drPhibes

They would have to pass under the Øresund bridge, which has 57m of clearence. That might be an issue (I have no idea how tall the superstructure of a modern carrier is).

I have flown choppers in DCS for hundreds of hours without ffb, and while it would certainly be nice to have, it is by no means necessary. It's not like racing games (iracing, assetto corsa etc) where ffb wheels are absolutely essential.

Nine years later, I finally got around to updating the skin pack with roughmet textures: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/2100844/ Feel free to report any bugs here.

No, the "without springs and FFB" option (which is labelled "none" in the gazelle options) is definitely not the right trim for a regular stick with centering springs. Of the four options available in the Gazelle, it's the only one that's not usable at all, since it does nothing to the trim in the game. It's meant to activate force trim in the physical stick, for devices that have such fancy features.

Some tips: Input: When learning the basics of hovering, you'll never need the full travel of the stick, so reducing the Y saturation on both the pitch and roll axis and/or adding a curve helps a lot (especially in twitchy birds like the Gazelle). Then you can just dial the settings back when you feel like you are starting to master the basics. Trim: First of all, configure your trimmer. The Gazelle has a trim hat on the cyclic in addition to the traditional magnetic brake that most helicopters have, so you can use both. Generally, I use the magnetic brake when doing stuff like transitioning from hover to forwards flight (or vice versa), and the hat for fine tuning (either in a hover of in ff). I have a non-ffb stick (Orion2 ViperAce Ex) and use the "Instant" cyclic trim type in the special options. This is the same as the "Default" mode mentioned in vsTerminus' excellent Mi8 video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt8-BkGShTw) Regarding the helicopters themselves, perhaps the most important thing to know is that no helicopter in DCS is trimmed for a hover when the stick is centered. In the Gazelle I generally trim to the rear and left, so that the top and right points of the diamond touch the vertical and horizontal lines in the control indicator. I don't like pedal trim, but the red line at the bottom shows a good pedal input for a IGE hover with no yaw:

The FAA Helicopter flying handbook is worth checking out. Not all of it is that relevant for sim flight, but there's a lot of good info there. And it's free! https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/helicopter_flying_handbook

50m seems abough right according to my flying tape measure:

They are 110kV "Donaumasten" (Danube towers/masts), which are typically around 25m tall.

This +1 nonsense will just get the thread locked. Read up on rule 1.14.

They are both implemented.

The 2,1° offset places the localizer centerline (CL) pretty much down the center of the Målselv valley. Here's a crude illustration made in google earth: 1: The CL, offset 2,1° from the runway centerline. 2/3: the outer limits of the course sector (CS). The course sector is the region defined by the maximum left and right deflection (5 dots in the ADI/cross pointer) of the LOC bar in the ADI, with the deflection decreasing linearly as you approach the CL. Max deflection = ±15,5% (or 150μA) DDM. The CS for Bardufoss LOC 28 is 5°, i.e. 2,5° to each side of the CL. 4/5: The outer limits of the course signal (±10°). Between 2-4 and 3-5, the ADI will show full left/right deflection. 6/7: The outer limits of the clearence sector (only applicable for dual frequency/capture effect localizers). The clearence signal can be seen as an extension of what I described in the previous paragraph, giving a full deflection ADI. Having no offset would place the CL and CS too close to the mountain to the right of the #3 line.

The course setting only affects the command steering symbol, not the LOC/GP bars in the HUD/ADI.

That sounds strange. I flew an approach for RWY28 in the F16, and even though the GP isn't as steep as it should be (it's 3,7° IRL, but DCS defaults to 3°), there is still plenty of terrain clearence:

LOC28 at Bardufoss is offset 2.1° to the north, and the LOC is located to the south of the runway (as opposed to the usual location, along the extender centerline, ~300m beyond the threshold of the reciprocal rwy), so you will definitely get some unusual indications on your CDI when on the ground. https://aim-prod.avinor.no/no/AIP/View/Index/141/2025-06-12-AIRAC/html/eAIP/EN-AD-2.ENDU-en-GB.html#AD-2.ENDU

I think you need to elaborate a bit, since neither of the claimed "even the slightest hover makes it collapse and crash" nor "it is impossible for the helicopter's behavior to drop during a base approach" make any sense.