One of the very few working Helicopters for BeamNG.drive, now updated and improved! Original mod made by @DrowsySam this version is based on the previously fixed Bell 407 uploaded by @Eren28 here. Features Increased maneuverability Completely new control scheme that makes the helicopter more agile than ever before. Still completely powered by JBeam and the games aerodynamics simulation. The new controls use linkages connected to the blades of the main rotor to simulate a real helicopter swashplate, giving it proper collective and cyclic controls. Fully remappable controls The helicopter now uses fully remappable vehicle specific bindings. Each binding can also make use of the filtering settings to change its responsiveness (depending if it is a key or controller input). Additional controls Activating the parking brake or regular brake will engage the rotor brake (useful for slowing down the rotor after shutting down the engine, not recommended while in flight). Pressing the Fog light key binding (default ALT + N) will toggle the spotlight. Turning on the vehicle lights (default N) will enable the interior and position lights, switching to high beams will enable the landing light. Custom skin and color support A colorable version of the default skin and several liveries provided by @AverageGameEnjoyer_ are included. Improved Cockpit Reduced warping of the flight stick model, and the collective control and tail rotor pedals now move with your inputs as well! Some of the cockpit instruments also display more accurate measurements now. Functional Tow Hook Attach cargo loads using the coupler on the end of the hook or use the node grabber. Lifting capacity is a little over 1000kg, this might vary depending on the altitude of the map you are on. New Sounds Added new turbine and starter sounds for the engine. Functional Weapons Includes working .50cal machineguns, miniguns, and even a rocket launcher! Weaponized configs also include a crosshair inside the cockpit for easier aiming from first person view. Default bindings for weapons are: Rockets: Left Shift or Left Trigger Guns: Space or Right Trigger How to fly Takeoff If the engine is off, start it by holding down the V key. Make sure you are in "D" gear and the parking brake is off. Wait until the rotor has finished spinning up, the engine RPM should be at or close to redline. Throttle is controlled automatically, no manual throttle input is required. Lift the helicopter off the ground using the Collective Up control. Controller: Left analog stick up Keyboard: Up arrow key Flying Hold the helicopter steady using the Cyclic Pitch and Roll controls. Controller: Right analog stick Keyboard: T, G, F, H keys Use the Collective controls to move the helicopter up or down. Controller: Left analog stick up and down Keyboard: Up and down arrow keys Use the Tail Rotor Yaw controls to turn the helicopter in the direction you want to face. Controller: Left analog stick sideways Keyboard: Left and right arrow keys If you are having trouble keeping the helicopter stable refer to the next section. Pilot Assists Press Ctrl + Q or use the small ESC button next to the engine start button to switch between the different assist modes: Off: no assists. Stabilize: will try to hold the helicopters rotation. Auto Level: will automatically level the helicopter and prevent it from flipping over. Detailed Changelog: Version 1.2.1 Added 20mm autocannon Added 200mm howitzers (yes you read that right, and yes it is stupid) Major updates to weapon code Made explosion sound for rockets louder Version 1.2 Hotfix 1 Made miniguns slightly more powerful Rockets explode more consistently Bullets are a bit less bouncy and slidy, but can still bounce at shallow angles Fixed misplaced gearbox in JBeam Reduced drag of weapons slightly Version 1.2 (Weapon & Livery Update) Added functional .50cal machine guns Added functional miniguns Added functional unguided rocket launchers Added optinal crosshair to cockpit for easier aiming Added several new liveries provided by @AverageGameEnjoyer_ Added 8 new configs Several small tweaks and bug fixes Version 1.1 Hotfix 1 Tweaked rotor strength values Fixed heli sometimes spinning around after breaking off the main rotor Version 1.1 (Realism Update) JBeam: General: Removed second invisible counterrotating main rotor Redesigned main rotor to allow blade flapping and lead/lag Split up vehicle jbeam for better support of custom parts in the future Some general stability improvements Visual: PBR skin is now equipped by default and includes a default color scheme Reenabled rotor blade blur Lua: Added lua controller that passively compensates for aerodynamic effects Added lua controller for active pilot assists with 3 drivemodes Version 1.0 (now Bell407_legacy.zip) JBeam: General: Changed main rotor controls to adjust individual blade pitch instead of tilting the entire rotor Adjusted collisions and breakgroups for rotors Fixed most of the console warnings about duplicate and zero-length beams Fixed missing beam in tail rotor causing vibrations at high rotor RPM Adjusted lots of JBeam values for better stability and less vibrations in flight Small adjustments to aero and weight distribution Added torsion bar in tail section to strengthen it against twisting Added a few triangles to close some holes in the tail section Fixed chase camera position Added functional tow hook Removed "Bell 407 Electrics" part because it didn't contain anything anymore Removed redundant "Bell 407" from part names Added "Paint Design" slot for custom skin support Powertrain: Engine throttle is controlled automatically to support new controls (engine automatically goes to full throttle in drive, and idles while in neutral, lift is controlled by collective input only) Removed all gears except "D" and "N", and made "D" the default gear on spawn Torque converter no longer multiplies engine output power Adjusted engine power and rotor speed to be more in line with its real life counterpart Added locked differentials between rotors to ensure consistent RPM Rotor sound now depends on RPM of the physical rotor instead of engine RPM Added new separate turbine and starter sounds for the engine Sound credit: Explorer Helicopter Engine Start Up Ignition Sequence and Idle .wav by Paul368 -- https://freesound.org/s/410604/ -- License: Attribution 4.0 Cut and modified by stefan750 Visual: Added moving collective control Tail rotor pedals now move with yaw input Improved stability of flight stick and reduced warping of the mesh Fixed spotlight facing in the wrong direction and adjusted range and FOV Adjusted interior and landing lights (lowbeam activates interior and position lights, highbeam activates landing lights) Model/Textures: Minor changes to 3D model to make cockpit flight controls move correctly Switched from materials.cs to main.materials.json and skin.materials.json Added a colorable variant of the default skin with PBR enabled Lua: Removed vsi.lua and moved code into 407electrics.lua Force the gearbox into "D" gear while in Arcade mode so it spawns correctly Fixed vertical speed indicator displaying incorrect values due to naming conflict in electrics Increased airspeed indicator accuracy across its entire range Rotor RPM indicator is now based on physical rotor RPM Heading indicator now rotates in the correct direction Added 407controls.lua for input events and filtering Inputs: Added vehicle specific bindings for lift, pitch, roll and yaw Inputs can now make use of the the different filter settings in the controls menu Donations: If you like my work and want to help out by fueling me with more coffee you can do so here: https://ko-fi.com/stefan750
Holy shit this is fucking amazing, did you adapt the propeller pitch from the B25 or? --- Post updated --- Yea, copy and paste the image in the textbox instead of uploading
Thank you! I'm not sure how the B25 does it, but since its a plane I assume it adjusts all propeller blades at the same time to change thrust. The heli does the same with the collective controls, but for turning it works differently. For example to roll the helicopter left the blades on the right side have to produce more lift than the ones on the left, so each blade needs to have a different pitch depending on which side of the heli it is on. I can not edit the original post in any way right now, it keeps telling me the content is spam-like or contains inappropriate content... I'm not sure what's triggering it, I just want to fix the broken formatting .
thanks man --- Post updated --- Ive just realized your acc is from 2013 and this is your firts message :skull:
Just slightly, the body is a bit less wobbly and I changed some of the strength values, especially on the rotors. Also I just realized my reply to your first message is still awaiting mod approval before its visible, so again in short: It's quite different from the B25, every rotor blade has a different pitch depending on where it is in the rotation to make the helicopter turn.
Yea good to hear, the old rotor and rear fuselage are both really cardboard-like Damn, that's really cool. I hope manufactures make a helicopter sim rig --- Post updated --- Also just making sure, the collective is the throttle right?
It functions the same as a throttle input when flying. But the actual engine always runs at a constant RPM and the collective just changes how much lift the rotor produces.
Uh, then how do you do that with an axis like an aircraft throttle? since they aren't like joysticks and buttons
With any axis input it will hover at 50% input, below 50% it will go down and above 50% it will go up.
@stefan750 What sim gear do you use for this? --- Post updated --- Also are you interested in other aviation projects? me and @jgb are working on a Tu-154 from an abandoned project, if you are interested in anything regarding collaborations in BeamNG Aviation then join the discord server here to further discuss this matter: https://discord.gg/79nEbNnw Also would be really cool if you can make an Me-262 PBR fix lol, I recently fixed the paint issues but its still a bit outdated without PBR
Most of the time I use an RC transmitter with a USB adapter for flying. It takes up way less space than a flight stick + throttle but still has way more precise sticks than a controller and a few extra analog sliders and knobs on it. Yeah the game definitely needs more aircraft . I don't have much time to properly work on something bigger at the moment, but if you need some help with lua or finetuning some parts of the JBeam I could probably do that. I just about managed to convert the existing textures into color and palette maps to make the separate parts colorable and get the metallic and other sliders in the color selector to work, but I'm not an artist so I can't really make new textures.
That is the most cursed way I have heard of playing BeamNG lol I'm pretty sure that it's got all the files, the only issue is that some of the code in the material.cs file doesn't work anymore, a new json file should fix it but its up to you really
