Nemeth Designs MD500 Defender

By Nigel C. Martin
14 August 2009

I will start this review with an admission, I love helicopters and hereby promise to give a balanced review, 'warts an all' no bias, I promise... OK that over with, let's get cracking. I won't dwell on the history, but this little baby has been established and in the air way back in 1963, becoming one of most successful light turbine helicopters used in the military and civil arenas to this day.

So, if you haver ever seen any of the 'pack' (well worth seeking out if you have not seen any!) shots of this program you will now appreciate the next word...Awesome! The detail looks incredible, especially in FSX. I am, it has to said, a convert to FSX. OK, this in part has been dictated by my operating system now being Vista, but I love it. FSX performs superbly well especially now Squawkbox is available, to the great unwashed.

INSTALLATION

So to the program. My copy is a download This was not an onerous task, at all caution, though the file is 106 MB, so get yourself a big cup of coffee or another beverage and prepare to watch in awe as the process starts, and the many files land on your computer. Once the zip file is ready, double click, and follow the prompts, and hew presto, you have several millions of £'s worth of helicopter to play with! Look out for a PDF manual, you will need it.

Guess that is about it, all pretty seamless really. So let's get to the best part...

OBSERVATION AND IN USE

Once you have selected on the many options on offer in the aircraft selection window, civil or military, you can consider the vexing question of how to get this baby into the sky without, well, embarrassing yourself! Before we move on, as you see the options rotating, you cannot help but notice the incredible graphic quality of the MD500N's on offer. I decided to go for one of the kick-butt military options. So selection made, choose your favorite airport and starting position, and wait a few seconds, and there it is, running hot.

A big smile on my face, wow the detail is fantastic! I started as I always do, with an external 'walk' around the helo. You can't help but notice the incredible detail at every level, and every cm exudes quality. Now this is how a paid for offering should be.

At every level it is 10/10, well actually 9/10, I will cover that later... The nav lights and strobe oh so often let a package down, but not here. To reinforce this view, take a look at the nose landing light, it looks, well, 'real' can't get better than that. The lighting in darkened conditions is very convincing both from the exterior and interior.

Zoom in to the fuselage and the quality holds the closest scrutiny. You can see the crew sitting patiently. They have been created to the highest graphic standard. Again the crew can look ridiculous, not here my friends. As we talk about people, when you select the SWAT/SPECIAL FORCES version, i.e., a number of heavily armed soldiers sitting in the open side doors, you will take a sharp intake of breath when you take off as the legs of the guys in the doors actually move with gravity, i.e., swing out and in on respective sides. Now that is incredible, and great attention to detail. One of the review shots shows this effect.

The interior is at the same level of detail as the exterior. There is no compromise on detail at any level, side walls, carpets; in fact the civil version has a more 'opulent' look about it. I guess at the price tag on of these beauties, it should look the part!

The instrument panel and of course the instruments are a work of art. In both the military and civil versions the pilot figure moves in proportion with your control inputs, and that action is very animated and realistic.

The rotor blades work exceptionally well, and look very realistic. Now the sound, just perfection! As you increase speed, and add the collective, there is a very evident noise change, as in real life; fantastic. On the ground, if you close down, the sounds are very clearly (that's my guess!) digitally recorded, because they are superb, very real.

All fuelled up, flight plan logged, turned the key (figure of speech!) started up, plenty of sky above, about time to take to the skies!

Let's be honest, flying a helicopter is not the easiest thing to do, so doing the job well will need some practice. Hovering is the key, master that and you are a chopper jock! That is always the place I like to start with, so apply the collective and lift, you immediately realise the graphic detail is not the only accurate thing to adore. The aircraft 'bip's and pob's' around a bit until you have put in some practice, well, a fair amount, if the truth be known, but it will come. Hang in there, quite literally!

When you can taxi-hover to the threshold, you ought to start paying yourself a wage as a MD500N pilot! Buzzing around feels very nice indeed. I am sure this resembles the flight dynamics of the actual bird, or as close as it can be within FSX.

I found while in the air adjusting the coms a tad awkward, mainly due to distance away from me. I then realised you can, by hitting one button, call up the coms in a big window, which allows you to alter the all important coms rapidly, then minimise the screen...nice.

Don't get me wrong, you can adjust the coms, nav, squawk by zooming to the lower middle panel, but still not the easiest thing to do in flight; pre-lift no worries. There is a tremendous amount of interactive switches found inside the cockpit area.

Landing, coming in at a sensible speed, decent, raising the nose to bleed-off the speed, down on the collective, at this point, popped out to the exterior shot to ensure a nice gentle controlled landing. Great.

CONCLUSION

As I think you may have gathered by now, this offering is without doubt a benchmark in quality standards in my view. However, there are some incredible offerings as freeware; guess you all know who I am referring too.

Oh yes, why 9/10? As mentioned earlier? The keen of eye will have noticed the faces of the pilots, and the soldiers look very similar...no, the same! The same face has been pasted on each body... OK pedantic, one may cry, but when the detail on offer is at this level, you cannot help but notice a disappointing feature like this. You see that is about it, no more negative comment! All positive.

I have always liked this helicopter type, and am very excited to get it installed. Well I loaded it within FSX, and spent hours flying around... After installing it initially, it has to say with some trepidation, hoping not to be disappointed, I was not! If you like helicopters and you do not have this in the hangar, get it now! You will definitely not be disappointed.

SYSTEM USED

AMD Phenom 9950 Quad Core
2.60 GHz
2GB Ram
G-Force 9500GT
Windows Vista
Microsoft Flight Simulator FSX

Onwards and Upwards.