I've waited for this add-on forever and it's finally out since a couple of weeks. It's
available from the X-Plane store, for X-Plane 10.20 and above.
I have some screenshots and impressions from my first flight in this beauty.
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| I always do a "local" flight (i.e. near my real life location) for that first spin of the rotors with a new X-Plane toy. Here I am taking off from the Montgomery County Regional Airport (MD, USA). |
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| The Sea King is very stable and hovers solidly during the pre-flight hover check. |
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| I changed the livery to one of the 17 available. Just for showing up. |
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| Heading north towards the Frederick Regional Airport. |
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| Another paint scheme available, this one for the Deutsche Marine. |
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| Landing at the Frederick Regional Airport. The Sea King is heavy and displays a great deal of stability, which makes it a good candidate for the newbie virtual helicopter pilot. |
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| Another practice landing at Frederick. Note the new paint job. I just can't get enough of these skins! |
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| The cockpit interiors are very well done, with many clickeable buttons and switches. |
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| The center console. That group of switches in the center is the automatic flight control system for hovering. It is fully implemented and functional in this addon. |
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| Hovering near the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, a very conspicuous landmark in my county. I took the Sea King into an initial hover manually, but right now I am using the automatic flight control system to keep the helicopter stationary. |
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| The hover control system has a series of switches that allow changing position in the three axis of movement. In this screenshot I am flying the Sea King laterally, hands off the collective or cyclic, by using one of those switches. |
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| After that mountain top hovering, I am flying to a local VA airport located across the Potomac River. |
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| Approaching the local airport. The stability of this helicopter really pays off when you need to make small adjustments in your forward speed. |
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| Safe touchdown on the destination. |
Great add-on. One can only wish X-Plane would allow third party developers to take their aircraft to the level of avionics/systems simulation seen in DCS World. Nonetheless I am pleased to try my virtual pilotage skills on this legendary ASW helicopter.
Looking forward to try this helo in naval maneuvers through rough seas ...
Cheers,
I hear FSX helicopter Flight models are not as detailed and accurate as DCS, is that true?
ReplyDeleteI think that DCS is a very serious contender to FSX and X-Plane when it comes to flight modelling. When it comes to systems/avionics modelling, DCS runs circles around both.
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