Alouette III Texture (MPH 08 - 09)

  ALOUETTE III (SA316/SA319)

MPH 08/ MPH 09 (Texture)

Program History

The lineage of the Alouette series of helicopters can be traced back to WWII. The French company Sud-Est manufactured three examples of the German Focke Achgelis FA-223 in 1948. The struggle to make the aircraft stable soon gave way to the more conventional, if slightly odd looking single seat SE3101 which was designed by German engineer Henrich Focke. This aircraft did away with the two contra-rotating three bladed main rotor systems for a single three bladed head and two ‘tail rotors’ mounted at 45 degrees in a ‘V’ configuration. This development then lead to the SE3120 Alouette which ditched the twin tail rotors for a now more conventional single tail rotor and provided a three seat cabin. Although the new design broke helicopter speed and distance records, it was complex and difficult to maintain. The French government (who were funding the project) laid down an ultimatum to get a helicopter into production within two years, or all funding would cease. Out of a number of other designs, one officially labelled as the X-310G was chosen to be mated to the new 260hp Artouste turbine engine and the Alouette II was born.
Although technically unrelated to the original Alouette, the new aircraft used a similar space frame type tail boom and three bladed main rotor head with a pod type cabin. In March 1955, the SE3130 Alouette II conducted its first flight and three months later, was flown to a height of 26,926ft setting a new helicopter altitude record in the process. Production began in 1956 making it the first production helicopter to use a turbine engine. Alouette II production continued until 1975 by when it had been surpassed by the SA315 Lama
With the success of the Alouette II, Sud-Est looked at ways to improve the design and in February 1959, the more powerful SE3160 (designation changed later to SA316A) Alouette III flew. The new aircraft was powered by a 550shp (de-rated from 870shp) Artouste IIIB engine and differing from the Alouette II by having a bigger cabin, a fully enclosed tail boom, three bladed tail rotor and wheeled undercarriage as opposed to skids. In 1968, the SA316B improved on the design by uprating the M/R transmission and increasing the AUW to 4850lbs up 220lbs from the A model. This was followed by the SA316C which was powered by the 660shp (de-rated from 870shp) Artouste IIID engine and then the SA319 which utilised the 660shp (de-rated from 870shp) Astazou XIV engine.
Naturally, the French armed forces were amongst the first to take delivery with the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Sécurité Civile all operating the type. Other notable armed forces included the Argentine Navy, the Belgian and Netherlands Air Forces, the Spanish Air Force and Army and the South African Air Force.
The final aircraft rolled off the French production line in 1979 with 1657 airframes being manufactured by Sud-Est and an additional 738 being made by Sud-Aviation. The aircraft continues to be produced however in limited numbers by Chitak in India. Romania and Switzerland also built the aircraft under license although, in smaller numbers.
Today, the number of flying examples is decreasing with the AS350 and EC145 aircraft becoming more and more prevalent. However, they are still soldiering on with, amongst others, the French Navy, the Indian defence forces (see above) and the Portuguese Air Force along with numerous third world armed services. A browse of the production list shows that the numbers in civilian hands are reducing with many just being listed as “Withdrawn”. In a small way, the type still lives on with the SA315 Lama still being used in limited numbers within the civilian world.

Camille Bachmann’s SA-316 Alouette III (Download Here)

This model has been created by the team of Camille Bachmann, Benoît Dubé (RIP), Jean Michel Renaux, Raphaël Grinevald and Bernard Juniot and was released late last year. These talented designers and developers hang out on the Pilote-Virtuel forum. This is all in French as is the Royal French Navy for Flight Simulator site that hosts the file. The link to the download page is http://royalefrenchnavy.perso.sfr.fr/RFN-Avions.htm. The model focuses on the SA316B however given the similarities between the different variants; it could be used to simulate any model of Alouette III apart from the 319 due to the different engine. Given that the Alouette is disappearing from our skies, I have no real world experience in the type or the Lama. I do have time in the Squirrel which, it could be argued is a direct descendant of the Alouette. Therefore, my basis for this review will draw simply on my knowledge of aerodynamics and what I have picked up from people who have flown this or the Lama. It has been tested with FSX Acceleration and P3D, although, I’m not sure what version. The flight testing for this review has been conducted in Steam.

Download and Installation

The compressed file is 115mb with no fancy installer. Just placing the enclosed Effects, Gauges, Simobjects and Sounds folders in your main FSX directory installs the aircraft. This aircraft uses Doug Dawson’s dsd_fsx_xml_sound.gau file. If you have another add-on that uses this, it’ll ask you to overwrite. Uncompressed, the files come to 444MB. Pretty small compared to other add-ons. Within the Simobjects folder there are two different models, a winch model and one without a winch plus eight textures depicting, as far as I can ascertain, real world aircraft with an exception. One of their team was lost during development and so a fictitious livery is included to honour him. All of the liveries are from France or Switzerland.

Model and Textures

Base On Texture Grab The Mauritius Alouette III from Here Just Below.

SPECIAL THANKS TO MAYUR BHAWANEEDIN 
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