NEW - First Helicopter Flight In MSFS 2020 - Nemeth Bell 407 Review 

My Lessons Learned with the 407: -Most of the comments I have seen from IRL helicopter pilots say the flight model is fine. Don't give up. -If you try to learn to fly the 407 and don't have helicopter experience (like me) don't bother. Start with the Cabri instead. -Spend several hours working on takeoffs, hover, landing, low taxi, pedal turns, square turns and quick stops in the Cabri and get good before transitioning to the 407. RU-vid for real life videos on these maneuvers, flight training, ground school, etc., and then go practice them. A lot. -I tried to fly the 407 a month ago and thought it was garbage. Now I have about 20 hours (at least half of that doing training maneuvers) in the Cabri and I think the 407 is a lot of fun. As soon as I had built up motor memory and got an intuitive sense on the Cabri, I came back to the 407 and immediately mastered it. I guess flying a helicopter is like learning to ride a bike. You have to break through to the point where you do it unconsciously. -Set all your joystick curves to full linear. -Loosen your throttle tension. -Loosen your joystick spring tension. I used long twisty-ties (found on bread bags or the wiring with new electronics). Slide them around 2-3 coils, move the stick to full-lock to compress the spring, and then twist down the tie. Experiment. By compressing part of the tension spring, you reduce its strength. -Pedals are a must. You need to make rapid adjustments with fine control and a controller or a yaw-twisting joystick robs you of the required travel and fine control. As a real life fixed wing pilot, I assure you pedals are not a gimmick, boondoggle or hornswaggle dreamed up by a sales department. In the sim helicopter, they are crucial. I hope that helps somebody. Good luck and enjoy!

MSFS has produced some amazing eye candy. But for “reality physics”, DCS is the ticket. Night and day difference.

Thanks great to get feed back from a real heli pilot . Always good to let us sim pilots know we wouldn't have a clue how to fly the real thing just form using the sim .

About 2000 hours in real Helis. Got to say this was a pleasure to fly. Pretty close in most aspects, but....I think they dial in some things to get the non rotary pilot a chance to enjoy it. ..I won't be critical of any short comings. Beautiful design. I reccomend the Helipad on the Thames in London..very fun.

I was waiting for your review on the 407 (and G2). Finally. 😀

I fly my heli completely wrong and only one of them works but I am so addicted to it. Its all Ive been flying lately.

For now, I wish to learn to fly the helicopter like that. Other intricacies will follow later

I did not know that the MSFS 2020 Bell 407 was made by Nemeth Designs. Nice to know. I loved their offerings in FSX.

Oooh, new video, nice!

There is a mod for this on Flightsim already, it definitely improves things. Would be interested to see what you think of the G2, I found it much better than the 407.

the msfs helicopters feel subpar. feels like not much beta testing took place, unfortunately

I suspects the animations are there just broken for what ever reason, just like the rotors not animating in multiplayers and throttle bindings being borked. But other than that the new heli physics are pretty well done. But this entire update had a set date and seems it was too soon. But atleast we got support now... so I'm over all happy. Also, MSFS weather has gotten quite spicy, a lot of winds and things happening, and even just having any objects close to your helicopter will affect how the helicopter behaves in a hover.

I bet to get this update out in time and free for every one they were only able to put so much into development. I'm sure with updates and maybe 3rd party addons will improve the flight model.

finally, new video nice

As a helicopter pilot with time in 207s (close enough) I felt the collective was sloppy and I had to crank up the sensitivity for my cyclic controls quite a bit (not sure if it was the sim or my controls but the cyclic lag was a little excessive). I tried the cabri and was impressed with the weathercocking effect but without the motion and feedback you experience in real life it came off as unresponsive rather than realistic. One small thing that really frustrates me is how poor the autorotations are. To be fair there is no simulator I am aware of that has reasonable autorotations, but to me it’s an indicator of how much thought they put into the flight model. You shouldn’t be able to take off so easily after touching down, you can almost fly it without the engine. On the topic of engine power, I’m not sure if it’s to do with how I set my controls up but I find it idles on the ground at around 70% torque which makes no sense; when I cut the throttle it sits at 40%. The cockpit seems well done but I feel can get a better flight model in almost any other game.

I think the basics are there, the G2 is more refined and further along in general. But to me the basics of hovering and flying A to B feels in the ball park of DCS and xplane which I had been flying a lot of coming up to the release of su11. My bet is, when 3rd party devs figure it out, there will be much improved helicopters, 407 with the improvement mod is already alot better

Very GOOD Review - Thank You !

Was really looking forward to this release and came out disappointed. I don't know if its the fundamental helicopter dynamics that are the problem, or the specific design/coding of the helicopter by Nemeth Designs that makes flying this thing feel...strange. Will things improve for this model in the future? I'll believe it when I see it, especially how lacking it already feels in basic helicopter features. It feels like I'm flying an Arma 3 helicopter, a game that isn't even intentionally tailored towards the realistic spectrum of helicopter flight.

I haven’t tried the helis yet, but I read that some people report having to select the legacy flightmodel, load up the helicopter and then go back to settings and select the modern flightmodel again.

The digital MFD below the dials on this helicopter is a very complicated thing, it has a lot more functions than i thought it would, and i have very limited knowledge with how to use it. It's also a bit time consuming.

Ive only flown helicopters in games like battlefield so I was really excited to finally try out a super realistic helicopter with all the aerodynamics simulated in FS2020 - even as a lay person I am quite disappointed right now... - the visualisation of the air moving and all the talks from the devs made it seem like this would be super realistic, but even i am noticing alot of weird things. You dont have to adjust your cyclic towards the advancing blade when picking up speed. When in a strong right curve you have to actually apply LEFT cyclic to keep the helicopter from rolling over, while in a left curve you have to keep applying left cyclic... So there is a left cyclic bias eventhough that is the retreating side of the blade... And no change from hover to tranlational lift... If they actually simulated everything based on fundamental principles errors like this wouldnt happen would they? Do you think these are realistic physics?

I noticed that you kept expecting things to happen that didn't with the Bell. Did the Guimbal Cabri behave more "helicopter like" in your opinion?

The sass is strong with this one...seriously though, MSFS helicopters have nowhere to go but up (no pun intended). As much as I love X-Plane, it's user base is nowhere near what MSFS's is and it likely won't ever be. I think the development of the flight model(s) will move pretty fast and that most of the issues helo pilots are having will be solved. There are a ton of very well respected helicopter simming gurus that are solidly throwing their support behind Asobo getting helos pushed along, not the least of which are guys like Sergio from Helisimmer and Fred from AirlandFS. Even Josh Cowan has already dropped hints on development of Cowansim models to come, so I have a ton of hope for MSFS helicopters. You mentioned one very important point about MSFS, and that's the scenery. Flight models, accurate and realistic cockpit, better physics, yes...all important and all fixable, but the experience of looking outside and not seeing Minecraft-like blocky, flat, dull scenery everywhere but a payware airport? That's where MSFS shines. This is a visual media and that's what people love. Beautiful scenery and awesome places to go. X-Plane just hasn't offered that yet. DCS is better, but pleasure flying is definitely not the point of DCS. MSFS is going to bring helicopters to a much wider audience, and developers will be there to supply them with an amazing variety of helos.

Sensacional

Odd, I'm surprised the helicopter doesn't offer the slanted main rotor like the real counterpart. I feel it isn't added so it is easier to fly. I wished that It has cable cutters, most of them have it. I suggest you get the improvment mod, it should improve the flight model. I also hpe we get more mods for it so we in custom preferences on visual cues.

How does it compare to something like Janes Longbow? I could do fine on that on my (antiquated) PC whereas on my Series S my helicopter flights on MSFS last about, oooh, 22 minutes shorter than this video, assists on/off doesnt matter, it just goes mental. Not sure if theyve integrated in and off ground effects, bernoulli's principle/retreating blade stall etc Ah well, always got the Hornet to hoon around in lol

Does throttle do anything? Its no difference at all between 15 and 100 percent throttle?

Are you familiar with Virpil helicopter controls for FS2020?

it is a nice start.. but it is behind what other sims offer, even the flyinside Bell 47 is better

Freakin half ass nemeth products. I see not much has changed since fsx…

Msfs is so 👎