I'm a helicopter pilot and swear by fs 2004/2002 for IFR practice and precision skills development.
The helicopters in the microsoft flight sim line always seemed to have been the least developed of the aircraft... I was impressed with the r22 beta of 04' in that it took things like ETL into account, but the rotorcraft equivalent of a "stall" or "vortex ring state" isn't there...
But the one major disaster in fs regarding helicopters is that you can't autorotate!!! The jetranger has a sort of autorotation kludge built into it, but all you have to do is lower the collective and you're set... I've found that you can actually continue flying indefinitely with the engine failed if you're careful! And the r22? forget it! If you fail the engine, the rpms just fall away with it... The most important part of an autorotation is RPM control, and you simply don't have that in the sim.
Torque is VERY poorly simulated as well. You can fly the jetranger all day at any power setting and not have to compensate for the change in engine output... If you modify the .air file of the r22, it becomes possible to add a torque-like quality to the helicopter, but it is based on collective percentage, not engine power, so you can't practice controlling you're yaw in the event of a tailrotor failure...
I think helicopters deserve a massive overhaul in FSX... Please!
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