Bought it as soon as I could..downloaded and installed just fine. I have to make my comments brief because I'm going on the night shift...zzzzz..but I think the package is brilliant just at first blush. The helos have a very Take On Helicopters feel to them and I can see that mission designers will do great things with the new helo dynamics. This is going to be great! Definitely not DCS Huey level of fidelity, but very good and entertaining and challenging enough. There are useful tools such as the loading helper thingy that helps you get on target for the hookup. Dynamics between the sling loads and the helo are there..probably not as dangerous as the real life dynamics, but enough to make you have to be careful. Graphics are beautiful. I'm only partially through the first mission where you are running around slinging different loads around. It is a LOT of fun...































This is not a proper review..just a first blush look..

BeachAV8R

Awesome... nice screens there.

Nice. I want this

Cool nice screens, thanks for the first impressions will add this to my wishlist.

Psssst, you can raise the gear

Nice shots though!

Yeah, I knew I could raise the gear, but when I did it just...err..just doesn't look right.. LOL.. I figure at that close to the ground in real life you'd probably have it down anyway. Too many years of imagery of those fixed gear Chinooks has biased me toward that look.. LOL..

BeachAV8R

The Little Bird - which I assume was imported over from Take On Helicopters (?) is fantastic to fly. Nimble, responsive, yet it exhibits some of the nice TOH flight model such as managing quick stops without really gaining much altitude. The included time challenges are actually pretty fun - running through the hoops at breakneck speed at low altitude is fun simply because the ARMA world is so detailed that the illusion of low level flight is really good. Obviously they don't have a high replayability factor, but ARMA is an ultimate sandbox world, so I'm sure someone will be along shortly with a dynamic transport/medevac/etc..type of mission.



































I can't wait to see what missions come out of this DLC. Really excited!

BeachAV8R

The Little Bird is my favorite Helicopter! Dammit, Beach! Okay, is this a free add-on or payware?

Oh, I see. Payware. Really didn't want to buy any games for a while. Geez.

Yeah..I didn't want to pay for it either..but I also didn't want to wait for a review copy..LOL..some things you just have to buy on day one..

I have found one problem that I don't like (and someone can correct me if I'm wrong), but it appears that the wheeled helos can't really roll around very effectively. You'd expect to be able to pull in some collective to get a little light and then taxi the helo using the cyclic to move the helo (like you can in DCS), but they appear to only want to hover taxi. If you try to do a run on landing at like 40 or 50 KPH you take damage.. So that part sucks. I was hoping you could actually load them to the point where they won't hover takeoff, but would if you roll them into translational lift. Oh well...

I don't know what the new DLC helos are called. This utility helo is fun though. I was playing it through a Steam user created free flight mission, but I don't know how to recruit other AI or get other AI to load into the helo to assume the other duties like load-master and copilot and stuff..











I thought you'd just be able to drive vehicles up the ramp into the helos, but they won't. Unless you have to be a certain type of troop or there is a certain process to it. This type of helo has a whole bunch of different configurations with variable types of pods for cargo, medevac, troop insertions, etc.. I think I needed other AI in the helo to work the winch (if one was even installed). Still a lot to figure out..



I continued playing the Huron (Chinook-ish thing?) mission which is a lot of fun...









When making the insertion into the hot FOB the enemy takes some shots at you. I *think* my door gunners engaged, but I was too busy concentrating on getting her down in one piece...







BeachAV8R

Great pictures! But for the love of God, where did you come up with this affinity for airplanes with the prop attached to the wrong end?-)

Can you disengage the wheelbrakes through the mousewheel menu?

Its not the wheelbrakes. Arma helos have always treated the ground like the sticky side of duct tape.

In DCS you can fly through the trees and take small amounts of damage from rough landings, in Arma if you touch anything going faster than 5 kph you explode into a fireball. No game is perfect after all.

EDIT: I have to fly some more! Near_Blind tells me it is the brakes and we can finally do rolling landings. Whoohoo

Actualy, it's not payware. The only thing you pay for are the two helicopters that get added with the DLC, the Huron and the Iranian one. All the other features, Flight Model, sling loads, fire from vehicles, are relaesed for free.

Remember, with Arma 3 content (mostly models) is paid for, features are free.

And of course I forgot to add that the Little Bird is part of the initial release, so, no DLC.

i'm curious about the mirror on the left side of the small helicopter . is it showing un-mirrored image?
when the head of the pilot moves , does the mirror show images from different angles?

I just did some further testing - and indeed, if you take the wheel brakes off (didn't even know that was an option!) you can taxi by rolling. The only problem is that it doesn't appear that the rotor disc actually affects your taxi speed. For instance, as soon as you release the brakes, you start rolling forward. Normally you could pull the cyclic back and tilt the rotor disc back and stop your movement. You can't do that with this flight/ground model. Also, at least in the Taru, when you turn, the nosewheel doesn't articulate left or right - it doesn't appear visually to be linked to the rudders, nor is it free castering (which I would suspect it would be). It doesn't affect the way the helo turns..it turns fine on the ground, it just looks kind of weird that the nosewheel doesn't turn.

I got on the runway and pulled in just enough pitch to almost take off. Then I backed off slightly and moved the cyclic forward to try a running takeoff. The helo accelerates forward very, very slowly and no amount of cyclic forward or backwards affects the speed of the gradual acceleration. As I passed through about 35KPH I was hoping to start to see/feel some sort of movement toward transitional lift, but it doesn't appear to be modeled or doesn't really seem to work on the ground in my initial testing.

One *should* be able to pull in a bit of collective to get light on the wheels, back of just slightly, tilt the rotor disc forward, accelerate through to translational lift, and the helo should sort of fly itself off the runway. That doesn't happen.

For example:



This was just real quick, first blush testing though, so (like the presence of brakes I missed!)..I could be wrong about all of this. Hope to do some additional testing tomorrow.. It's 3AM..I gots to go to sleep.. <yawn>

BeachAV8R

Yes, that mirror reflects, in real time, what is actually behind and under the helo..



And the race around the rocks course is pretty exciting and fast.. Flight sim developers and flying through rings..it's just a thing with them...









BeachAV8R

Regarding the mirror, I suspect it's considered a "Picture in Picture" display, as I don't have a visual in my mirror in game (I haven't had a chance to play the production version though, just the last dev branch release before this went 'stable'). Most A3 tweaking guides recommend disabling PIP, as it's a major frame hog.

Regarding wheel brakes; the Devs have noted there's tweaking yet to do there, but it seems to be have (understanably) fallen low on the priority list behind items like Vortex Ring state and transitional lift tuning.

Speaking of VRS: for those just now tuning into the Helo dlc, VRS actually was implemented in the last couple weeks for dev branch, but was pulled from the initial DLC release as it needed more time in the oven (trust me, the devs made the right call here!). I'm hoping that transitional lift also sees an overhaul, as it is present, but very understated.

More good news though: All the flight models are available to modders, so I suspect the next few months will see new Helos, and A2 models taking advantage of the AFMs. Modders can either copy the AFM from a default helo, and leave as is, or use that default helos AFM as starting point and tweak as they see fit.


All in, looking like a lot of good stuff on the horizon.

So who's up for Helo MP ops?

It doesn't get much better than Dslyecxi's hands on impressions of the new DLC..great work (as usual) by him:



BeachAV8R

my question regarding the mirror was in fact about whether or not the image in the mirror was flipped. as it seemed to me that the right side of the aircraft was on the left side of the mirror (i am not sure), in reality the right side of aircraft should be on the right side of the mirror. anyway, a mirror on a helicopter is interesting to me. the small helicopter is beautiful and the graphics are awesome.