I’m very late to the game but here I am in 2024 getting around to checking out Polychop Simulations SA342 Gazelle. This light scout/attack/transport helicopter can do a bit of everything depending on how its configured and with my first flight I decided I’d do a bit of sight seeing, a bit of getting a feel for the aircraft and then blast some targets… how did it go? Spoiler: It went well!
First flight out
I know myself well enough with my flight simming preferences that I tend to start out with the fun and “easy” things first and then I’ll dig into the stuff I don’t like quite as much later. With my first flights in any aircraft I aim to do two things. I want to get a feel for the airplane and I want to have fun! So with that in mind… I hot started an SA342L Gazelle with a 20mm Giat cannon and 68mm SNEB Rockets.
First thing I did was setup some controls. After I got things like the trim, the cyclic, collective, and weapons controls set I turned my attention to actually flying the aircraft. Increasing the collective slowly I managed to get the SA342 up into a hover. Very gently it lifted off the ground which was a very welcome experience as I’ve struggled a bit with non-DCS helicopters in them jumping up and off. This very gently left the ground and I started to get a feel for hovering it. And it went well. Very controllable with just a bit of side slip going on.
Time to really fly so I gave it some more collective and the SA342 climbed away. I’d heard that some folks have struggled with gaining height in the helicopter in hot and heavy conditions so I’ll have to go back and try that at some point but in this first instance I found it was able to gain speed and altitude reasonably well. Of course I didn’t want too much altitude because it was time to skim the weeds and see how this thing really handles.
After a while flying around having fun, I punched up waypoint 2 on the nav system which promptly pointed me in the right direction and off I went.
Next part of the experience here was to get some weapons going. First up, the 20mm Giat cannon. After a few test firing moments I turned in on my targets and gave them a burst of cannon. Instant effect with fire! I made several more passes lighting up my setup truck targets. Flag trajectory makes aiming the cannon very easy to do and low dispersion in stabilized flight helps bullseye the target. Very satisfying!
Now time for the SNEB Rockets. My first shot went wide but I corrected and got the next bunch of rockets onto targets. More targets destroyed! Back again with the remaining shots on the cannon before running out of targets to destroy. That was great.
Time to bring it back to base and a surprisingly smooth and controlled landing.
All of that flying took place from the Kharab Ishk helicopter base, located on the territory of the Lafarge factory, in the northern sector of the DCS: Syria map.
First impressions and training suggestions
DCS: SA342 Gazelle has had some issues over the years with lengthy discussions on flight model issues and other modeling troubles. I missed all of that and I’m coming at this module as it is in 2024. With substantial upgrades in place and some big changes to the flight model, it seems clear to me that whatever they did was well worth it. It flies great and it feels good to fly.
More updates are planned so I look forward to seeing those happen but I have walked away from this first flight with exhilaration both over how easy it was for me to pick it up and get in some target practice but also with how well the helicopter flew, how it sounded, and looked.
Before finishing off, I want to also express my gratitude to two tutorial sources. To make this flight happen, I consulted Chuck’s Guides DCS: SA342 Gazelle, which proved invaluable to getting parts of my flight going.
I also watched the entire tutorial series put together by deephack on YouTube. These are reasonably short, to the point, enjoyable tutorials that help get you flying this helicopter in short order. I’ll probably be watching them again to help cement some knowledge but I do recommend if you’re undertaking this journey as well.
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