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

So Steam downloaded and installed something..is this helo part of the old vehicles? Is the FM and loading helper stuff the new one though? I never flew any of the ARMA 3 stock helos..

BeachAV8R

That helicopter (Stealth Chinook) and the Iranian Co-axial mecha-tarhe-2021 (I think it's called the Taru) are the new payware helicopters in the DLC. The patch that came with it added the advanced flight model to all existing helicopters in game, as well as those two and the new civilian variant of the little bird that everyone got for free.

The AFM can be activated by accessing either the main or pause menu, and going to configure -> GAME, and it will be a series of options on the right hand side of that menu page.

The sling loading and loading helper is now available on all helicopters, though obviously a little bird won't be able to lift the same things a Chinook could.

Oh, and now you can shoot from certain cargo positions in helicopters, trucks, and the assault boat. (woot!)

Thanks near_blind..I wasn't sure exactly what was stock and what was DLC..

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

I enjoyed the new lift mechanism quite a bit in that showcase mission but why the heck does the Huron (stealth Chinook) not have the ADI on that min screen? Why would i need an outline of the helicopter at all? Am I missing something? I see the small ADI in the center ... the backup 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... Incorrect!

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

Yea, no rolling taxi or high speed landings. Friction has always been a problem in the Arma series. You can do a rolling landing but it has to be very low speed. Dyslexi complained in his preview video and included footage of his little bird exploding when its skids tried to, well, skid. But considering that tracked APCs can power slide better than the cars in Tokyo Drift I am not surprised it hasn't been fixed.

I did enjoy the feeling of flight the new models impart, and I am enjoying how the helos fly differently from teach other, which wasn't the case before.

Still no vortex ring, but now we can shoot from the skids and sling load, so good progress.

Beach, Tanker, make sure that your brakes are off when you try and taxi. It's the circle with two semi-ish circles on either side icon on the helper bar. With that off I'm able to make horizontal (100 kph+) landings with no guff from the game.

Also you can sling load with no one else in the helicopter. Your helicopter has to have a sling load (the taru's/tarhe thing with a mission pod does not have a sling, as their sling equipment is used to keep the mission pod attached), and that your aircraft can actually life what you're trying to.

For instance, A Little Bird, Ghosthawk, Huron, and Mohawk (Stealth hawk, Stealth Chinook, and AW101 respectively) can all lift a pick up an ammo box. A Ghosthawk, Huron, and Mohawk can pick up a pickup, but the little bird cannot. The Huron can pick up an Mrap or a boat, but the Mohawk and Ghosthawk cannot. The way the game seems to work is that if your helicopter cannot handle the weight of an object, it won't appear as a lift able object in the helper, nor will it allow you to attach. Similarly, not all objects have been configured for lifting, and they won't appear either.

As per the vehicle thing, that was a bit of imaginative marketing photography on the part of BI, you can't put vehicles in other vehicles.

Really? I thought I checked and wheelbrakes were off...I will try it out but as of now I stand corrected!

Wow, I just did an "aggresive" horizontal landing in the LB at around 150 kph and there was no patented ARMA friction explosion. I just slid across the dirt for a mile or two.

I'm more impressed with the new flight model by the minute

One thing they seem to have eliminated from the Dev Branch is VRS. It was way overdone but there needs to be something there to discipline the player into using safe(-ish) approach techniques.

Awesome..can't wait to take my brakes off..! Thanks!

And I'd urge everyone, unless you want to instantly shave 20 points off your I.Q., to avoid reading the comments about the DLC on the Steam forums. Wow.

BeachAV8R

Yeah, their facebook page is the same. Next time BIS will lock the features too, and the complainers will complain again. They also don't understand that mod support is a great task for the dev.

I haven't bought the DLC yet, waiting for my paycheck. I've been flying the Chinookish thingy in dev and I think it's excellent. Can't say I'm a big fan of the modernish redesign, but the quality of the models is outstanding.

It's funny, I haven't flown any helos in Arma 2 or 3 until the Rotorlib came, because I couldn't stand their flight model, but now they are my favourite thing in the game. Arma 3 reached the level of excellent helo-lite sim that is hard to compete, mostly because of the troop support and combined arms cooperation.

I just wish for some single player helo campaign...

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>

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

That's true with the skids too. If I try the proper helicopter lift off of getting light on the skids, correcting for drift then ascending into a low hover, the helicopter will not correct unless the fuselage, not just the rotor disk changes attitude. So I have found that the best technique for me is to quickly lift into a stable hover and solve any drift problems once airborne.

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



BeachAV8R

With the rest of the update, I'm impressed you can do drive by shootings with vehicles now.

Sitting in the back of the stealth Chinook, with the ramp down, I can fire my rifle out the back.

ZF-

yea the FFV is a really REALLY nice feature. Its also nice having a tranpsort chopper for the CSAT which isnt the KA60!

VRS has been re-added in the dev branch.

Has anyone even bronzed on the sling time trial? Even without VRS the best I can manage so far is about 7 minutes. If ARMA teaches me nothing else, it is to laugh at myself.