Some advice on flying the UH-1H

[Raven Morpheus]

Hey there

 

I've had the UH-1H module for a while now, but haven't really got the hang of it, and conversely the KA-50 is a piece of cake to fly (once you learn which buttons to press and which switches to flip)...

 

Long story short I've just switched over to using a Saitek X52 Pro from a Saitek X45 and I'm encountering a couple of issues I didn't seem to have before.

 

1. When I'm trying to slow down for landing to bring the heli to a hover, by gradually pulling back on the stick, the drop rate all of a sudden plummets and I fall out of the sky.

 

2. The collective doesn't seem to take much input before I start climbing/descending and I always seem to be chasing the climb rate dial.

 

 

I'm also having another issue that I had even with the Saitek X45 -

 

3. I can't seem to get a stable level flight at a decent speed. The heli always wants to roll to one side or the other (left/right bank) and I'm always chasing the input to correct (I have the same but not as bad issue in the KA-50) and gaining speed always leads to me losing height drastically (probably linked in some way to problem #2 above).

 

 

What can I do (as a pilot) to alleviate all of the above? Are there any particular settings I can set (like curves) for the X52 Pro to help?

 

TIA

[blackgold]

1: When you're close to the ground and in ground effect, rotor efficiency is reduced and requires much greater degree of power to maintain a steady hover. Some weaker/heavier helicopters require near full power to hover while much less to cruise. You've got to preemptively counter this with collective or else you'll drop quickly.

 

2: Maintain altitude with pitch. Don't watch the climb rate, watch the altitude. The collective should be thought as power output, not "up and down." The collective setting will produce your cruise speed.

 

3: You're over-correcting. Curves may help. But regardless, in the real thing, you only need to move the stick about a millimeter in any direction to maintain a cruise. Don't "move the stick" but rather "apply some pressure to the stick." All of these drastic connections are causing you to lose altitude. Any kind of (substantial) stick movement requires an adjustment to the collective to maintain altitude and/or speed.

[Flagrum]

1. VRS - Vortex Ring State. Look it up in the manual and search the forums for it. Basically you lose quite some lift when coming to a hover as your effective translational lift (ETL) is dimishing when slowing down. That leads to a higher sink rate which, if you don't counter it by adding collective input early enough, to VRS.

 

2. This is the way the collective works in our DCS Huey. Some say, this is not correctly modelled, though. Some advise to configure the collective axis with a curve that allows you to use more of the axis in the relevant range of the collective. Others are not a fan of that ... or using curves at all.

 

3. How bad is this rolling? The Huey IS twitchy ... perhaps post a track? Or maybe you have configured a (too large) dead zone for the X axis?

 

All in all, what you describe sounds quite normal - or at least is most likely not an issue with your new hardware. Perhaps you just need some time to adjust and re-train your muscle memory a bit again? :o)

[Cibit]

Trim little and often is my advice. Although I am far from expert it seems a long time since I dropped out of the sky. As you slow bring the stick back a little and trim, reduce collective till your level and slowing. repeat till your almost trimmed for hover, keep a little forward speed until you transition to in ground effect, hover and manouvre to land.

Tweaking axis is always a case of trial and error. I think but cant be certain I had a curve set about 15 for both axis of the stick and a slider set for collective using the throttle of my X52.

 

Flying fast requires lots of pedal input check your ball and push rudder to align it. when I am flying max chat the cyclic will be slightly right of centre line (using control helper) Right Cntl+ Enter

 

See screenie:)

 

Sniped:gun_sniper:

Edited July 19, 2014 by Cibit
Sniped while gettin screen shot

[Raven Morpheus]

Thanks. I just did another short test flight (in the generate mission mode) and managed to do OK, so yeah probably just me not being a good pilot, or a lazy KA-50 pilot. Lol.

 

One other thing I'm having an issue with is the Force Trim control.

 

What I do is hold the Force Trim button (advice taken from BS1 tutorials), in my case the pinkie on the X52 pro, and then when I've got my controls in position I let go of the FT button. However this causes the cyclic stick to suddenly jump around (at least on the controls indicator, haven't looked at the one in the cockpit) even though I'm physically holding my stick completely still, and it often leads to a sudden dive.

 

I think, but can't confirm right now, it does the same thing if I just move my controls into position and then press/release the FT button. Will test that now though.

 

Somehow I don't think holding and then releasing FT is supposed to cause the cyclic to suddenly jump around!?

 

Game bug? Controller bug? Or am I using Force Trim incorrectly?

Edited July 19, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[1.JaVA_Platypus]

The X45 and X52 should be pretty much the same in feel. Did you buy a new X52?

[Cibit]

Once you release trim that is your new stick center position. If you don't recentre your stick physically it adds the input to the new centre of movement and causes you to overtrim. Forget everything you learned on the ka50. This is a lot more twitchy.

[Buzzles]

Game bug? Controller bug? Or am I using Force Trim incorrectly?

 

You're doing it wrong :)

 

The trimmer in Western aircraft operates a fairly different manner to the Russian ones.

 

Trimmer for the Huey in DCS is basically locking the cyclic where it is in game when you press the button down (not when you release, like the KA50), allowing you to recenter your irl stick.

 

Read the manual and the forum for trimmer usage. People who use the Huey first have the same problem when moving to the KA50 in that they use the trimmer completely wrong. I did.

[Flagrum]

Somehow I don't think holding and then releasing FT is supposed to cause the cyclic to suddenly jump around!?

 

Game bug? Controller bug? Or am I using Force Trim incorrectly?

You need to re-center the stick as soon as you release the trim button if you are not using a force feedback joystick.

In the real machine, trimming sets a new "center" - it requires no force to keep the stick there. In the sim, trimming sets a new "virtual center" - that means, it is not the same as for your physical joystick. To get the effect, that also your physical stick is kept in place where you don't have to apply any forces, you need to re-center your physical stick. The result is, the physical center matches equals the virtual center.

Depending on your settings under Options->Special->Huey->Central Trimmer Mode on/off this can have the effect that if you don't re-center your physical stick, either the sim does not accept any joystick X/Y input until you re-centered the stick or that the current physical position is interpreted as an offset from the virtual (i.e. = physical) center which leads to the unwanted jumps you experienced.

[Raven Morpheus]

The X45 and X52 should be pretty much the same in feel. Did you buy a new X52?

 

 

Yup brand new from Saitek/Mad Catz themselves.

 

 

I have done a tension mod (couple of 40 thou circles of plasticard at the top of the spring) to stop the slop in the spring and also I've done a magnet mod on the internal magnets for better accuracy.

 

I play IL2 1946 and those 2 mods improved the stick hugely.

 

 

I've attached a track showing what I mean about the Force Trim, as you can see when I hold/release, or even just press the FT button the controls jump around on the indicator, even when I'm on the ground, and whilst in the air this obviously causes problems (you can see it when I'm flying and trying to trim). And yeah my flying is terrible also, but I managed to just about hover and land...

 

 

 

EDIT - I think Flagrum just explained why I'm getting that FT issue. Thanks, I'll turn on the Central Trimmer mode and see if it's any better, I had turned it off due to the controls freezing, which was annoying in the UH1, and not so much of a problem in the KA-50.

 

 

EDIt 2 - Just did a test flight with Central Position Trimmer mode enabled and yeah it's much better, although it does still twitch the controls a little. But god do I need a set of pedals, using the twist rudder on the X2 Pro is a pita. I really wish it had a rocker on the throttle like the X45...

 

@Buzzles - I'll try getting used to just pressing the FT button, I occasionally just press my trimmer in the KA-50 anyway instead of holding (seems to work fine for me along with holding/releasing the trimmer), so adapting is no problem now that I know.

Force Trim ex.zip

Edited July 19, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[Ewertsp]

guys, why is there such a huge difference between autopilot enabled and disabled? Its really strange how it works, at least for me. Whenever Im cruising, trimmed n stuff, I get turbulence n the chopper doesnt fly perfectly level. Its always leaning a few degrees to one side then to the other. Dont get me wrong, it feels ok to me. What I dont like is how this behavior goes away when the autopilot is on.

[Cibit]

The auto pilot is a cheat/help and will just keep you level and at the speed your travelling at when engaged. It seems to over ride any weather/turbulence

[scrtagnt69]

Practice ..even after 150 + hours PIC I am still learning with every flight

[Raven Morpheus]

Practice ..even after 150 + hours PIC I am still learning with every flight

 

 

What do you do to overcome the tilt to one side or the other? I am finding that the Huey, even when I've trimmed to match the "co-pilots" inputs for level flight the Huey never stays level and always tilts/rolls to one side or the other. Either that or (and usually as a result of correcting the tilt/roll) I'm up down up down up down up down never keeping the climb indicator on 0.

 

And I'm sure it's made worse by the fact that I seem to always be chasing the controls (not least of all the collective), it seems like I'm always an input or microsecond behind what the Huey is in fact doing, almost like there is input lag, but there isn't any input lag shown on the controls indicator!

 

Could it be a result of having low fps? I only get an average of 30fps on a good mission.

 

BTW I got some rudder pedals today, Saitek Pro Flight (the ones with the silver round tightening hub in the middle). And wow! They make a huge difference and far less a pita than using the twist rudder on my X52!

Edited July 22, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[Cibit]

Congrats on the new pedals, I can never be without mine. As posted earlier, the more you fly the better you get. It won't take long to be flying level but don't underestimate the concentration required to fly this tadpole at all times. constant adjustments to collective and cyclic but once you hit the sweet spot you can hold it steady. Flying a constant bearing is another story though;)

[jay43]

Raven treat her gently and show her some respect and the old girl might just begin to behave, do a hover check at 5 ft around 35psi on the torque metre and hold her there stop looking down at the controls get a fix on something outside of the cockpit.

 

Then nose down gently and she will start to move forward you should not need to move the collective again it is set unless ofcourse if you want to come back down, nose down a little more to level off and thats the easy part the landing just gets harder.

 

You will always find the cyclic will need constant tuning as you fly i believe its just the nature of the beast, coupled with the fact that you are inside an air frame that dangles you from a pair of spinning blades attached to a shaft, which are always going to be pulling you about trying to tip one side down and lift the other up thats just airflow.

 

Keep at it don't give up to many do she is very rewarding to fly i still grin from ear to ear today.

 

TTFN

[Raven Morpheus]

Well I'm getting there...

 

I seem to have landings nailed now, at least I've just done 3 reasonable ones in a row. Here's a vid of one on an edited version of the 1st campaign mission (edited to remove some object to improve framerate) -

 

 

It could have gone better at the end as I ended up backing myself up but that didn't end up being too much of a problem.

 

I'm not using my pedals in that vid, just the twist rudder on my Saitek X52 Pro. I can only assume I would be better with my pedals...

 

Still not happy with the "level flight" of the UH-1H, no matter what I do it rolls/leans/tilts to one side or the other, and I keep up and down all the time - meanwhile the "co-pilot" can maintain altitude and level horizontal attitude all the time!

 

But yeah, one of my biggest issues was landing (I have the same problem in IL2 1946), and providing I remember what I've learnt tonight I should be good for that. Take off and "level" flight from a to b is fairly easy.

 

Please feel free to comment on what I'm doing wrong in the video.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[Flagrum]

Don't get intimidated by the co-pilots abilities - he is "cheating". As AI he is able to fly and react with mathematical precision (literally!) to changing attitudes of the helo.

 

The Huey is a twitchy machine and you always have to adjust the controls in some way and to some extend. This is especially true the slower you fly. Imagine you are balancing a ball on top of a stick - theoretically there is a stable position, but in practice ... not really. (imagine you were running around while trying to balance that ball ;o)

 

I would say, ignore it and just fly the helo. :o)

Edited July 25, 2014 by Flagrum