Mi-24P Landing Notes

[nazradu]

As a rule of thumb match decend rate to speed by /10/2.  So while at 200kph 10m/s are totaly fine, at 100kph 5m/s are your absolut limit as you are close to the loss of TL. Below 100kph you should be alert when ever that VVI needle even wants to go towards 5m/s. If it goes past that you are in trouble.

[Steinsch]

In the meantime, this may help. The landing procedure of the Mi-35M translates very well with the Mi-24.

 

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Steinsch

[unipus]

Since learning to take it slow and be imperfect, my results got much better. My early attempts involved a lot of trying to do it the cool way and rapidly decelerate through lots of pitch or j-turns, etc. These mostly ended in fireballs because I didn't have the sense yet for managing descent rates. Once I went back to crawling and walking before running, the results predictably got a lot better. Slow and steady and then you can add technique to the level of your actual skill from there!

[Lurker]

Apart from the first day, taking it nice and easy in the Hind and keeping my vertical descent rate below 3m/s, I've managed to land it every single time even when coming in almost straight down from a hover with very little translational movement. In my case I'm finding it even easier to control on landing than the HIP, though I am taking it much slower since it is so damn heavy. It's definitely not a helicopter you want to be landing anywhere close to a hot zone, since it's such an easy target on approach and landing. 

 

One other thing to consider: Wind. Make sure you are facing into the wind when on approach or before you start your final descent. (This is on vertical landings, not rolling landings)

 

Disclaimer, i use VR, which makes landing helicopters a lot easier due to depth and movement perception. 

Edited July 7, 2021 by Lurker

[unipus]

Counter-point: I use VR, which makes the frame rate drop to critically bad levels fairly often, when close to the ground on maps such as Syria. On a lot of servers, anyway.

[nazradu]

10 hours ago, Lurker said:

One other thing to consider: Wind. Make sure you are facing into the wind when on approach or before you start your final descent. (This is on vertical landings, not rolling landings)

 

 

I read this very often, but I think to remember that letting the wind stream towards your left side (the side towards torque pushes you) is recommend for hover states, so it assists your tail rotor.

[Lurker]

18 hours ago, nazradu said:

I read this very often, but I think to remember that letting the wind stream towards your left side (the side towards torque pushes you) is recommend for hover states, so it assists your tail rotor.

 

The helicopter will naturally want to weathervane into the wind.  You can fight this tendency by doing what you are suggesting but it's possibly dangerous because in the real world the wind rarely blows at the exact same speed or does so without changing direction. The only reason why you would want to do what you are suggesting is if you are overweight and don't have enough tail rotor authority for vertical landings, in which case you should not even attempt a vertical landing in the first place. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Lurker

[sublime]

Is there a wind gauge in cockpit?

[Lurker]

7 hours ago, sublime said:

Is there a wind gauge in cockpit?

 

No but you usually get wind direction\speed in the mission briefing (or you should) and again there is the Mk1 eyeball. Look for smoke stacks, or on airfields look for the little wind socks

Edited July 9, 2021 by Lurker

[sublime]

4 hours ago, Lurker said:

 

No but you usually get wind direction\speed in the mission briefing (or you should) and again there is the Mk1 eyeball. Look for smoke stacks, or on airfields look for the little wind socks

 

Yeah I figured..

[MicMic]

On 6/18/2021 at 2:26 AM, VampireNZ said:

Anyone know the gear extended max airspeed limitation?

 

For the Mi-24D is 86 KIAS, 160KM/h.

[xmegasuro]

Has anyone else found the hind a bit harder to land/manoeuver after one of the latest updates?

 

Maybe I just got rusty after a few days off flying (it happens easily to me) but suddenly it seems I keep crashing and sliding around like an accordion more often, either due to VRS (which I think I very rarely got into before) or because I can't keep up with the controls... I dunno, it seems that in general it's a bit less stable than before, more twitchy. I'm not the best of pilots, but previously I got to a decent level with the 24, to the point I had no trouble landing 90% of the time and even found it more stable and easy to fly and land than the Mi8 once I got past the inherent differences in handling. On a side note, the absolute lack of visual feedback of incoming VRS can be really disorienting.

 

One thing I noticed though: while I never use(d) the yaw channel, I used to keep turned on the "altitude" chan. in addition to the other two. I don't know if it was placebo or not, but it seemed to make flight much more stable. Now I read that something about AP was modified in the last patch, I'm not sure I understood what exactly, but as a result it seems that ALT gets automatically turned off every time you move the collective like in the Mi8 (where I never use it anyway)... Any thoughts? Do I need to gitgud again?

 

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by xmegasuro

[lee1hy]

Any Tips on Afgan take off? without control help 

chopper rolling crazy always 

 

[admiki]

Disengage parking brake and slowly add collective. Let it roll forward and keep adding collective. Once she starts to roll to the left, compensate with cyclic and keep adding collective. She will lift off clean from main wheels

[Lovcar]

Я вобще стараюсь выключать авто пилот по всём направлениям.

[WarbossPetross]

Took the Croc out yesterday after a break and noticed that the rudder trim aka yaw stab does not turn off when I touch the pedals. I mean it does disengage (when the yellow lamp is on), but then it stays on while earlier it just turned itself off. I can't tell you how much easier it is to land now because the rudder trim cancels out the yaw momentum that occurs when you move the collective.

 

Another tip for landing is to keep an eye on the Doppler VVI instead of the stand-alone one you normally look at. It's fine in regular flight, but when you're low and slow enough for the DISS indicator to kick in, the arching scale to the left of the drift needles shows your vertical velocity as measured by the DISS which is a lot more accurate and responsive than the regular VVI.

[Lurker]

On 10/5/2021 at 9:09 AM, WarbossPetross said:

Took the Croc out yesterday after a break and noticed that the rudder trim aka yaw stab does not turn off when I touch the pedals. I mean it does disengage (when the yellow lamp is on), but then it stays on while earlier it just turned itself off. I can't tell you how much easier it is to land now because the rudder trim cancels out the yaw momentum that occurs when you move the collective.

 

 

Can you please elaborate on this a little bit? I can't make heads or tails of what you wrote here? When you say rudder trim, do you mean YAW SAS?

[WarbossPetross]

4 часа назад, Lurker сказал:

 

Can you please elaborate on this a little bit? I can't make heads or tails of what you wrote here? When you say rudder trim, do you mean YAW SAS?

Yes, the autopilot yaw channel. Originally it turned itself off when you touched the pedals, now it only disengages temporarily.

[jojojung]

Since now I tried landing without the yaw autopilot engaged. For a rolling landing this works very well and was very successful.
But for a hover / vertical landing it is like hell especially when you get out of translational lift into the hoversate with all the torque you have to compansate with your rudder padels. I want to fly the bird like the real pilots without any help.
Now I tried the YAW AP and it feels like cheating... I think you know what I mean, right?
Question: Is the effect of the YAW AP such strong IRL? Or is it extra strong in DCS to avoid frustrated players...
Thanks a lot!

[AeriaGloria]

On 1/11/2022 at 3:25 PM, jojojung said:

Since now I tried landing without the yaw autopilot engaged. For a rolling landing this works very well and was very successful.
But for a hover / vertical landing it is like hell especially when you get out of translational lift into the hoversate with all the torque you have to compansate with your rudder padels. I want to fly the bird like the real pilots without any help.
Now I tried the YAW AP and it feels like cheating... I think you know what I mean, right?
Question: Is the effect of the YAW AP such strong IRL? Or is it extra strong in DCS to avoid frustrated players...
Thanks a lot!

I can assure you the real pilots use all the assists they can. The real manual says to have all 3 AP axis on from takeoff to landing. 
 

it is that strong, 18% authority, if that runs out in heading hold mode it starts to trim the pedals themselves, so that might be why it feels more powerful then just the normal 18% authority All the AP channels have. 
 

I run a special profile in joystick gremlin that turns it off when it’s in heading hold mode and only turns it when pedals are deflected far enough that it’s in dampening mode, as in real life it only enters heading hold mode when pilot takes their feet off the pedals. But in DCS since our pedals don’t have pressure activated micro switches ED programmed it to activate heading hold whenever pedals are within 18% of center. A stupidly far deflection to lose authority to the heading hold system IMO. When in dampening mode it works like pitch and roll AP, tries to slow down fast/large movement changes

[jojojung]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb AeriaGloria:

I can assure you the real pilots use all the assists they can. The real manual says to have all 3 AP axis on from takeoff to landing. 
 

it is that strong, 18% authority, if that runs out in heading hold mode it starts to trim the pedals themselves, so that might be why it feels more powerful then just the normal 18% authority All the AP channels have. 
 

I run a special profile in joystick gremlin that turns it off when it’s in heading hold mode and only turns it when pedals are deflected far enough that it’s in dampening mode, as in real life it only enters heading hold mode when pilot takes their feet off the pedals. But in DCS since our pedals don’t have pressure activated micro switches ED programmed it to activate heading hold whenever pedals are within 18% of center. A stupidly far deflection to lose authority to the heading hold system IMO. When in dampening mode it works like pitch and roll AP, tries to slow down fast/large movement changes

Thanks very much for the detailed answer!

[Stratos]

I know this is about landings, but concerning take offs, what's your experience with vertical take offs? At full weight is even possible? I usually make rolling take offs that seems much easier, when I tried the vertical take offs the chopper rotates a lot and is very hard to counter. What's your experience?

[admiki]

1 hour ago, Stratos said:

I know this is about landings, but concerning take offs, what's your experience with vertical take offs? At full weight is even possible? I usually make rolling take offs that seems much easier, when I tried the vertical take offs the chopper rotates a lot and is very hard to counter. What's your experience?

On Syria map, OAT 25°C, I can take off vertical with full fuel, 8x ATGM and 2x S-8 OFP2 pods without problems.

Make sure you have full travel of your pedals.

[Stratos]

1 minute ago, admiki said:

Make sure you have full travel of your pedals.

You mean phisically or on DCS controls?

[admiki]

50 minutes ago, Stratos said:

You mean phisically or on DCS controls?

DCS controls