AlphaOneSix

Yay I voted! Note that I voted for who I think will win, not necessarily who I want to win. In the end, one sports team will out sports the other sports team, and there will be much rejoicing.

It is quite a bit easier to fly in real life than in-game, in my opinion. I, however, am not the pilot, I just fly in the back. I asked one of out pilots just for giggles, and he said that you have to be descending at about 800fpm before you get into settling with power. But hey, he's a former Marine pilot, so I'm not sure I can trust him. ;)

800 feet per minute rate of descent. That's around where the Mi-8 will actually settle (or enter VRS or whatever). Well, that and the usual >20% power applied and airspeed well below ETL (or near zero).

The switching of the Mi-8 tail rotor from the right to the left had a pretty big impact on tail rotor effectiveness. All they did was flip the tail rotor gearbox over. The effect of this was that the fron of the tail rotor now spins up into the downwash of the main rotor, instead of before where the fron edge of the tail rotor was spinning in the same sirection as the main rotor downwash. This is what make it so much more effective than previous versions. As far as I know, this was another of the Mi-14 upgrades that was "ported" back to the Mi-8MT/Mi-17 versions.

They use real world data. It's roughly 12 degrees East.

I don't know, maybe the Ka-50 does have switches in the pedals? More likely, the Kamov bureau implemented an entirely different autopilot. You know, same in some ways, but different in others. It just seems to me that if the Mil bureau solved something like this at least as early as 1970, surely the Kamov guys didn't build helicopters where you had to fight the autopilot's inputs. I would guess that the Ka-50 autopilot is an upgrade/growth/evolution of the Ka-29 autopilot, but alas, I don't have data on it. But I'm sure it's available somewhere, somehow.

My apologies, I do not understand the question. The 20% authority is authority over the hydraulic actuator. On the Mi-8, the swashplate tilt that can be made by the actuator is in the pitch axis is forward 7.5 degrees and rearward 5 degrees, for a total travel of 12.5 degrees. The autopilot has 20% control authority over this movement. Therefore, the autopilot can move the swashplate within a range of 2.5 degrees. In the roll axis, swashplate movement is 4.2 degrees left and 4 degrees right, for a total of 8.2 degrees. Therefore, in the roll axis, the autopilot can move the swashplate within a range of 1.64 degrees.

All turns in the Mi-8 are made with the feet on the pedals as per the pilot's flight manual, resulting in the pedals microswitches being depressed and the yaw channel being "inhibited" for lack of a better word. If you bank without putting your feet on the pedals then yes, the yaw channel will try to hold your heading.

I guess I feel rather strongly about this not only from my general helicopter experience, but my experience with the Mi-8 specifically. The Mi-8 and Mi-6 have an autopilot system that went into production initially in 1970 (very similar systems between the two). In the documentation for that autopilot system, it calls out the problem of fighting the autopilot explicitly [my comments will be italicized in brackets]: The documentation goes on to describe how the compensation transducer is attached to the flight controls, so when the pilot moves the cyclic, it also moves an arm on the compensation transducer. The autopilot computer takes the signal from the compensation transducer and add it into the mix with the rest of the inputs it's getting from the aircraft instruments, effectively cancelling out what the autopilot would have tried to do if the compensation transducer wasn't there. Here is an example. You move the controls to establish a 5 degrees bank angle to the left to initiate a turn. The autopilot recognizes this 5 degree left bank and tries to counter it (up to the limit of its authority) by moving the minor cylinder in the control actuator to force a 5 degree bank to the right. By adding in the compensation transducer, another input is made to the autopilot, in the same amount as the pilot's input. So the autopilot computer effectively provides no input to the actuator. And finally... And this went into production on the Mi-8 and Mi-6 in January, 1970.

Well, in the yaw channel, the heading control is disengaged when the feet are on the microswitches (simulated as movement in the pedals in-game). For the cyclic, the AP doesn't disengage at all, but rather there are "compensation transducers" that give the autopilot computer a signal that effectively negates interference from the autopilot when the cyclic is moved by the pilot. That is, the autopilot *wants* to counteract the pilot's inputs (i.e. fight) but the signal from the compensation transducers cancel it out. Brilliant question. I suspect we won't find out, however, and will have to just live with it and adapt to it like we have.

Exactly. My entire point is that I don't believe that this happens in the real Ka-50. I just don't. Not only is it logically counter-intuitive, but no other helicopter autopilot (or SAS/SCAS) system on the planet does this. While this is exactly true in-game, I'll reiterate that I don't believe it works this way on the real aircraft. Everyone seems to be assuming that it does because it works this way in-game and I'm saying please allow for the possibility that ED got it wrong on this particular (this very particular, specific) point. With the exception of having FD, the Mi-8 autopilot performs identically, yet nobody seems to be fighting the 20% authority on it. With the AP channels on, the Mi-8 autopilot will attempt to hold the attitude at which it was engaged.

So does the Mi-8. To give the pilot cues to follow to get to the desired/programmed heading, airspeed, etc. when hand flying a route, just like the flight director on any other aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_director_(aeronautics)

This is my belief, so that is why I don't think he is in FD mode.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. I am entirely unconvinced that the real Shark's autopilot behaves this way, based on my experience with other Russian helicopters. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong.

The fans are on the rectifier bus, so you need to either have the rectifiers online, or the standby generator, or external DC power. You probably already figured that out, though.

I strenuously agree! :) It should be noted that I do disagree with the original post in this thread.

Careful, the AH-64's rotor head has feathering, flapping, and lead/lag (drag) hinges. The strap packs just keep it from flying apart.

Well remember that "indefinite" means "not definite", meaning it's still on the outs, they just don't know when.

Well, it's not because the tail rotor is on the left side. It would do this if the tail rotor was on the right side, too. But you're on the right track. The thrust from the tail rotor DOES pull the aircraft to the left, as it does for all helicopters with a clockwise main rotor rotation. And it's opposite for helicopters with a counter-clockwise main rotor rotation (i.e. the tail rotor pulls the aircraft to the right)..

Please keep in mind that when the manual was written, there was only one cockpit language. An enterprising forum member created an English cockpit (which still contains a couple of errors, but nothing egregious) and ED asked for and received permission to include the user-created English-modded cockpit with the game. Until that point, I don't believe that ED was even working on an English cockpit for the Ka-50, so naturally, their manual includes no references to it. I seriously doubt that ED is even considering updating the manual with alternative-language cockpit images, but perhaps it's possible for someone to receive permission to modify and distribute the current manual with modified cockpit pictures (I would guess that this may have already happened in some individual cases). I think that's the best option we have, but that's just my opinion.

I know I may sound curmudgeonly (great word, and sadly it applies to me more and more often these days) and I don't mean to. I am sure these pedals will meet my needs. Thanks for all of the input, it's truly helpful. Now I just need to present my case to my Chief Financial Officer (wife) for approval. Should be okay, she was about to buy me a set of Bose A20's for Christmas before I stopped her to redirect the money elsewhere.

There are include and exclude options for specific forums that you can use with the New Posts function. Pick which ever requires the least forums. I use this as my shortcut to the forums, for example: http://forums.eagle.ru/search.php?do=getnew&exclude=20,24,25,26,27,28,30,31,33,35,37,39,42,43,44,45,49,50,52,54,61,62,64,73,74,79,81,84,85,98,99,100,109,112,152,172,115,116,117,118,119,120,121,144,145,172,199,257,275,295,325,327,328,333,345,384,97,98,99,100,145,464,456 That excludes most (all?) of the current non-English language forums. Anyway, it will take a little bit of time/research to get all of the forum and sub-forum (and sub-sub-forum) ID's, but once you do it it just requires periodic adjustments when new forums are added, which is easy. *EDIT* When I say that there are include and exclude options, I only mean as arguments to the getnew.php string in the URL. I don't know of any other way to do what you're asking.

It's just very unnatural for me. Everything I've ever had the privilege to be at the controls of has had me put my heels on the floor, and that is very much ingrained into how I fly. I think I'd be willing to give it a shot, but if my only safety net is hoping to get a decent resale out of them if I don't like it, then I'm not sure I'm interested in the steep initial investment. I'd rather have crappy Saitek Pro Combat or Cessna pedals. But we'll see... Thanks for the info.

Anybody heard anything about a different foot plate design that allows me to have my heels on the floor (as in simped or saitek pro combat)? Alternatively, anyone using heels on the floor with the standard foot plates that can tell me how you set it up and how well it works for you?

Yes. ECL's in center detent and CP switches ON. The ECL's are always in the center detent unless there is an engine failure or you're testing something. The CP switches are always set to ON. I have never seen them ever turned to the OFF position. The switches are always ON, but you can only get that light to come on if one engine is inoperative. It's all completely automatic and requires no human intervention. You should only pull the ECL to the full up position if there is a problem with the opposite engine where it's not producing power (i.e. it's failed). It's all very automatic in the Mi-8. The ECL's are normally in the center detent, and our company checklist ensures that they are in the center detent prior to engine start. Once the engines are started, you roll the throttle grip on the collective full right (which is called the AUTO position, full left is the IDLE position.) All normal (i.e. non-emergency) flight in all regimes is performed with the ECL's in the center detent and the throttle grip at full right. Rotor RPM is also managed automatically. If you are too heavy or pull in too much collective at one time, your rotor speed will droop, which is bad. Well, it's okay to droop as low as 91%, but it's best to try to keep it above 93%. As you already know, 88%-ish is where you start to lose the generators. On the high side, the max for normal flight is 101% and the max during a maneuver is 103%, but those are rare unless you dump the collective too fast. Basically, as long as the pilot is smooth with the collective, rotor RPM changes are minimal, unless you're really heavy for the conditions (i.e. hot, high).