X-Plane Helicopter

You may already have read my review of X-Plane 9, the general plane title from the developers of the most famous flight sim for the Mac. It’s quite simply stunning in terms of what it achieves within your humble iPhone’s hardware. And now there’s a version for helicopters, should you want to fly in a completely different way. But be warned, this is no casual float over America’s landscape – X-Plane Helicopter takes no prisoners in its level of difficulty.

X-Plane itself was hard enough – we’re talking a realistic, modelled simulation of flying a real aeroplane. For the plane sim, the main simplification needed (to fit the device) was that there was no rudder control – yet even so it certainly wasn’t child’s play landing any of the modelled aircraft. Helicopter similarly simplifies things by effectively removing tail rotor control (though you can adjust this for some helis if you really want to) and by automatically linking the ‘collective’ (the stick that controls how much the rotors bite into the air) to the throttle, a logical connection given that with greater pitch on the collective, you’re going to need more power to keep that rotor speed up.

Yet, even with the above help, flying a helicopter turns out to be much trickier than you might think. The four star score here is not a reflection of the fact that the game ‘loses’ a star but more that you’ll enjoy flying less – because it’s more like work! As you increase the collective, the helicopter starts to rise, but you’ll also need the main rotors pointing straight up (by default, they’re pointed forwards when your iPhone is in typical gameplaying attitude), otherwise you’ll simply bury the helicopter in the ground. So you have to lean back as you rise, then start to push forwards at the right moment. It takes quite a bit of skill to simply take off and land again, let alone flying from A to B or enjoying the scenery.

But you’ll have some interest in helicopters, otherwise you wouldn’t be looking at this title, so I’m hoping the difficulty won’t frighten you too much. Which is good, because there’s an awful lot you can fiddle with here in order to get the most from it and simulate just what you want to. You can choose to fly the tiny Robinson R-22, the Bell 206, the mighty Blackhawk or the heavy lifter Sea King. Each is not a set of graphics, it’s a full 3D model and flies as the real thing would. So, for example, the R-22 will zip about and be easier for beginners, while the lumbering Sea King will require forward planning in your stick movements if you’re to keep a dozen tons of steel from crashing to earth with a bang. Like X-Plane 9, crashing (thankfully) isn’t a major disaster. There are no explosions and noone gets killed. Which is just as well.

Graphics throughout are impressive, with lightning fast frame rates and super 3D view of the virtual world, from both inside and outside the helicopter, and from different angles. For real heli enthusiasts, you can fiddle with the payloads of each helicopter, to simulate it being empty or full, etc. Plus, of course, the usual X-Plane options to set different cloud bases, different times of day, different wind speeds, directions and degrees of turbulence. Particularly welcome is the ability to calibrate the iPhone’s accelerometer control, so that stick center corresponds to the angle at which you hold YOUR device.

X-Plane’s developer has proved faithful with updates and I’m sure there are more helicopters planned, with more scenery (though the Grand Canyon landscape provided is pretty impressive!) One to buy and return to whenever you feel the need to battle with the mechanics of helicopter flight!