AlphaOneSix

There is no accessory gearbox (well, there is on the engines, but that's not where the generators are). The generators are mounted on and driven by the main gearbox. EDIT: The older TV2-117 engines on earlier Mi-8 helicopters had a DC starter/generator mounted on the engine gearbox, and a single AC generator mounted on the main gearbox. When they switched to the TV3-117, the engines lost the starter generators and gained air turbine starters, and a second AC generator was mounted to the main gearbox.

You are correct! Or I guess I should say your friend is correct. The light stays on when temporarily interrupted by the pedal microswitches, it only goes out when you turn the heading channel off completely.

Your tail rotor is always pulling the helicopter to the left. To counteract that, you add some bank to the right. The more thrust your tail rotor is producing, the more right bank you'll need. For reference, zero thrust (flat pitch) for the tail rotor is just a little more than halfway from centered to full right. With the pedals centered, the tail rotor blades are at about 8.5 degrees of pitch angle.

*Rotor RPM

How are you starting the aircraft? It almost sounds like you are not turning on the left and right fuel tank pumps and your service tank is running out of fuel.

There are two types of slingload systems for the Mi-8. One is rated at 3000kg, and the other is rated at 5000kg. 11023lb is equivalent to 5000kg. We'll just have to assume that we have the 5000kg system on this aircraft. However, as you've already seen, with an empty weight around 7200kg and an external load of 5000kg you don't have a lot of extra weight to spare for crew and fuel.

In real life they are not heavy. Maybe 50 kilos for both of them together.

Yes. Maybe not those specific types, however.In the U.S., a company I've worked with uses filters similar to those (specifically: http://www.pall.com/main/aerospace-defense-marine/product.page?id=53117) in place of the PZUs. The PZUs are roughly 70% effective, while the larger filters are quite a bit more effective than that (though I don't have actual numbers). EDIT: I'm not personally a fan because it means I can't use the hatch to get on top of the aircraft for routine maintenance.

I do not know, sorry.

The switch is used to connect the rectifier buses to the battery buses in the event of a failure of the DMR-200D reverse current relay. Due to diodes that are installed in the system, current can only flow from the rectifier buses to the battery buses, current cannot flow from the battery buses to the rectifier buses using the "MAINS TO RECT" switch. In the event of a failure of the DMR-200D reverse current relay, the batteries will begin powering the battery buses, since the rectifier buses no longer have a path to ththe battery buses. If you, as the aircrew, were not aware of this, you could end up with dead batteries and a failure of any component powered by the battery bus. So the "MAINS ON BATT" light (or whatever it is depending on the translation of the day) comes on to notify you of this situation, at which time you turn on the "MAINS TO RECT" switch (again depending on translations) to manually connect the rectifier buses to the battery buses.

Well pilots are trained to avoid VRS in the first place. It certainly exists, I've been in the back of an Mi-17 on training flights where we've done it on purpose several times. I suppose you should be thankful that none of the pilots you flew with ever got you into that situation. It's similar to mast bumping in a way. It's a phenomenon that certainly exists in helicopters with teetering main rotor systems, but how many people have had it happen to them? An extremely small number, since all pilots of the affected aircraft are taught early on how to avoid it.

You'll need to use Bootcamp.

The yaw channel only attempts to keep the nose pointed in the same direction it was pointed when your feet left the pedals. It doesn't care at all about sideslip, just the direction the nose is pointed.

Gah! I meant rectifiers! I've been working on a Bell 412 for the last couple of weeks so I have inverters on the brain. Sorry.

Just a wild guess, but if blade pitch animations are being worked on, it may be that they are currently stuck at full left pedal pitch until the feature is more complete? I have no idea I'm just tossing that out there.

This works. You could also use just external AC powers and then turn on the batteries, then turn on external AC power, then turn on the inverters.

The picture in your original post is what full left pedal looks like. Full left pedal should be just over 6 degrees of pitch. Odd... For reference, centered pedals should be roughly 8 degrees...the other way.

Yeah, pilot error. Pilot tried an RTT (return to target maneuver) without enough altitude and "oops". There was no flame form the exhaust. If that was referring to the flash at about 6 seconds, that's the anti-collision light on the engine nacelle.

The "Raider" name for the S-97 is purely a Sikorsky name. Were it ever to be brought into U.S. Army service, it would very likely get a new name.

Turning off the service tank fuel pump may not starve the engines of fuel, as the engine-driven fuel pumps will continue to pull fuel from the service tank. The service pump just helps provide positive pressure to prevent cavitation. Best way to turn off the engines is to use the overhead fuel cutoff levers. The collective (along with the twist throttle/ECLs) is physically connected to the engine RPM control levers on the engine fuel controls themselves, so pulling up on the collective will always result in a rise in engine power output.

Bushmanni is on the right track.

No, there is currently no fix. The real helicopter obviously would crash if it lost that much of its tail. If I could reliably reproduce the tail being removed, followed by continued flight, I'd submit it as a bug report.

The fix is for the Ka-50 to crash and burn. It can't really fly without a tail, you know.

Holy crap those are fast landings! How fast are people expecting to be able to land in the dirt with skids? What happens when you try it at a realistic speed, like 5-10 knots?

Mi-8 has the heaviest rotor blades of any helicopter I've ever worked on. I have not worked on Chinooks, but their rotor blades weight almost exactly the same. There is not another helicopter in the same weight class as an Mi-8 with heavier rotor blades. The chord of the blades is also comparable to other helicopters in the same class. My point, I guess, is that the blades on Mil helicopters are not lighter nor are they appreciably narrower than other helicopters in the same weight class.