Over the last few days, we’ve all been seeing some mixed posts and comments about Microsoft Flight Simulator, the 40th Anniversary update, and helicopter flight dynamics.

If you watched my live video which I streamed the day after the Microsoft Event at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum , you saw me saying how excited I was about it. All this could have gone terribly wrong – and we would be getting FSX-like flight dynamics – or very right, and we would have a good first iteration of helicopters in the sim.

We got the latter.

But we have been seeing some mixed reports from folks all around the world. Some say they have a great experience – and agree this is a fantastic first step – others say the exact opposite, showing their frustration towards the result.

So… What gives? How can we have so shockingly different opinions and perspectives?

I think we are seeing a mix of things.

First of all, there’s the basic first problem people found. Microsoft Flight Simulator has an assistance system for helicopters that makes the flight dynamic a lot tamer. And I mean A LOT. You can control helicopters very easily if you turn it on and it will feel very much like the old FSX flight model.

This is turned on by default. So, if you are not aware of it.

Inside Assistance Options, in the Piloting group, you will find ‘Helicopters: Assisted Tail Rotor’ and ‘Helicopters: Assisted Cyclic’. Disabling should get you to experience the new flight model.

MSFS Assistance Options

But some folks out there are still not getting the best results out of it. The community has found there’s a bug that may be forcing your MSFS to use the legacy flight dynamic.

Apologies to the original author as I am unaware of who that was, but I have seen this going around on several groups and forums with a lot of virtual pilots having great results.

MSFS Legacy Flight Model

  1. Inside Options, head out to General Options and find the Flight Model group on the left. Do this while NOT on a flight.
  2. Change the flight model from ‘Modern’ to ‘Legacy’. ‘Global Preset’ seems to have to be set as ‘Realistic’, so do that too.
  3. Apply the changes.
  4. Start a flight.
  5. Go back to the Flight Model panel inside General Options and change it back.
  6. Some users have been reporting that it works right away, and some say that they need to start a new flight. I would start a new flight just in case.

This seems to reset the whole flight model and fix it for a lot of folks out there.

If this is your case and you are seeing some odd results, give it a try and let us know how it went for you.

But that’s not all

We know there are some issues with the 407 and I’ve been gathering some information to send to Asobo and Microsoft but please do use Microsoft’s tools to provide your feedback as well.

The more information we get to the teams, the bigger the chances of getting fixes out sooner we’ll have.