Optional Improvements

Sound

Terrain Avoidance

Autopilot

Auto-Hover

Traffic Collision Avoidance System

Digital Fuel Gauge

The aircraft can be enhanced by some additional downloads to improve sound, add terrain avoidance instruments, add auto-hover, and add an autopilot. You can also add a traffic collision avoidance overlay to the GPS. The X2 may or may not be equipped with all of these systems.

Sound: Since I don't have any sound equipment, the sound for this aircraft defaults via alias to the Robinson R-22. For a turbo-shaft powered helicopter like the X2, those sounds really don't cut it.  Aliasing the sound to any of the S-70 helicopters available on www.hovercontrol.com would be a considerable improvement.

Terrain Avoidance: The right MFD has been set up to be used as a moving map or TV camera, using the old trick of placing another view underneath the panel. The Radio icon turns the MFD on and off. If the view placed under the view is the Virtual Cockpit view, and the view is clicked on with the mouse, it actually behaves quite like an in-cockpit TV camera.

For terrain avoidance, I've suggest using the TerraVue gauge by Glenn Copeland. It can be found at www.flightsim.com by searching for terravue.zip. It includes installation instructions. Once the gauge is installed, it can be included in the panel by removing comment characters (//) from the following line under window03 in the panel.cfg file:

gauge01=TerraVue!TerraVue3,612,518,215,211

When you press the Radio icon, the panel will toggle between the TerraVue gauge and the TV Camera view. That can be very helpful, particularly when trying to land on an oil rig.

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Autopilot: Having an autopilot helps with fatigue if you are flying more than about 20 miles, and maintains a constant altitude so ATC doesn't continually yell at you while flying under IFR. Antti Pankkonen's autopilot works with FS9 helicopters as long as you don't make radical changes in heading or altitude while on autopilot. The autopilot is available on www.flightsim.com. Search for the following file: haphudv1.zip and download it. You will need to copy the gauges to your default Gauge directory. In this one case, you do not need to do the edits to the panel.cfg and aircraft.cfg files mentioned in the instructions, since those files have been pre-edited for this particular download.  

Auto-hover: Arne Bartel's auto-hover gauge is very helpful when landing on narrow platforms such as oil rigs. It is distributed with many helicopters on www.flightsim.com, so you may already have it. If not, it can be obtained as part of the file: as332rh3.zip. The gauge required is the file as532_hover.gau. Panel.cfg has already been pre-edited for this gauge.

Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) Garmin GPS 500 Overlay: Arne Bartel has also developed a traffic radar module which overlays the GPS 500. If you wish to use this module, download the file: trfrd201.zip from www.flightsim.com and follow the installation instructions. These helicopters already use the GPS 500, so no changes are required.

Digital Fuel Gauge: Gustavo Baumgarten's digital fuel gauge is a useful addition, since it gives a digital fuel readout for left, right, or all tanks, depending on how the switch is set.  It can be obtained on www.flightsim.com. The filename is: gaubaumg.zip.   Install as directed in the zip file.  In panel.cfg, comment out the first gauge18 under Window00 using //, and then remove the comment characters (//) from the second gauge18 and save the file.

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