Cowan Simulation's 222

I'll start this review with a story, as pilots are wont to do. It was late 1998 in Charlotte and I was in the office of the lead pilot for MedCenter Air in Charlotte, North Carolina wrapping up a very brief job interview for a fixed-wing position that I am happy to have landed. While seated across the desk from my eventual boss, a distant drumbeat started off which almost felt more in my chest than being audible. After a couple of minutes, the beat had grown audible and the glass in the windows facing out on to the general aviation ramp began to pulsate.

Whawp-whawp-whawp-whawp… the beat grew louder and more insistent with every passing second. Coming in low over the hangar from the direction of downtown Charlotte, a helicopter came into view, started to raise its nose and decelerate and the vibration and pressure exerted by the rotor blades became an almost physical presence even within the closed space of the room. It was in a word – awesome! What I had witnessed was a MedCenter Air Bell 230 going about its daily routine of transporting critical care patients around the Charlotte metro area. The Bell 230 is a basically an improved variant of the Bell 222, so I was understandably excited when I saw that Cowan Simulations (CowanSim) would be bringing the 222 to X-Plane 11. Let’s turn up the subwoofer and dive in.