And the OH6 for DCS is only a community mod ^^

CORRECTION: @ryanpacheco4047 pointed out and is correct that the DCS OH6 DOES auto rotate correctly on overtorque engine failure -- it was my pilot error that caused the problem. So the performance comparison chart should show that DCS does fully account for auto rotation.

I am not going to speak to DCS, MSFS or X-Plane in depth (you did a nice job there)... I flew the MH-65 Dolphin for the USCG. So I will speak real world flight physics and what you can do with your controls to fly a more realistic experience. I will comment from the point of view as a Helo pilot with 2000 hours. Let me first give you 2 simple things to do with your controls... 1. Remove the spring centering on the joystick. (ya want a floppy joystick) 2. The pedals also need their spring centering removed (pedals do not want to push back to center.) 2 other things to consider, (1) head tracking or VR is a must (2) Make a collecive. I have made my own from PVC, some basic tools, a potentimeter and an arduino micro. Flight physics... Almost all helicopters hover with one wing down by a few degrees and typically a degree or two of nose up attitude. The wing down attitude is on account of having a single rotor and where the lift vector of the rotor disc is pointed. This is very hard to explain with simple text, but the rotor disc is what is flying... the helicopter body is a pendulum hanging below the helicopter. Airfoils are attached to the airframe of the body to fly in a more comfortable position for those inside. As the winds vary and shift, realize that the rotating airfoil over your head is making your lift. As the air flow though the rotor disc changes so does the relative lift vector created. The net result of those lift vectors from the tilts relative to the rotor mast. Now add the torque of the main rotor and the anti-torque of the tail rotor and it further shifts the center of balance for the body of the helicopter as it suspended below the rotor disc. This increases that angle. I am going to set aside the interaction that can take place between the vorticies of the main rotor and how that can influence the efficacy of the tail rotor. Here is bottom line, much of this is about Newton and his physics. The goal is to keep the aerodynamic forces in balance at all times. Even when transitioning into and out of forward flight. This means small control inputs, the most common error is over controling which leads to pilot induce oscilations (PIO). This is ver very common in someone learning to hover. it takes most pilot 8-12 hours to be able to get the basics of hovering and upwards of 100 hours before a pilot becomes proficent. The good news is once you become proficient, this returns quickly within a couple of hours in a helicopter. PIOs are why you want sping centering off of your joystick. I have a completely separate joystick with no spring centering for helicopter. It is also positioned so my arm rests on my forearm and only my wrist (really fingers) move the cyclic. Helicopters do not trim for stable flight like a fixed wing aircraft when in the hover... once above translational lift, the helicopter is very much like a fixed wing aircraft. Fixed wing Fixed wing aircraft are flown with the formula of PAT (Power - Attitude - Trim). Set your power and aircraft attitude. Trim out control pressures. At this you can maneuver the flight controls about that trimmed point and until power or attitude is changed. This is more static with respect to aerodynamic forces on the airfoil as compared to rotary wing. This in turn allows for power, attitude and trim settings that are more reproducible; and therefore can follow something more like a receipe. Rotory wing Helicopters are a different animal... The rotor-disc is tilted to a desired pitch and then constant fine tune adjustments are made to maintain a aircrafts desired direction of flight. The rotor disc is being blanced like a gyroscope with small changes in blade pitch about the rotor disc to change the direction of the lift vector. Modern helicopter have "feel trim," and electromagnet that will hold the cyclic in a set position. Interestingly, a good number of helicopter pilots in the hover are button "mashers" meaing they spend most of their time with the feel trim release depressed (disengaging the trim). Above translational lift... virtually all pilots are using the feel trim as the aerodymic forces closly approximate that of a fixed with aircraft. ( Keep in mind, the rotor disc is flying and the airframe below the disc is along for the ride.) This is why a non-centering joystick makes it so much easier to set the attitude you need for a stable hover without the joystick trying to push the cyclic back to center. This makes flying a helo in the less fatiguing. I have flown DCS, X-plane and MSFS... my position is that MSFS is generally closer to the mark as compared to the other two. I will also add, that hovering in the SIM is exceptionally difficult if you are not able to move your point of view naturally (Track IR or VR). If i were to grade MSFS... they are A- mostly for how far we have come since FSX. DCS and X-plane get a C+/B-... I have done autos in MSFS and they are pretty good and I would argue DCS & X-plane feel (my opinion) more like an arcade game then a true flight sim. Fly safe and maintain your Nr John Hall

The DCS OH58 is very accurate. The right skid lifts off befor the left.

As always, I really enjoy your analysis. I am subscribed to various forums about helicopters and have basically given up listening to the realism debate, mainly because there are just too many variables - monitor/headtracking/VR/X-box controller/short flightstick/twist grip rudder/decent pedals...etc...etc.... Some want to switch on and 'play' others (like you and I) want the closest to realism possible. In the same thread, someone will often state several good reasons why one heli is better for them, then another person will provide just as solid counter arguments. It is all enough to drive us pureists mad 😄 Your more 'fact-based' approach, attempts to logically reason why things are the way they are and I appreciate that. I have similar reservations about DCS's miltary grounding as you but I love the rotor-wash effect on the ground and VRS and my favourite, the dashboard shake as you transition through ETL. Surely these are easy additions for the other developers??? You have a fairly unique possibility to fly you real-life heli and more interestringly, getting that pilot to fly your sim. Now that is a future video I will look forward to.

Welcome back, CHS. I missed you!

Hey, just to explain some of the physics of which skid hangs low during hover and how the heli reacts to that on take of and landing: First of, there are several factors that play a role in that; like loading, wind and to a big extend the offset of the mainrotor flapping hinges. Classic two bladed semi rigid models tend to freely hang under the rotor while a modern ridgid rotor can produce a torque moment on the fuselage which completely changes the way a helicopter behaves. But the main point is this: What you showed in the MD500 is not a result of engine torque but an effect that is called tail rotor roll. I'll try to explain: Imagine seeing the helicopter directly from behind, you would see that the plane of the main rotor is higher up than the tail rotor. This is where the problem lies, the thrust of the tail rotor pushes in one direction which has to be compensated by tilting the main rotor to the other side to achieve a stable hover. With those two thrust vectors not being aligned you create a rolling moment on the fuselage. With the Huey it's different, the Tail rotor is nearly the same height as the main rotor. This means while you still get two opposing forces, you eliminate the lever that creates the rolling moment. In fact one of the reasons for a raised tail rotor is to reduce this effect. So what is shown in your example clips is roughly correct ... and they still follow the same aerodynamic principles.

Maybe next time it would be good to mention, the dcs OH-6 is a mod and in constend development so things like autorotation in it could come und the future. And as a dcs UH-1 veteran ,…. Yes you can overthought the engine of the UH-1 😂😂 . In the end very nice video 👍

Hi. I haven't noticed any commentors mentioning this correctly. At around 6 minute mark you are referring to 'Right Translating Tendency'. This occurs in all Counter Clockwise Rotating Helicopters. To compensate for this so it's not as pronounced as it otherwise would be the factories 'Rig' (tilt) the Main Rotors Head a slight bit to the left which results in the 'Left Skid Low' Attitude. I learned this while a Student at Western Helicopters in Rialto, California before their retirement. Note it is the opposite in a Clockwise Rotating Helicopter. Sincerely, Chris 12:34 AM July 2, 2024

I bought the CowanSim 500E for MSFS because of your review. I really like it.

Mmmm…..very interesting subject and one I have wrestled with for years. Some thoughts and comments on the points raised for you: - please remember the MD500 in DCS is a free mod and thus the flight model is not as polished as some of the paid/professional models - there are missions and servers for DCS which focus on civilian flight ops (nobody is shooting at you) - rotor downwash effects are now available in MSFS as a paid addon (Parallel 42 I think?) - you are 100% about controls - whilst expensive, a full size and accurate collective and cyclic setup is an absolute must have (and to be honest increases the enjoyment of flying a sim immensely) - although I’ve never tried it, VR is supposed to be another game changer when it comes to flying helicopters in sims - and finally, the proof of the pudding as the saying goes……I used to fly the Mi-8 in DCS using a set of Puma flight controls regularly. I got quite good (didn’t VRS and crash anymore!) Then one day I got to fly irl in a Cabri G2. Now both the Cabri and Mi-8 main rotors turn in the same direction so right pedal is the power pedal, which probably helped. Point is after one hour of flight time I could hover and safely fly the pattern. The instructor kept asking me “are you sure you haven’t done this before?” 😂 So in conclusion, with the right set up the skills learnt on a home simulator are transferable 👍 Keep up the great content! 😉

I have a feeling Mr. D. Will tell you the truth in that none of them feel like being in the real thing. He flies in the real world where you can feel physically feel what your bird is doing and the feeling matches what you see out the window. Flying in a simulator in no way feels like a real plane. The control the aerodynamics of the flight and how accurately the bird reacts to conditions. The only way to get even closer to being in the real thing is VR and a full motion flight seat. Then you get close. But still I think Mr. D. would have fun if he has never flown in any civilian flight simulator. A full fidelity chopper model in DCS I think for absolute accurate flight dynamics is the best here as they have been modeled with the real thing in mind within a battle simulation. While MSFS and X plane have the stunning visuals that DCS is lacking in.

If you don't like the combat aspect of d. C. S there are multiple multiplayer servers that focus on non combat things. One of my favorite for honing skills is a SAR and Firefighting server. Thats all you do is pickup injured and transport them to a hospital and do water drops on fires. And you can overtorque the Huey. It takes a while but eventually the engine will burn up.

Interesting video Captain 👍. I am a helicopter pilot irl and I am struggling to enjoy flying helicopters in commercial sims whereas I am a huge sim fan. Your external views of the MD500 in Xp12 feel amazingly "real": i have to try XP12. Thanks for video

DCs has a problem in that it doesn’t model the friction between the ground and the skid. Also it doesn’t model the aircraft weight in that area. This is why when the weight on the skids gets light it slides.

I'm more of a "fixed wing guy" but I still buy all the helicopter modules in DCS. I also have XPLANE 11.5 and don't talk to me about MSFS. 1. I bought the more expensive version and after installation, when I try to restart it, it always freezes at about 80% so I have to uninstall and reinstall. That said, when I did get it to work, I found it to be a "fun game". I quite enjoyed landing with high gusts, etc. MSFS wasn't created as a flight simulator. It was a worldview software but some manager/director at Microsoft said "hey, that would make a great simulator". 2. DCS. I still haven't ventured into PvP and you don't always need to have things shooting at you. That said, you only get the Caucus map and I believe the Marianas islands are free too - so even if you do "free flight", there's not much scenery to explore. 3. XPLANE: In your video, you're flying without scenery. To add realism, may I suggest you buy the ORBX addon. I have GB North, GB Central and GB South since I'm in the UK - and my God! It's like flying in real time (in VR). After a 25 year hiatus, I restarted flying lessons and I find the flight dynamics of XPLANE to be far superior. With XPLANE (as well as MSFS) you can use VATSIM to communicate with realistic ATC who need to pass exams to take on those roles. Many of the VATSIM ATC are training to be ATC so for you (I'm talking to Captain Helisim), since you aspire to become a pilot, it's a perfect opportunity to start training. I also love flying Warbirds so taking off from my home base (Liverpool John Lennon Airport - EGGP) and doing aerobatics over the River Mersey - which is not permitted in real life because it's a corridor with a ceiling limit and proximity to the city.

Well done! I am not a heli pilot and have never flown one IRL. I have ridden in only one helicopter. I have a few hours in MSFS. I have purchased the 500F and enjoy flying it. To me, MSFS appears to have a flight characteristic that is strongly affected by winds. I noticed I need to put in a lot of rudder control to overcome wind, especially low speed and hover. Same with light aircraft. Trying to take off with a crosswind it appears that the wind is stronger than the propeller thrust and direction cannot be corrected with the rudder. It is like the vertical stabilizer has more surface area that is pushed by the wind and thus turns the aircraft in to the wind. The only thing that can keep the plane straight is the friction of the tail wheel. Once lifting the tail off the ground, crosswind push the horizontal stabilizer. The P-51s were badly affected by this. It is like Asobo does not know how to implement multiple forces at one time. Good example is the Kodiak. IRL, you need to use a lot of right rudder to keep the plane straight on the runway during initial roll because the thrust/torque of the prop is so strong. With MSFS, the nose wheel friction keeps the Kodiak straight until you lift off the ground, then you really need to kick in the right rudder to keep the yaw centered. As speed increases you need less rudder, as expected.

Loss of tail rotor effectivness you can feel for instance in DCS Mi-24P

as for me, i like IL 2 as a flysim, but there is no hellicopters(( but P-47D is so cool!!!

For me the best flight model is the ec130 on XPlane12

The reason you have to bank to the left is because the anti-torque not only imparts a rotational force, it also imparts a thrust that pushes the heli to the right.

I'm right up there with you on all of this. I'm fortunate enough to have built a make shift rig out of a 727 first officer seat and some chip board and i have rudder pedals and collective, and ofcourse VR. I personally find my preference to be 1st DCS, I have all the helicopters in it and I think it does the best at everything, however, auto rotations on some models are a hit or miss. xplane12 seems to have it very very well done however I don't fly on it much to comment msfs2020 definitely feels like water. personally i want full blown simulation starting at No.1 flight dynamics and feel 2.systems simulation model accuracy is a must just like sound.

MD500 It has a huge ski and serves precisely to dampen the aircraft, cowansim could not put reactivity in MSFS much less in XP. We can put any aircraft in the MSFS and make it as heavy as possible that the skis will remain rigid and motionless. What I want to say is that MSFS loses a lot because there is no general physics and cowansim ends up contributing by not getting into the details. For me the best simulator in terms of physics we helicopters is DCS and then XP. I hope that in MSFS24 this will be solved, but not by cowansim.

The Huey does that in real life and it does it pretty badly in some cases and can result in a dynamic rollover. The DCS Huey is pretty close to the real thing, and I say this as one that used to work on them in the US Army. The left skid always leaves the ground last. DCS with the Huey and the Mi-8 and now the OH-58D very much do simulate descent with power. A lot of people confuse VRS with DWP and therein lies the issue. While similar it is the speed at which each occurs that makes them different. VRS is encountered during translation to or from the hover and slower speeds and flying into your own turbulated air. DWP is a result of too much momentum and not enough power to recover, both can happen in a hover, but DWP usually happens at a higher rate of descent with too much weight or in hot and high conditions where you just don't have enough power to arrest your descent, and this can happen in a strong headwind which keep the turbulated air behind you. So while similar they are not the same and failing to recognize it in time will doom the aircraft and crew. Usually when you see a hotdogging helicopter pilot hit the ground, it is a result of DWP and not VRS, and both are recoverable if caught soon enough and you have enough altitude and an escape route but if you ID DWP as VRS and drop collective and push the nose over, you're not going to make it because you already don't have enough power to recover so you have to keep in the collective you have and push the nose over to gain the extra translational lift, where as with VRS you drop collective and fly out of the turbulated air, this is why knowing the difference and the causes and the recovery methods is cruicial. Remember to check your airbrake fluid, and to engage your Turbo Encabulator for extra power on take-off and landing.

I'm not sure you answered the question to full. You were talking mainly about the actual flight model which is great, but what about other features of the sim, - terrain etc. Since MSFS was mainly for airline type flying and rotor seems to be an after thought, the terrain down at 500 ft isn't that great, Will msfs 2024 be much better, is x12 btter? etc.

Wait, no LTE on all three? I learned it (the hard way) all the way back to FS2004 with DODOSIM RS206, and still treat it as a thing in XP12 now.....

Does the huey for xplane12 properly work in the beta? I want to get the heli but it says xplane12 version soon, but that has been a year now.

DCS heli you where using is a unofficial free mod, imagine if it was an official one

honestly in VR DCS looks way better then MSFS specially the Gauges

Dcs if you like how and what the aircraft was designed to do. MSFS if you like scenery.

The Oh-6 around the 9 minute mark has blade stall. Any more attempts with it?

What rudder pedals do you use? Which do you recommend?

I had X-plane 10 for a while,I contacted them because I found the scenery to be somewhat sparse.The answer I received said that they were producing a flight simulator,not a scenery simulator.With that kind of attitude I'm surprised that they're still going.I moved over to Microsoft........................................

The loading stall is being fixed or has been fixed now.

My god... c'mon! OH6 is a mod, there is NO helicopter mod for DCS thats good, they are all terrible. The UH1H in DCS has gotten worse too since they messed with the power last year, its now so powerful it will do 140+ knots without any issues when VNE in a Huey is 110 and cruise speed about 90 - 95 kts IRL. I have never tried X Plane so cant comment too much but I'm pretty sure they got a more complete helicopter frame work and physics than MSFS 2020 has. The MSFS helicopters flies okey but the sim simply dont have the complete model to do it correctly, thats why I've maintained for 3 years now that the FlyInside Bell 47 and 206 are the only two helicopters I fly in MSFS because their EXTERNAL Flightmodel is pretty awesome and I'd say rival any of the other simulators out there... and I say that as someone who did not get along with the devs, specifically their test pilot, he was... a bit of a character... lets say, he had a massive amount of helicopter time tho as a real world pilot. Unless he lied but I dooubt that. Mi8 is my favorite helicopter out of any to fly, and the Hind, and the new Kiowa in DCS is very good too, its downfall for me is that its very slow and and has very low limits but that is how it would be in real life so I cant fault the module for that, it seems to fly in a very realistic manner and it will only get better, the only thing thats it does in a weird way for now is its AI pilot, it defies all physics, when you ask it to hover the helicopter just sit still in the air as if its on pause, do not move a milimeter, but they will fix that later. Its just a first release. Apache is pretty good, but still a work in progress and very system heavy. KA50 is probably pretty accurate but the most boring thing to fly for me. Gazelle in DCS... Unfinished FM, and following them in the discord has me thinking it will never get done, seem they cant find data that satisfies their needs so the FM will just be crap, oddly enough people now like it since they did the last FM update last year... but its really wonky and its clear the FM is not complete in any way. Makes me sad as hell because it would be the most fun helicopter in the sim world if it was done properly. Its crazy fast, one of the fastest helicopters in the world actually and it can do aerobatics like a BO105... other helicopters can do that too these days, its easy to think only the 105 can do that but thats not true. In military airshows they even loop big helicopters like Super Puma's and what not, its crazy! Just need a strong rotor system that wont kill ya and power and speed! And Airbus took a lot of learnings from the BO105 in that regard, and they own the rights to that helicopter. Also... if you download anything for any game off some random website and its not official, maybe treat it like that.... ^^ like the OH6... without proper access to the dev tools for ED and not basing it off an existing module it seems almost impossible to do a helicopter well in DCS, I have yet to see one. UH60 for example, you can move the cyclic from side to side, go make a coffee and come back and it has barely started moving. In the real world, if you move it full deflection in one direction it would roll over pretty quickly, and thats what I was told from real world Blackhawk drivers... And all one has to do is watch youtube. I watched a Bell 407 pilot fly the other day on youtube, so very close to the Kiowa in design and behavior, rotorsystem and what not, the inputs on the controls from taxi to landing 20 min later was so tiny I could hardly tell that he was moving the cyclic at all the entire flight, infact I could not even catch him trim it and his hand was in view at all times during the flight. THAT is how sensitive helicopters are... people dont get it! Especially a 4 bladed fully articulated 800 hp light utility helicopter like that. And some people might wanna ignore me and think I'm talking crazy... but I have yet to hear real pilots put me down. Even tho I have never in my life experienced a helicopter, not even gotten close to one... xD Heck, one suggested I should teach people in DCS... I've been telling people how to get out of VRS, doing the Vuichard recovery among other things... xD

Flight Simulator’s helicopter physics are absolutely a step down from the others, very noticeably from DCS, in fact they simply don’t fly like real helicopters. Real helicopters are unstable, yes, but they are easier to manage that stability, Flight Simulator’s physics just don’t feel like you are hanging off a rotor and just feel unnatural and less controllable, I’ve seen quite a few real helicopter pilots complain about it. DCS gets much closer. As much as I’d prefer it to be the other way around, and I REALLY do, even the best helicopter in Flight Simulator is just off and just being human which means inherently knowing when something doesn’t move right and watching videos of many helicopters from outside and in and how the pilots put inputs into the controls it’s very obvious there’s a long way to go for Flight Simulators rotorcraft physics, and that is disappointing.

You are not using the same model of uh to compare, the one from DCS is the H, the one from Xplane is another model, look at the position of the tail rotor You are also comparing professional models like the UH from DCS with a free mod (the oh6 cayuse) and the paid civil MD500 from MSFS

Great video although my experience is different DCS has no idea way a tail rotor is and MSFS has no idea how controls work... Like the joystick is a anlog d-pad without diangles and the power lever is just suggestion to the engine. So it hard for anyone to adjust to flying in MSFS... While in DCS yyou always need yaw input or spin which is not how it works in other sims including a 2000s era Skyhawk US navy sim I flew in boy scouts at NAS Jax... So yeah X-plane may be best it was back in the day years ago but now? I can't check a it only like modern HOTAS bno gamepad and bearly my saitec X52...

Prepar 3d: Bms falcon:

What about Aerofly FS 4?

Left Skid Low....

Hovering a MD500 isn’t possibly that hard in real life. I have a friend that was a fighter jet pilot. He got a flight in Finnish army MD500. Landed and hovered it with zero experience. Just said it was more stable than the jets. But yeah. MSFS is good enough for stable flight but misses all autorotations and other strange things without plugins. X-plane has these to some level and engine modelling is improving all the time.

Wanna play VR? Vtol Vr. Awesome.

Well for me, Xplane and MSFS can’t do combat like DCS so… they lose.

I tried briefly the KA-52 in the Dcs and it's so easy to take-off it almost looks like cheating

I refuse to watch the video because I know the answer... DCS and you cant convince me otherwise...

I refuse to get a xbox account for msfs! And screw steam

Dcs is by far the best