Nicola_M

Better buy yourself a stress ball to go with it.....

It's like wrestling with a snake, which bites every chance it gets cos you're still looking to see what it did 3 seconds ago. Yeah, great practice..... If I ever find myself in a Bell Textron showroom with a wad of money, someone kick my butt outta there before I buy something stoopid....

Dreamfoil's 206 is not an easy chopper to fly, which is why I haven't listed it as one of the best. Yes, it's 3D cockpit is better than the stock 206, and yes the rotor startup is realistic. But it's still a nightmare to fly.

Funniest reply in the shoutbox I've seen yet: rahming44: can somebody tell me how to fly plane GlidingKiwi: It's fairly simple: Throttle forward --> Loud, Throttle backward --> quiet. Stick forward --> Houses big, stick rearwards --> Houses small. Stick too far rearwards --> Houses big again. classic

Just don't leave your landing flares at late as this...

ur welcome. i'd been planning to put those tips into print for eons but never got round to it. Having rudder pedals definitely makes it a whole lot easier than learning with a twist grip, but yeah, I think it's the best heli there is for xp. I had the same speechless impression when I first got it too.

Yeh, works a treat. It's a tool which is so useful it should come with every pc. I just wish they'd make it for Mac too, it's that good.

Okay, setting up hints are here:

Setting up the BK There is no right way or wrong way, I have just listed the adjustments and changes I’ve made, in the hope it may show others that there is a way to get the most out of the BK. Equipment This is purely down to individual choice whether you use a twist-grip joystick, or a dedicated and expensive setup, or whether you use a conventional rc usb-controller as I do. Each has its benefits and disadvantages. My own experience is that twist-grip joysticks are not necessarily the easiest way to learn to fly helis. "X-Mouse Button Changer" and your Mouse Many of the settings within the BK117 can be more easily operated from your mouse, if you have a mouse with the amount of buttons most seem to come with today. Most decent mice/mouses/mices have 5 buttons – that is, your conventional left and right buttons, plus a scroll wheel which can also be pressed down to click, and also two side buttons. This type of mouse can easily be programmed (if Windows OS) so that the buttons can be mapped to do specific things in X-Plane. http://www.highrez.c...ttonControl.htm Using a free program called X-Mouse Button Changer I can have my mouse do the following: Left click – as normal Right button – now toggles Spot View Scroll wheel click - toggles between 3D cockpit and 2D door panel (Ctrl+O) Two side buttons – now used for + (zoom in) and – (zoom out) Meaning I can use the mouse inside the cockpit, zoom in and click on things without moving my hand off the mouse, and without needing to press any keyboard keys. There is an advantage to this, see below. Keyboard Shortcuts In the manual for the BK, Nils recommends setting Ctrl+1 as the keyboard shortcut for engine no 1 starter and Ctrl+2 for engine no 2 starter. The problem with this is that once you press the Ctrl key with anything else, your mouse is then locked into position all the while that Ctrl key is pressed, meaning if you want to zoom in and check on a gauge while the engine’s starting, then you’ll have to wait until the engine is running and you’ve let go of the Ctrl key. You can see from the following shot that it's not easy to see the white dots on the N1 gauge; There is a better way. Program a different key to Toggle Engine #1 Starter and Toggle Engine #2 Starter. I don’t tend to use the Q,W,E, or R keys for viewing in a 3D cockpit, so I found that by programming Q and E for Toggle Engine #1 & 2 Starters, I only have to press just one of those keys to start the engines. By not using the Ctrl key I can now move the mouse around the cockpit and zoom in while the engine is starting. This is particularly important when starting the engines because you have to press in the starter (in my case Q) and hold it until the N1 gauge moves to the first white dot. At that point you move the throttle/control lever to Idle while still holding the starter button (Q). Now, if you’re trying to start the engine using Ctrl+1, you’ll find it hard to see the N1 gauge and you certainly can’t zoom in on it until the engine is running. Here I show the settings I have programmed into Keys & Equipment for mine. The sliders aren’t that important, they just make it easier to access opening the doors without going into the 2D panel. Shift+ESC and Shift F1 to Shift F4 operate the doors. Where the sliders are important is with regard to the landing light switch. Currently you switch on the landing light via its switch on the throttle/collective lever. However, aiming the light around at night is virtually impossible using the 4-way button below it. As a result, I use that same switch to turn the lights on/off, but as you’ll see I’ve programmed U and J on the keyboard for up/down and H and K for left/right. The means that if you’re hovering at night you can move the landing light around to see where you are, or see what you want to land on. Shift ESC toggles Clamshell (rear) doors Shift F1 toggles Pilot's door Shift F2 toggles Pilot side rear door Shift F3 toggles Passenger side front door Shift F4 toggles Passenger side rear door Shift F5 toggles Light switch (as does L) Shift F6 toggles Engine Test Guard Shift F7 toggles Fuel Guard for Engine #1 Shift F8 toggles Fuel Guard for Engine #2 Shift F9-F10 unused Note, to open doors using Shift ESC & Shift F1-F5 means temporarily disabling CustomSBDatarefs004 and HangarOps in Plugin Manager (animated flags & hangar door opening). You also may want to program F1 for "engines/throttle_down", and F2 for "engines/throttle_up". This way, you can use F2 to bring both engines up from Idle to Run as a pair instead of moving the control levers individually with the mouse.

Great. You've got a bit of learning to do, and a few improvements to load, but they can wait. I'm just posting up some setting-up help in the next 5 minutes.

I read somewhere that military pilots are told to avoid descending at more than 300 ft per min, but in essence airfighter's correct. The "magnet pulling you down" is the result of coming out of translational lift which xplane vastly over-exaggerates. The only way to really overcome it in xplane is to descend slowly, ie no more than 300fpm. It just takes practice. PS I'm going to put together a few tips about setting up your system for the BK, as some parts are not as user-friendly as they could be.

You may want to watch the vid on starting the BK. (a bit dark n fuzzy, but shows what it's about). The heli itself is pin-sharp. http://forums.x-plan...showtopic=41869

I won't bother putting the chinook up, it'd just convince you more....

and now the EC-135. Compare it to the BK and the 500D. Not quite in the same league. You know you're in a pc sim....

... and the 500D

If you need a comparison, here's the BK117 cockpit (just about all those switches actually work)

Landing these things takes lots and lots of practice. Getting it down from forward flight to a descent into a flare and then into a hover is like learning to ride a bike. One day it'll "happen." X-plane IS at fault, it's really exaggerated the ETL (exit-translation-lift) which is why we need these plugins to sort it. Without the plugin, you'd find coming to a halt from forward flight results in a sudden need to give a huge amount of collective/throttle to stay in the air. And half the time you'll still lose. We've all been there..... The EC135 cockpit is "okay." You'd never mistake it for being sat in the real thing. Now the BK117...... about as realistic as it gets.

http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/x-planestore/Detail?no=185

lol @ "couple" of liveries Your 2 most accurate, detailed helis (with believable/realistic 3D cockpits) are the BK117 (payware) and the H500 (freeware). Next choices are the Dreamfoil Bell 206 (hard) or soon-to-be Robinson R44. In the works a decent MD902, but there's no realistic Huey as yet unless you're okay with a 2D panel or cartoony 3D from v8.64.

It's no longer available, so people should stop being advised to seek out a copy.

Ta Simon, I did hunt around the net looking for a copy of FSX Gold, but it's out of stock virtually everywhere. I've certainly read that the Dodosim 206 is impressive.

Welcome. Ah, the Bede. Wasn't that the one in the opening bit of James Bond's Octopussy?

XP15, or whichever version comes with airfields populated.

Thanks Sixgun I'm not sure if that is "it" but I'm certainly taking a break, how long for I don't know. Each time I load up xplane I come away from it feeling depressed. Depressed that there are so few good aircraft with 3D cockpits - but an awful lot of dross - and depressed that the number of blank, empty airfields still vastly outnumber those that've been made. For example, there are only about 2-5% of the UK airfields to use in xplane.(I just can't get my head around WED or Blender, so the last day of trawling the tutorials with the intention of making my local airfield was a waste.) Meaning that's why I've spent so long making liveries and so little time in xplane, which isn't supposed to be that way round. I'm just praying XP10 will reignite my interest in xp, with LOTS of airports with scenery, instead of empty runways left blank for the handful of devs there are to populate with buildings. Just going to take a couple of weeks out from doing stuff for xplane, and see how I get on. I know I'm itching to keep creating BK liveries.

* EASTER EGG * CN 7169 Air Life of Urbana, IL AirLife One, a BK117B1, is based in Urbana at Carle Foundation Hospital, IL. Use with Radome version, bear paws and radome will be automatically unselected. File located in file library here: http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php/files/category/20-helicopters/