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Are Huey training videos still accurate ?


goon3r

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Just starting flying the Huey a few days ago. However I'm seeing some differences in the way this machine acts during my attempts at hover compared to what is described in the training videos. I see some threads talking about tweaks to the FM however a lot of the helpful threads I've found are dated 2013.

 

I'm seeing 3 major differences so far:

 

1) I'm requiring much more collective to get off the ground. The training videos are showing 30-40% collective on the control display but I'm having to put 70-80%.

 

2) Over sensitive collective is another issue I'm seeing. I'm finding that very slight adjustments of the collective leaves me ballooning upward or descending way too quickly. I've tried tweaking my axis settings but still thinking something isn't quite right. The sensitivity here seems far too much.

 

3) Do the the stick and rudder needed to be moved away from central positions for takeoff/hover. I find myself drifting a lot to the left whenever I do this. Is this still applicable also ?

 

To be clear, I'm using a TM Warthog and have a few hundred hours (not recently though) with the Ka-50. I know this is a different machine but I'm having a hard time just doing the simplest things here and I can handle the Ka-50 quite well.

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Your overall weight will make quite some difference in general (i.e. compared to what you see in the vids). But yes, there were some adjustments of the FM.

 

1) Could be FM changes, could be different weight

2) Again, could be weight. But also, yes, generally you have to be gentle.

3) Yes. How much? Depends ... you guessed it, mostly on the weight.

 

The lighter the helo is, the more nimble it is. An empty Huey with 20% fuel will catapult into the air with a given collective setting which would keep a fully loaded helo with guns, rockets, door gunners and full tanks on the ground as if it were nailed to it.

 

Basically, what the video says should still be relevant now. You just have to adjust the amount of collective and stick deflection a bit. The heavier the helo, the more input you have to give, and vice versa ofc. It is all dynamic anyways - all you see in such videos are illustrations of the general principles. You will always have to adjust it to the specific situation you are flying in.

 

Post a track of your issues 1-3 and we will figgure it out.


Edited by Flagrum
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The collective stick was definitely changed.

 

And EvilBivol-1 explained the changes too. No engine or rotor parameters were adjusted per se, but the collective position vs. rotor blade angle relation was changed somehow IIRC. Search and you will find :book:

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I will try to post a track illustrating the areas where I'm struggling. Can you gents suggest curvature or saturation settings based on this new FM for me ?

As I am using a FFB stick which has generally some special oddities when using curves in DCS Helos, I am not really familar of the "feel" of a non-FFB stick, with or without curves. But still, my advice would be: try to get used to it and do not use curves or even saturation settings!

 

While I can see some benefit of curves for some fixed wing aircraft, the downside is always that you get varing control reactions on similar stick inputs. This not only makes building up a "muscle memory" harder, but for especially helos this is even quite counterproductive.

 

In a helo with a force trim system, like the Huey, you have virtually never your controls centered during flight. You set your "force center" according to the current needs, the current helo attitude. And when then an underlying curve comes into play, your steering would be certainly somewhat ... random - as you will have your force center at abritrary position of the curve all the time.

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as you will have your force center at abritrary position of the curve all the time.

 

Flagrum, what you say may well be true as regards FFB devices, but non-force feedback sticks behave differently. With those, you just trim the chopper and your stick (and curve) center moves to the trim point, i.e. makes it a new center zero point. So yeah, you can actually use curves pretty effectively if your stick is a non-FFB device.

 

Now there's been lots of talk as regards JS curves, but personally, you couldn't make me give up mine if you held a gun to my head. This run-of-the-mill non-FFB stick I use is twitchy and short-throw (they all are) and thus has absolutely NOTHING to do with how a real chopper cyclic feels, behaves and responds (and there's no force trim either). A case in point for curves is myself flying the UH-1H; I actually only started to develop some effective muscle memory (and overall skills like hovering) _after_ finding good curve settings for the JS and pedals both, because their near-center behaviour now seems to mimic a longer-throw device pretty well when doing small corrections. And oh yes, I trim a lot too - you have to, especially when using curves!

 

So I really don't think there's a single answer to this, because the outcome depends on multiple factors such as personal physique and JS model. You just have to experiment and see what suits you best IMO.

1.jpg.678fa9e14d8f3a6ca578e0bdea3ac18c.jpg

2.jpg.8fb0b34d8676409ed4811880326719d0.jpg

3.jpg.eaadf8fd48507cd0cc0df6d1bfe346e8.jpg


Edited by msalama

The DCS Mi-8MTV2. The best aviational BBW experience you could ever dream of.

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Hrm, allright ... I stand corrected then. If the center of the curve move together with the trimmed, virtual center of the stick, then everything would be consistent all the time. So, in that case, disregard what I wrote earlier. I probably have those "special FFB oddities" mixed up here. :blush:

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then everything would be consistent all the time.

 

Exactly. And you'll have to trim constantly, too, because with curves you always, always, want your stick center dead center on the center of action so to speak :P

The DCS Mi-8MTV2. The best aviational BBW experience you could ever dream of.

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I will try to post a track illustrating the areas where I'm struggling. Can you gents suggest curvature or saturation settings based on this new FM for me ?

I wouldn't adjust the curves for the cyclic.

As you have a Warthog consider a stick extension, maybe.

A friend of mine, flying Huey together with me since beta uses a completely unmodified stick and no cyclic axis tweaks. The general issue with axis is, if you tweak them to gain some precision around center you lose some at full deflection... unfortunately that last bit is what causes your rotorhead to separate from the drive shaft when in a violent combat maneuvering, so I decided early not to tweak anything.

What helps a lot, is to tweak the collective axis a bit. Use the user defined curve without mirror, set to slider and the first setting from the axis starting point set to a setting, where an nearly empty Huey would start getting light on the skids. So the initial move of the collective sets it to a blade pitch close to take off... From there try to have the axis as straight as possible, or a minimum slope for precision at the bottom. You want to have a straight linear line at the last third, though.

This helps to gain more collective movement and a better control in hover or decents.

 

In general don't give too much about the Ka-50 training. The Huey is a wild bucking animal where the Shark is a gentle smooth ride.

It takes time building muscle memory and anticipation. When it finally clicks, it takes a few more days/weeks and you get used to it.

 

The flight model has changed twice since beta and lucky for you they made it a bit less difficult and agile :D

 

You still need to hold the cyclic a bit left and back (off center) when starting. Try to give full left rudder and pull the collective until the Helo gets light and starts to turn on the skids, now adjust the rudder position until it stops turning. That is your rudder position for take off. You still need to adjust when pilling collective to get airborne, yet it is just a bit more left rudder now.

Don't trim when you practice and just started, to build the muscle memory for standard cyclic positions. Once you have the feel for basic hover position, full acceleration (front right with near full left rudder) or standard cruise position 90-100 (gentle forward little bit right, bit left rudder), then you can start using trim.

 

Now when practising, for me it worked well to fly a bit around and get a feel for the Huey in normal flight, turns, speed up, slow down etc. After that mastered without the tail swerving wildly left and right, I found out about the Vortex Ring State (VRS) issue with that beast...

 

Again only way to master that is anticipation and muscle memory, both come from practice.

 

A good approach for me and others was to hover around in ground effect, learn how keep the Huey at a stable height and set it down again without bumping the tail. Try flying circuits on the taxiways of your favorite airport (Kutaisi is nice) and not bumping into buildings or hangars.

When you can control it in ground effect, start getting up out of ground effect and slow down into ground effect again, if you have difficulties look for speeds above 30-40kts so you won't VRS and crash.

Ultimate goal is to start an approach at 60 plus and slow down at some 100ft to below 20kts and anticipate the cockpit shake indicating the near VRS condition, let muscle memory kick in and pull the collective just enough to prevent the decent rate from going below 1 (1000ft per minute) around 0.5 (500ft/min) is good for starters, later you can dare 0.7 or near 1, but be careful... I know what I'm talking about as I crashed more virtual Hueys in VRS than there are on this planet :D

 

After these basics trained sufficiently to get the chopper down safe 90% of the time you can start combat, point landings whatever... and the occasional VRS crash or mast bumping in the heat of a mission is absolutely normal even after years... You don't concentrate, you die! It is a helicopter after all.

 

Anyway, it sounds harder than it is and learning to fly this baby was one of the most rewarding experiences in DCS, yet.


Edited by shagrat

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Here are my two attempts at hovering this evening. The curves that msalama posted helped alot. Thanks for that.

 

Two questions:

 

1) Is it expected to be trimming during a maneuver like this ? I typically only use Trim during free flight or in preparation for a hover. I cant imagine timing while making these small adjustments with the cyclic.

 

2) What is the consensus on Rudder trimming ? I have it disabled as I'm used to the KA-50 which doesn't even have the option for rudder trimming.

Hover1.trk

Hover2.trk

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I do not trim when hovering or landing etc. only in flight. I even reset trim before hovering and landings, to ensure the stick position is matching what my muscle memory knows. Otherwise "center" would be different on each approach due to slightly different trim.

 

I would still advise to be careful with curves on the cyclic, see my previous post.

...and I never used rudder trim. Set spring force on the rudder as low as possible or off, if your rudder supports force adjustments.

Shagrat

 

- Flying Sims since 1984 -:pilotfly:

Win 10 | i5 10600K@4.1GHz | 64GB | GeForce RTX 3090 - Asus VG34VQL1B  | TrackIR5 | Simshaker & Jetseat | VIRPIL CM 50 Stick & Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Plus/Apache64 Grip | MFG Crosswind Rudder Pedals | WW Top Gun MIP | a hand made AHCP | 2x Elgato StreamDeck (Buttons galore)

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I wouldn't adjust the curves for the cyclic.

As you have a Warthog consider a stick extension, maybe.

A friend of mine, flying Huey together with me since beta uses a completely unmodified stick and no cyclic axis tweaks. The general issue with axis is, if you tweak them to gain some precision around center you lose some at full deflection... unfortunately that last bit is what causes your rotorhead to separate from the drive shaft when in a violent combat maneuvering, so I decided early not to tweak anything.

What helps a lot, is to tweak the collective axis a bit. Use the user defined curve without mirror, set to slider and the first setting from the axis starting point set to a setting, where an nearly empty Huey would start getting light on the skids. So the initial move of the collective sets it to a blade pitch close to take off... From there try to have the axis as straight as possible, or a minimum slope for precision at the bottom. You want to have a straight linear line at the last third, though.

This helps to gain more collective movement and a better control in hover or decents.

 

In general don't give too much about the Ka-50 training. The Huey is a wild bucking animal where the Shark is a gentle smooth ride.

It takes time building muscle memory and anticipation. When it finally clicks, it takes a few more days/weeks and you get used to it.

 

The flight model has changed twice since beta and lucky for you they made it a bit less difficult and agile :D

 

You still need to hold the cyclic a bit left and back (off center) when starting. Try to give full left rudder and pull the collective until the Helo gets light and starts to turn on the skids, now adjust the rudder position until it stops turning. That is your rudder position for take off. You still need to adjust when pilling collective to get airborne, yet it is just a bit more left rudder now.

Don't trim when you practice and just started, to build the muscle memory for standard cyclic positions. Once you have the feel for basic hover position, full acceleration (front right with near full left rudder) or standard cruise position 90-100 (gentle forward little bit right, bit left rudder), then you can start using trim.

 

Now when practising, for me it worked well to fly a bit around and get a feel for the Huey in normal flight, turns, speed up, slow down etc. After that mastered without the tail swerving wildly left and right, I found out about the Vortex Ring State (VRS) issue with that beast...

 

Again only way to master that is anticipation and muscle memory, both come from practice.

 

A good approach for me and others was to hover around in ground effect, learn how keep the Huey at a stable height and set it down again without bumping the tail. Try flying circuits on the taxiways of your favorite airport (Kutaisi is nice) and not bumping into buildings or hangars.

When you can control it in ground effect, start getting up out of ground effect and slow down into ground effect again, if you have difficulties look for speeds above 30-40kts so you won't VRS and crash.

Ultimate goal is to start an approach at 60 plus and slow down at some 100ft to below 20kts and anticipate the cockpit shake indicating the near VRS condition, let muscle memory kick in and pull the collective just enough to prevent the decent rate from going below 1 (1000ft per minute) around 0.5 (500ft/min) is good for starters, later you can dare 0.7 or near 1, but be careful... I know what I'm talking about as I crashed more virtual Hueys in VRS than there are on this planet :D

 

After these basics trained sufficiently to get the chopper down safe 90% of the time you can start combat, point landings whatever... and the occasional VRS crash or mast bumping in the heat of a mission is absolutely normal even after years... You don't concentrate, you die! It is a helicopter after all.

 

Anyway, it sounds harder than it is and learning to fly this baby was one of the most rewarding experiences in DCS, yet.

 

 

Well done Shagrat.

Wish I had this primer when I started Huey.

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to be careful with curves on the cyclic

 

I still say that YMMV. These short consumer-market sticks are _so_ coarse in every sense of the word ( and that includes the A/D conversion resolution) that curves, when applied sensibly, may actually help a lot if you know what you're doing.

 

I've never tried the Warthog; people say it's a high-quality HOTAS system, but the stick throw is still waaaay too short to even _begin_ to mimic how the real deal behaves. If you're happy without curves, fine, more power to you; but I still think there's no one true answer to this. Just my $0.0002 (if that) however :D

The DCS Mi-8MTV2. The best aviational BBW experience you could ever dream of.

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Absolutely right, it is just my experience and solved the "problem" with an extension. Yet I know it is easy to fly the Huey with an unmodified Warthog, as I did that regularly with my friends setup.

After you learn to anticipate and handle the Huey you can fly it with a Warthog, a X-52 or even a Logitech extreme 3d (though collective and twist rudder is hell!)

What I noticed, when I adjusted my curves in the beginning was, that I could more easy hover and control the crate, yet whenever I did combat maneuvering, hard turns, flaring stops etc. my rotor dislodged and I crashed...

I found the axis tweaking to matter there and when I reverted to stock axis it got better, though I had to relearn muscle memory to hover and fine control.

I'm not saying you have to use stock axis, but if you run into trouble with the extreme deflection you know what might be the root cause and decide what to do, ease the axis or adjust yourself to more precise movement at the edges.

I personally found it easier to use stock axis...

 

Whatever one decides, the Huey is a lot of fun to just learn and fly, it also is a brilliant training for any other chopper to come, as you learn basic seat of your pants flying and can adopt that to other Helicopters like the Mi-8 and even the Ka-50... and hopefully soon the Gazelle and Bo-105.

Cheers,

Shagrat

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Thanks for that.
My pleasure mate :)

 

1) Is it expected to be trimming during a maneuver like this?
I trim a lot, but only to store the steady(ish) / stable flight state the chopper is in, such as level flight, shallow descent, etc. I seldom, if ever, trim for hover or landing especially - or for anything requiring constant collective changes, however small.

 

Hmmm... well now that I think on it, I usually kind of trim for the "macro" situation instead of "micro" so to speak - if you catch my drift :)

 

2) What is the consensus on Rudder trimming?
As regards the Huey, I neither use it nor recommend it. You can easily run out of "slider" if you do.
Edited by msalama

The DCS Mi-8MTV2. The best aviational BBW experience you could ever dream of.

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Well done Shagrat.

Wish I had this primer when I started Huey.

You're welcome! ...yeah, I wish I had as well.

Would have saved me some crashes, hmm, well actually no, but it would have been a bit easier to learn it. :megalol:

Shagrat

 

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Win 10 | i5 10600K@4.1GHz | 64GB | GeForce RTX 3090 - Asus VG34VQL1B  | TrackIR5 | Simshaker & Jetseat | VIRPIL CM 50 Stick & Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Plus/Apache64 Grip | MFG Crosswind Rudder Pedals | WW Top Gun MIP | a hand made AHCP | 2x Elgato StreamDeck (Buttons galore)

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Flagrum, what you say may well be true as regards FFB devices, but non-force feedback sticks behave differently. With those, you just trim the chopper and your stick (and curve) center moves to the trim point, i.e. makes it a new center zero point. So yeah, you can actually use curves pretty effectively if your stick is a non-FFB device.

 

Now there's been lots of talk as regards JS curves, but personally, you couldn't make me give up mine if you held a gun to my head. This run-of-the-mill non-FFB stick I use is twitchy and short-throw (they all are) and thus has absolutely NOTHING to do with how a real chopper cyclic feels, behaves and responds (and there's no force trim either). A case in point for curves is myself flying the UH-1H; I actually only started to develop some effective muscle memory (and overall skills like hovering) _after_ finding good curve settings for the JS and pedals both, because their near-center behaviour now seems to mimic a longer-throw device pretty well when doing small corrections. And oh yes, I trim a lot too - you have to, especially when using curves!

 

So I really don't think there's a single answer to this, because the outcome depends on multiple factors such as personal physique and JS model. You just have to experiment and see what suits you best IMO.

 

Would it be possible to see your collective settings ?

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Would it be possible to see your collective settings ?

 

Just a 1:1 straight line, because that seems to give me the most predictable response. It's sensitive as hell, true - but using curves there gave me all kinds of strange and sudden power jumps and blips, so I just put it at 100% linear and forgot about it.

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Yep, only way to tweak collective is at initial movement as the power to keep it airborne or in a smooth decent gives you little range that is virtually ever pulled.

When I'm back at the PC (tomorrow) I'll check and make a pic of the custom "curve" I use.

 

What you definitely don't want is an S-Curve on the collective! Big NoNo! :D

Shagrat

 

- Flying Sims since 1984 -:pilotfly:

Win 10 | i5 10600K@4.1GHz | 64GB | GeForce RTX 3090 - Asus VG34VQL1B  | TrackIR5 | Simshaker & Jetseat | VIRPIL CM 50 Stick & Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Plus/Apache64 Grip | MFG Crosswind Rudder Pedals | WW Top Gun MIP | a hand made AHCP | 2x Elgato StreamDeck (Buttons galore)

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an S-Curve on the collective! Big NoNo! :D
I wholeheartedly agree! I tried this a while ago, and as a result had one of the most hair-raising virtual flying experiences ever. The collective behaved so weirdly that I thought the chopper was on acid or something... NEVER again, I swear :helpsmilie:

The DCS Mi-8MTV2. The best aviational BBW experience you could ever dream of.

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So here we go with the Collective Axis tuning.

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=113788&stc=1&d=1425159198

 

What I achieved is a little more precision around the spot where it is possible to make the Huey light on the skids (keep in mind this will change with loadout! So When the UH-1H is at 20% fuel and very agile, you pull the collective and quickly reach the point where it rises.

If at 80% fuel and 4 Miniguns you will pull around 1/3rd of the axis travel before it so much as moves...

 

important is to keep the axis as straight as possible in the upper 2/3rd regime!!! You may vary the little bump on the low end, though. It's basically reducing the "wasted" travel until the bird moves, still no "jumps", but a smooth yet quick rise.

 

A general advise less is more, so start with small values.

CollectiveAxis.jpg.ab8e2dcb74c618ed92003a3d342ab70a.jpg

Shagrat

 

- Flying Sims since 1984 -:pilotfly:

Win 10 | i5 10600K@4.1GHz | 64GB | GeForce RTX 3090 - Asus VG34VQL1B  | TrackIR5 | Simshaker & Jetseat | VIRPIL CM 50 Stick & Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Plus/Apache64 Grip | MFG Crosswind Rudder Pedals | WW Top Gun MIP | a hand made AHCP | 2x Elgato StreamDeck (Buttons galore)

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So here we go with the Collective Axis tuning.

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=113788&stc=1&d=1425159198

 

What I achieved is a little more precision around the spot where it is possible to make the Huey light on the skids (keep in mind this will change with loadout! So When the UH-1H is at 20% fuel and very agile, you pull the collective and quickly reach the point where it rises.

If at 80% fuel and 4 Miniguns you will pull around 1/3rd of the axis travel before it so much as moves...

 

important is to keep the axis as straight as possible in the upper 2/3rd regime!!! You may vary the little bump on the low end, though. It's basically reducing the "wasted" travel until the bird moves, still no "jumps", but a smooth yet quick rise.

 

A general advise less is more, so start with small values.

 

:thumbup: Thanks !

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So here we go with the Collective Axis tuning.

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=113788&stc=1&d=1425159198

 

What I achieved is a little more precision around the spot where it is possible to make the Huey light on the skids (keep in mind this will change with loadout! So When the UH-1H is at 20% fuel and very agile, you pull the collective and quickly reach the point where it rises.

If at 80% fuel and 4 Miniguns you will pull around 1/3rd of the axis travel before it so much as moves...

 

important is to keep the axis as straight as possible in the upper 2/3rd regime!!! You may vary the little bump on the low end, though. It's basically reducing the "wasted" travel until the bird moves, still no "jumps", but a smooth yet quick rise.

 

A general advise less is more, so start with small values.

 

Thanks for sharing this. This helped me handle with the collective better. Still having a hard time hovering though. Just gotta keep at it I guess.

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