I do not know how it was before, but at the moment it's impossible to get gold in the competition.
I tried to change the control settings, I tried a simple and advanced flight model.
I pass the track on extremely permissible speeds. Perhaps in the game were changes in the influence of inertia, the lift of helicopters or their maximum speed. On all routes there are sites where these influences bring big losses of time, which makes time for gold unattainable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD_Helicopters_MD_500
The maximum speed is 282 km / h
Cruising speed - 250 km / h
I tried to reach the cruising speed in the editor and get:
The maximum speed is 230 km / h
Cruising speed - 210 km / h
I suppose that the existing speed limit limits the results in the competition.