Mi-8 landing help thread

[Cibit]

Lots of people still post saying they have trouble with landing the Mi-8 so I thought a nice repository for tips on safe and successful landings might be helpful.

 

I know when I went from Mi-8 to huey and then back to the Mi-8 I forget it cant be thrown around as much and it takes a while to get my landings at least soft enough not to break things:)

 

My first tip comes with a video and basically I try to drive the chopper down while trying to reduce speed until I get in ground effect. then a slow approach to where I want to put down, I imagine in practice you should approach to hover above the position you want to land at but it isn't easy (at least for me) ;)

[Cibit]

No one else prepared to share landing tips to help other folk ?

[FastForward]

My skills don't allow me to post advice or videos yet :(

But I appreciate yours and especially when we can see the controls (ctrl+enter), it helps a lot to learn. Thanks a lot Cibit :thumbup:

I promise, as soon as I get better I'll contribute to help :smilewink:

[gospadin]

The big thing (IMO) is teaching yourself how to transition from forward flight back to a hover without changing altitude or direction. Once you get a feel for that, landing is pretty easy.

 

Especially when you're trying to scrub forward velocity quickly, it gets tricky to properly manage the collective and rudder simultaneously.

[Cibit]

Here is a video of a very slow controlled hover descent from 400m on Ifox romeos server last night. In this kind of landing patience is key. Allow it to go more than a couple feet per second and it can easily turn into a plummet with VRS kicking in

[Crash *]

The key ist patience!!

 

Don´t sink more then 1-3 meters per second when you are moving slow.

AND don´t make sharp turns when it´s a windy day without trimming the

MI-8.

 

Approach as deep as possible, cause sinking with no more the 3 meters per second ist a very long procedure when you altitude ist to high.

[Cibit]

All good and valid points. The 400M descent was more to prove its possible to do it without crashing.

#I disagree though you need patience to land this thing, it isn't like the huey where you can just dump collective apply full rudder and your down. That was the point I tried to emphasis

obviously not done a very good job and I apologise for that

[Cibit]

[gospadin]

All good and valid points. The 400M descent was more to prove its possible to do it without crashing.

#I disagree though you need patience to land this thing, it isn't like the huey where you can just dump collective apply full rudder and your down. That was the point I tried to emphasis

obviously not done a very good job and I apologise for that

 

Here's a no patience landing, on the edge of retreating blade stall the whole time... =P

 

[ame]

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External view here:

 

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[sniperwolfpk5]

It depends one the pilot skills. If you have more hours flying this bird then you can land it on finger tips. For me Mi-8 is harder to land and smoothly take off than huey. This bird loves retreating blade stall. Landing on runway with forward speed is not hard. Landing with hover is harder.

I will give you the following tips for the hover land.

 

• Keep an eye on your VSI. Very important for hover landing
  
• You need to watch speed indicator. When it passes 10 (100km/h). Start adding collective. Also you need to apply right rudder.
  
• When your speed is b/w 5 and 10 then try to keep VSI indicator to zero and from there you need to add collective plus right rudder continuously.
  
• Once you are in hover state. Keep close eye on hover and low speed control indicator. You can find it on the top right first instrument. This will give you on which direction your heli has momentum.
  
• To keep you out of retreating blade stall during hover. Just watch VSI if it is droping add collective
  

 

I hope this will be helpful.

[Zag]

Hey everyone, just wanted to add a few things to what sniperwolfpk5 said:

 

Make small corrections and trim as often as you can/need to keep the approach stable.

Remember that changing your input on one axis will require a correction on (almost) everything else.

here's a tip: if you feel that the autopilot is fighting you,

hold down

the trimmer button, that allows you to use the stability augmentation system (SAS) without any input from the AP.

 

Stay on top of your chopper, and learn to anticipate its behavior (it may take some crashing but you'll get there).

As your speed starts to bleed off and you approach the 70-60 kph range, get ready to raise the collective and apply right rudder. At this point, make sure you don't exceed a 3-4 m/s sink rate.

If you haven't already done so, turn into the wind (anything else will throw you around)

Use the doppler indicator to bring your chopper to a hover and settle her down, again, never exceed 3 m/s sink rate.

 

If you are heavy, you'll want to use ground effect as much as you can, so try to get to a low altitude

before

you transition out of ETL (less than 5 m AGL i think).

you *can* get to a hover and then then descend from a higher altitude, but i prefer to keep the rotor rpm up in those situations.

 

For quicker approaches, drop the collective and pitch the nose up(I never go below 1/4 - 1/5 of the collective travel). Keeping the main rotor loaded will give you better control of the chopper. As long as your airspeed allows it, you can drop your altitude as fast as you want. just get to ground effect, transition out of ETL and keep a slight forward airspeed as you settle down.

 

What you don't want to do is completely drop the collective and allow the airspeed to drop below the 70 kph mark with a nose high attitude, because VRS will happen very fast (you will be in a VRS even before the cockpit starts shaking) and as you jerk the collective back up, the governors won't be able to maintain rotor RPM and you will die, provided you don't have enough altitude to escape that situation.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Zag

[Cibit]

Great stuff Zag sniperwolf and gos:thumbup:

[snowsniper]

some basic kneeboard helper I did for my friends, if it can helps.

 

engage all auto assistance once you're in hover for landing, and take off.

 

Love the mi-8 my best loved module so far.

 

patience IS the key, for sure.

 

check your curvature axes too on collective & X Y. many thread about that.

[Looney]

A few comments to the pictures.

 

The "Roll" autopilot channel doesn't control roll, it controls the rudder, hence the Yaw axis. Yaw would be a better name.

 

Second, the VSI meter on the Doppler gauge is far more accurate then the normal VSI. When entering the slow-speed part of your descend, try to use the Doppler gauge located top right of the pilot console to get an indication of how the helicopter is moving relative to a spot on the ground. The index on the left of the gauge shows your vertical speed in far greater detail then the normal VSI. If you "zero" out all the white bars, you're hovering stationary. Go any faster then 50km/h and the gauge will show a white/red STOP mark.

 

 

Choose a spot on the ground through your left or left-front window and try to fixate that spot in that windowpart. Now you have yourself a good visual reference to aid in maintaining a stationary hover, slowly descend trying to keep that reference fixed.

 

Just my € 0.02

Edited December 14, 2015 by Looney

[Slazi]

 

Second, the VSI meter on the Doppler gauge is far more accurate then the normal VSI.

 

This is great to know when you're staring out. Learning how and when to use this instead of the general purpose instrument will really help you understand what effect your inputs are having. The standard sink indicator has a bit of lag which makes it unreliable.

 

Do things slowly until you're comfortable. That is how to do everything in the 8.

[1.JaVA_Platypus]

Don't forget, setting the Heading autopilot channel will hold your current heading when you release the rudder pedals. It is a GREAT help during hoover and landing. But a bit trickyer then you might think on take-off.

 

It is the left most green button on the pedestal.

[Cibit]

Not quite landing more about control over the chopper

[FastForward]

This thread is a real gold mine guys ! :thumbup:

All your advice made me improve my flying skills in only a few days, that's really great ! MI-8 is becoming my favorite flying machine, thanks to you.

Here's a track of my Take-off and my landing.

MI-8_TO_Approach_Landing.trk

[1.JaVA_Platypus]

Not quite landing more about control over the chopper

 

Agreed!

 

Never used the autopilot for a steady hoover really. But it can be useful. Now that would be an awesome task for a flight engineer to adjust the autopilot, nice feature in multiplayer missions with multicrew! :thumbup:

 

I once had it trimmed-out, only using the middle stability channel and the stick trimmer so that I had a perfect hoover. But it requires a great deal of concentration and constant tiny adjustments to keep it that way.

[sniperwolfpk5]

A few comments to the pictures.

 

The "Roll" autopilot channel doesn't control roll, it controls the rudder, hence the Yaw axis. Yaw would be a better name.

 

Second, the VSI meter on the Doppler gauge is far more accurate then the normal VSI. When entering the slow-speed part of your descend, try to use the Doppler gauge located top right of the pilot console to get an indication of how the helicopter is moving relative to a spot on the ground. The index on the left of the gauge shows your vertical speed in far greater detail then the normal VSI. If you "zero" out all the white bars, you're hovering stationary. Go any faster then 50km/h and the gauge will show a white/red STOP mark.

 

Choose a spot on the ground through your left or left-front window and try to fixate that spot in that windowpart. Now you have yourself a good visual reference to aid in maintaining a stationary hover, slowly descend trying to keep that reference fixed.

 

Just my € 0.02

 

Looney thank you very much for the advise of using VSI on doppler. I have never notice it before

[Cibit]

Well I am so glad that we are getting good advise to help everyone and prove it does not have to be daunting:)

 

This thread is a real gold mine guys ! :thumbup:

All your advice made me improve my flying skills in only a few days, that's really great ! MI-8 is becoming my favorite flying machine, thanks to you.

Here's a track of my Take-off and my landing.

 

I won't get chance till wife goes out later. Is it in Nevada or Caucasus map?

 

When you feel the bird tilting to the right push cyclic left while pushing right with rudder. You will go up straighter :)

Edited December 15, 2015 by Cibit

[Cibit]

Another video, ship landings. Here are a couple of examples. Successful in that I lived to walk away but I do need more practice:)

[Looney]

I'd be happy if that was my landing! :)

[Udat]

Just some quick pointers, since I see a couple of small holes in the knowledge among all the awesome posts here. I don't pretend to know it all, especially on the specific modules and in DCS (you guys obviously know 10 times more than I ever will,) but I have a rotorwing private pilot licence, so just a couple of small tidbits:

Ground effect should normally start becoming effective approximately 1/2 rotor diameter above the ground, and increase greatly in effectiveness as you get lower.

Vortex ring state or settling with power requires 3 ingredients: high rate of descent, low indicated airspeed and power applied. If you descend faster than 300 feet per minute with less than 30 knots (or etl), you are generally in danger. It depends on the helicopter in question off course, but staying outside those numbers should keep you safe (if aerodynamics are properly modelled.)

The ideal way to land is generally to slow below etl just as ground effect takes hold, then come to a hover.

Hope I don't come off as an ass here, I have zero experience with helicopters in DCS, and most of you guys probably know a lot more than me.

[BitMaster]

it has a terrible dynamic pitch compensator if one at all so you always have to work the rudders when you pull/push collective...always the same directions... watch for it and get used to compensate it ..it will get 2nd nature if you train it....always check the nose ;)

 

That is very important if you approach loads or need to land precisely at a certain spot and just cant hammer it down the brutal way where ever it wants to or if you need to climb a certain path betwen poles and wires and cant move other than wanted.

 

It takes a lot of practise and attention. A RL pilot flies fully awake, sober and at the peak of its readyness but we are often tired, exhausted, hald drunk, stoned, in anger, in a hurry or just not paying enough attention but want the full thing to happen, that aint gonna work that way !

 

I dont ask that much from myself at 11pm as I would at 8am if I get paid for that. ...put in other words.