, obviously. Thatās not my role. And I donāt want it to be.
What I do, though, is try to understand whatās happening and give my opinion on what I think itās going on based on my experience as a software developer.
Just like I donāt jump on the overhype bandwagon, I also donāt jump onto the bashing bandwagon. No matter who Iām talking about. That is a pattern you will certainly find in my articles.
Iām not here to do pep talks or throw rocks at developers when I write content. Iām here to inform people and provide my opinions as I see it.
Please feel free to disagree but donāt expect me to follow any standards but my own. I have no interest in being someone that says what he says just because itās a popular opinion.
The bottomline, I guess is that if someone releases something to the public, thereās a chance I will write about it. And if I do, I will, definitely, be honest about what it is. I can speculate on what it COULD be. But I will, surely, lay it as it is exactly as I see it.
Like I said, I am in contact with the developer and Iāve offered my help, just like I did with other developers (and even Asobo, yes). My intention is to get us amazing helicopters on all platforms and sims.
To do that, we ALL, as a community, need to be honest and support developers, yes, but also tell them what we think and how we think they should improve. And, if we can, offer them our help.
I am working hard to do my part. Even if it means taking criticism and being seen as the ābad guyā.
Iām perfectly fine with that.
Stick to your way of doing things Sergio, you are always as honest and accurate as you can be, that comes across clearly in what you write.
Thankfully for us helisimmers, this project is improving all the time, and has transformed from ācurious hackā to ādamn near close enough for me!ā sort of territory. For a freeware aircraft, itās become an incredible achievement I think, and I suspect that the experience of bringing this to the sims might enable the devs to go onto bigger and better things, maybe even turning pro.
Itās on version 0.8.3 as I write, so by the time it gets to v1.0 I think they will have something to be very proud of. Maybe that would be the right time for a review update.
Thank you very much, John. I am happy you think that way because I try really hard to be as honest and neutral as I can. I donāt think it serves any purposes to under or over-sell things. If Iāve ever done that, it certainly wasnāt my intention. It is quite a delicate balance.
That 135 is getting better and we may have some really exciting news coming up in the future. Fingers crossed!