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Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.
A new rotorcraft "Alouette III" is released on French-VFR
- Thread starter lagaffe
- Start date
spatialpro
SOH-CM-2025
DaveB said:
Defo agree with that Dave, the Alouette II was lovely
falcon409
SOH-CM-2026
As I mentioned above, I've been reworking the VC panel and gauges. This is the result thus far:
One thing I don't like and it's not something that can be corrected and it's personal preference. . .the glare from the nav lights casts a hue on the interior that changes the colors. Don't care for that, sorry. As for the jet whine, it is annoying but after a time I found I can block it out. . .also the beep, beep, beep when rpm reaches a certain point. . .gone. . .I don't need that droning in my ear. . . .I'll fly it as fast and as far beyond limits as I care to so I don't need that in my ear along with the "whine".
Great Heli! lol
One thing I don't like and it's not something that can be corrected and it's personal preference. . .the glare from the nav lights casts a hue on the interior that changes the colors. Don't care for that, sorry. As for the jet whine, it is annoying but after a time I found I can block it out. . .also the beep, beep, beep when rpm reaches a certain point. . .gone. . .I don't need that droning in my ear. . . .I'll fly it as fast and as far beyond limits as I care to so I don't need that in my ear along with the "whine".
Great Heli! lol
here at the Outhouse. I'm confident that I'm not the only person who would greatly appreciate them. 
Dutcheeseblend
Blenderer
Looks very nice!
DaveB
Charter Member
Nice clear textures Ed
Having looked at the aircraft.cfg, the nav lights appear to be referenced from there so it should be a simple matter of swapping them for something less visible.
On the Alouette II.. you don't get an audible warning you're overstressing the engine. Instead.. you start falling out of the sky!!
ATB
DaveB
Having looked at the aircraft.cfg, the nav lights appear to be referenced from there so it should be a simple matter of swapping them for something less visible.
On the Alouette II.. you don't get an audible warning you're overstressing the engine. Instead.. you start falling out of the sky!!
ATB
DaveB
Dutcheeseblend
Blenderer
Ok, short review
Nice looking addon! Because we have the AIII in the Dutch Airforce, I like this bird very much and it might be my favourite heli addon (didn't get fully satisfied with other helos I own).
The model is nice, somehow I expect the creator of the addon is a native modeler. The model is very nice. There are a lot of parts on an AIII, and the author replicated them in a convincing way. This applies also to the rotorhead, which is modelled very well and the swashplate is animated. Engine is done very well.
Looking at her from the front, disappoints me a bit. I think the model isn't smooth enough there. The 'exterior interior' (cockpit from the outside) is disappointing as well. At least, the developer could have made the textures a bit more vivid. For example, in the VC three coloured elastic straps at the back wall (we call such a thing a 'spin' in Dutch, spider), while the are totally absent in the exterior model. They could have been added as a texture, which is good enough already.
All doors can be opened, nice! Rotorhub, tailrotor and engine modelling is very good!
What I miss is the surface treatment. There are a few apparent bulbs on the outer surface of the real thing, that are just represented as texture here. Bump maps could have been added as well, these are pretty simple to add and increase the overall look in an astonishing amount IMHO. Panel lines are done with two tones, to give them some depth, but rivets aren't. I miss that.
Several features could be switched on and off with the Shift+4 menu, that's very nice, I like that!
Interior: same applies as for exterior. Good modelling, a bit too less detail at some places though. And the textures are a bit plain. Gauges are 3D, which means it's a winner for me. Most gauges have some kind of knob, these are functional as well.
The sound is nice, but I conclude they are completely controlled by the sound gauge of Douglas Dawson. IMHO, this isn't needed for normal sounds, which can be controlled by FSX itself. Only extra sounds need to be done with the sound gauge, that's my preference at least. You can observe there's no difference in sound when in Tower view or in Spot view. There is a difference between interior and exterior sound by the way.
Knobs also feature sound, I like that.
Cockpit textures are in French, which isn't a problem really, but the Tooltip labels are also in French which isn't very nice.
I don't know really about the flight model. It isn't very easy to fly this helo, but still easy enough. There's not very much power, I discovered.
I want to conclude by saying that it's a very nice addon and I recommend everyone to give it a try. Will be used by myself frequently.
+1 for Squirrel! If you read this Squirrel, I advice you to think about some improvements yet. A v2 could really make a winner! Anyway, thanks a lot for this one!
Daan
Nice looking addon! Because we have the AIII in the Dutch Airforce, I like this bird very much and it might be my favourite heli addon (didn't get fully satisfied with other helos I own).
The model is nice, somehow I expect the creator of the addon is a native modeler. The model is very nice. There are a lot of parts on an AIII, and the author replicated them in a convincing way. This applies also to the rotorhead, which is modelled very well and the swashplate is animated. Engine is done very well.
Looking at her from the front, disappoints me a bit. I think the model isn't smooth enough there. The 'exterior interior' (cockpit from the outside) is disappointing as well. At least, the developer could have made the textures a bit more vivid. For example, in the VC three coloured elastic straps at the back wall (we call such a thing a 'spin' in Dutch, spider), while the are totally absent in the exterior model. They could have been added as a texture, which is good enough already.
All doors can be opened, nice! Rotorhub, tailrotor and engine modelling is very good!
What I miss is the surface treatment. There are a few apparent bulbs on the outer surface of the real thing, that are just represented as texture here. Bump maps could have been added as well, these are pretty simple to add and increase the overall look in an astonishing amount IMHO. Panel lines are done with two tones, to give them some depth, but rivets aren't. I miss that.
Several features could be switched on and off with the Shift+4 menu, that's very nice, I like that!
Interior: same applies as for exterior. Good modelling, a bit too less detail at some places though. And the textures are a bit plain. Gauges are 3D, which means it's a winner for me. Most gauges have some kind of knob, these are functional as well.
The sound is nice, but I conclude they are completely controlled by the sound gauge of Douglas Dawson. IMHO, this isn't needed for normal sounds, which can be controlled by FSX itself. Only extra sounds need to be done with the sound gauge, that's my preference at least. You can observe there's no difference in sound when in Tower view or in Spot view. There is a difference between interior and exterior sound by the way.
Knobs also feature sound, I like that.
Cockpit textures are in French, which isn't a problem really, but the Tooltip labels are also in French which isn't very nice.
I don't know really about the flight model. It isn't very easy to fly this helo, but still easy enough. There's not very much power, I discovered.
I want to conclude by saying that it's a very nice addon and I recommend everyone to give it a try. Will be used by myself frequently.
+1 for Squirrel! If you read this Squirrel, I advice you to think about some improvements yet. A v2 could really make a winner! Anyway, thanks a lot for this one!
Daan
falcon409
SOH-CM-2026
I had planned to do some additional work but discovered that with one or two exceptions, the gauges are part of the mdl file and can't be adjusted at all. One of the improvements I planned would have required a slight readjustment of some of the gauges, but that's not possible so I'll put what I have in a zip and post it here tomorrow,
gastonj
Members +
Hi,
Do you know that in France we are proud enough to speak French ? lol
JMC
Ok, short review
Cockpit textures are in French, which isn't a problem really, but the Tooltip labels are also in French which isn't very nice.
Daan
Do you know that in France we are proud enough to speak French ? lol
JMC
Bien vu Gaston!
Dutcheeseblend
Blenderer
Yes, I know
Well, I'm proud of speaking Dutch, so proud enough to put Dutch gauges in my Fokker cockpits. Labelling though is done in English, to keep it understandable for the end user.
falcon409
SOH-CM-2026
I'm working on this one. . .at least for the cockpit labels. I'm doing an English text version as well which I'll release by the weekend, just have to find time to get it completed.
Can anyone advise which file to delete to eliminate the turbine whine? I deleted the entire sound folder and the whine persists.
Quelqu'un peut-il conseiller le fichier à supprimer pour éliminer le sifflement de turbine ? Je supprimé le dossier de son entier et le sifflement persiste.
;-)
Quelqu'un peut-il conseiller le fichier à supprimer pour éliminer le sifflement de turbine ? Je supprimé le dossier de son entier et le sifflement persiste.
;-)
falcon409
SOH-CM-2026
A bit of experimentation has proved fruitless, lol
I tried renaming those four wav files and then restarting the sim. I noticed two things. . .well actually three. 1) when you rename any of those wav files you get a pop-up on startup that says it can't find the wav file. So you have to click your way through 4 of those. Once in the sim comes #2) the exterior sounds don't seem to have been affected much. . .maybe a bit but the "whine" is still there just not as loud (I don't think). 3) the interior sounds are gone, at least on my one attempt they were.
My take on the sounds is that I'm not gonna mess with them. It seems that once I did, if I loaded a saved flight with the Alouette III, I had to load another airplane once the sim started and then reload the Heli to get the sounds back. I haven't been able to load the Heli once since I renamed one of the sound files and have it load with the sounds running as they should which for me is a PITA and not worth the trouble.
I tried renaming those four wav files and then restarting the sim. I noticed two things. . .well actually three. 1) when you rename any of those wav files you get a pop-up on startup that says it can't find the wav file. So you have to click your way through 4 of those. Once in the sim comes #2) the exterior sounds don't seem to have been affected much. . .maybe a bit but the "whine" is still there just not as loud (I don't think). 3) the interior sounds are gone, at least on my one attempt they were.
My take on the sounds is that I'm not gonna mess with them. It seems that once I did, if I loaded a saved flight with the Alouette III, I had to load another airplane once the sim started and then reload the Heli to get the sounds back. I haven't been able to load the Heli once since I renamed one of the sound files and have it load with the sounds running as they should which for me is a PITA and not worth the trouble.
Dutcheeseblend
Blenderer
Falcon, you might need to find out about the sound gauge of Douglas Dawson. Simply disabling the thing in the panel.cfg will disable all the sounds it plays. In some .ini file, the filepaths and filenames are defined.
It's very interesting that the developer used this gauge as main sound drive. I wonder what his arguments were.
It's very interesting that the developer used this gauge as main sound drive. I wonder what his arguments were.