VSKYLABS has their own philosophy regarding the development of product. The fact that they work a lot with X-Plane's default characteristics (they don't use or develop plugins) shortens the development time.
Also, it helps to not talk about the project too early in development, which is actually a good thing for developers and removes a lot of the pressure we, as a community, put on top of them (it's not cool, guys, not cool).
Here are the project's highlights as per VSKYLABS consideration:
- Project under constant development: Development plan and evolution are including EVERY aspect of the project (3D modeling and textures, flight dynamics modeling, fmod sounds, interactivity, systems etc...).
- Highly engineered, robust helicopter simulation which pushes X-Plane's out-of-the-box features and flight dynamics model to its extent.
- Highly detailed visualization of the Guimbal Cabri G2 helicopter.
- Engineered as a 'Native X-Plane aircraft': Maximum X-Plane compatibility without the use of 3rd party plugins or external coding dependencies.
- Day/Night VFR instrumentation.
- Electronic Pilot Monitor (EPM) - Simplified yet authentic and effective EPM display.
- FULL-VR mode feature, enables to operate and fly the G2 without physical hardware for the pedals.
- Built in compatibility with the AviTab plugin for 3D and VR AviTab visualization and interaction.
- Optional Experimental/LSA grade autopilot included.
- Perfect for new helicopter pilots and for helicopter conversion for fixed wings aircraft pilots - due to its docile flying characteristics and simple yet effective design features.
- Highly responsive support forum.
I've been flying her for some time and she's rapidly growing on me. Expect a full-blown review (which I already started writing but haven't been able to finish) very, very soon.
You can watch a video of the startup (although of a pre-release version so you will find some issues with textures -- which don't exist on the final version) here. Unfortunately my voice goes out once the engine comes up but you'll have the chance to see how to start'er up.