Three weeks ago, or so, Microsoft was kind enough to send me a list of everything they were planning to release in Sim Update 12, regarding helicopters of course.

The list was somewhat big and interesting and I said at the time that I didn’t expect it to change, but that could be possible. And that’s what’s happened.

That list grew and it can now be seen at the official MSFS forums.

The first think we notice is that they added the Bell 407 to a short list of aircraft that had some bugs fixed or changes in them. Oddly, though, what we can find is a list with Cabri G2 fixes, not the Bell 407. In fact, the 407 is not mentioned anywhere else in the notes.

In the helicopters section we can find pretty much what we already had announced:

  • Engine power jump was reduced during the governor activation
  • Added an engine trimmer. If the helicopter has this feature, it is now possible to slightly change the nominal engine/rotor RPM that a governor is trying to maintain. Please, refer to the new input commands in the Control Options menu: “ENGINE TRIM RPM INCREASE” and “ENGINE TRIM RPM DECREASE”
  • The throttle control logic for multi-engine helicopters has become more consistent
  • Fixed Tail rotor increment for better controllability with gamepad Helicopter profile (without tail rotor assistance)

There’s a whole new area dedicated to the Cabri G2, where we can find the following:

  • START mode behavior improved on EPM
  • Better synchronization between engine RPM and rotor RPM
  • In Direct To Page, magnetic bearing is displayed instead of true bearing
  • Throttle handle animation is now working correctly
  • Fixed miro drift on ground contact with helicopters
  • Fixed Cabri skid suspension settings; Cabri now stable on ground

And we finally have the following in the Aircraft Editor section:

  • [HELICOPTER] Added a governor switch check for turbine engines (so now it can be disengaged)
  • [HELICOPTER] The float parameter governed_pct_rpm_ref in the [HELICOPTER] section of the flight_model.cfg was made to work (it existed in the .cfg but not used in the code). Please, see SDK for details
  • [HELICOPTER] The new engine trimmer can be adjusted via config file (please, see SDK documentation for details). Also added the engine trim value indication to the Engine Debug window.
  • [HELICOPTER] The maximum speed of throttle movement by the governor is now limited for turbine engines (the same way as it used to be for piston engines). This limitation can now be adjusted via config file (please, see SDK for details). The default values for piston and turbine engines are kept the same for compatibility reason
  • [HELICOPTER] The hardcoded collective speed limit was moved to the config file (please, see SDK documentation for details). The default value is kept the same for compatibility reason.
  • [HELICOPTER] Added a collective to throttle correlator, which can now be adjusted via config file (please, see SDK documentation for details)
  • [HELICOPTER] Added main rotor friction (makes rotors rotate not too long after the engine is shut down on the ground) which can be adjusted via config file (please, see SDK for details). The default value is kept at 0 for compatibility reason
  • [HELICOPTER] The hardcoded value of the rotor braking torque is moved to the config file (please, see SDK for details). The default value is kept the same for compatibility reason.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented InputEvents and JS from intercepting KeyEvents in helicopters
  • Enabled KEY_RECOGNITION_LIGHTS_SET as an input that can be held to represent a switch being enabled, and released to represent it being disable

There are a few more details in the release notes that affect helicopters but these are the main points, which should help developers achieve a better level of fidelity and fix some of the issues they now have.

Microsoft Flight Simulator Sim Update 12 is scheduled for release on March 21, 2023.