DCS Mi-24P feels very twitchy

[Baldrick33]

I can throw it rally style around the agility training course https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3309227/ even get in the hangers and turn it around and out again, land on roofs including the curved hanger ones. However my big challenge is slowing down to hover speeds, where I often end up spinning to the left which takes me ages to recover, sometimes not all all, or descend too fast and am unable to recover.

 

For example landing on the ship in the instant access free flight Caucasus everything seems fine until I get near the ship and I am following it with full right rudder and sometimes it starts yawing to the left. I feel I need to drop the collective but don't have enough height, pushing stick forward seems to make it go backwards more. Eventually some forward and left cyclic seems to slowly address the spin, providing I haven't already crashed!

 

Generally I feel it is my impatience to rush the manoeuvre and inexperience but once I am on top of it I find it as easy as the Huey, just getting on top of it from fast to slow, high to low is a real challenge for me!

[Rongor]

19 hours ago, Fenin said:

Posting this as an example of someone with a stick extension.  I have a floor mounted Warthog stick with 40cm gooseneck extension.  The Hind is as steady, stable, and rock solid as it gets with my setup.  Entering into a hover is painless and feels fully controlled.  Nothing about the helicopter is twitchy in any way, shape, or form (the weird over trim bug aside.)  Well, except maybe me sometimes.

 

I believe the issue is that by using curves at all you are sacrificing fine control at certain throws of your stick, removing a linear response and replacing it with a, well, curved one.  I flew normal stick for years up until about two months ago when I got my extension and the sheer fact of the matter is that curves aren't a proper way to do it from my experience.

If I had a stick extension mounted to the floor, I might agree with you.

But we people without a fine stick extension setup simply can't achieve the same controls sensitivity as you are enjoying. We are allowed way less applied moving force to move the stick than you with your stick extension to effectively adjust the stick by the same degrees of angle.

The top of your stick moving an inch might mean fractions of a milimeter for us. It's outright impossible for us to enjoy the same sensitivity, let alone with linear response. Curves are our only chance to achieve a remotely similar steering efficiency. Trading off sensitivity at the other end of the curve is a major downside, true. Yet a good trim might help to prevent to get into these ranges in many cases.

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Rongor

[Fenin]

12 hours ago, Lurker said:

 

Have you flown the Huey? Have you flown the Mi8? Compared to them the Hind feels dangerous to fly. I can't describe it any other way. I am seeing the same behavior that Hummingbird is describing. However maybe he is not describing it as well as he could. I don't think the helicopter is "unstable" it flies well enough, in a straight line. However during any cyclic\pedal maneuvres with all the AP channels on, it feels like the AP is fighting my inputs. I can not get the precision I want. Which is completely contrary to what every single report on the Hind's legendary abilities entails. There is also a tendency for pilot induced oscillations in this chopper that I've not seen in the Mi8. 

 

I have put hundreds of hours in both. If not over a thousand in the Mi-8, which I purchased in 2013 in hopes of it being as close as I could get to the Mi-24. Actually, I very specifically remember reading a thread circa 2014 or so that the Hind was hopefully close since the Mi-8 shared so much with it.  I feel by far the most safe in the Hind, and that's with far far less hours by comparison.

 

I am flat out not seeing what you guys are talking about in any way, shape, or form.  The one and only issue I'm having in any flight regime is that the transition from etl to a hover takes longer than I'm used to and I often find her slipping ahead of my intended landing site and I have to come back in.  An issue that is entirely on me for not countering her refusal to decelerate by slowing down earlier.  

 

I stand by what I say, my front seats open if you want a ride around.  Certainly with voice comms you would be able to more clearly show me what the issue is. 

 

  I'm free almost all of today, though tomorrow I won't be due to a dental appointment.  

 

Edit: Took the time to do my daily warmup, was having some control issues and wanted to get them sorted out.  So, here, I made a track of me doing some basic low speed maneuvers around Taftanaz.  Bit of a sloppy take off and landing, but I think it shows what I'm talking about fairly well.  Also ignore the first take off, I was more or less double checking controls on it.

 

 

 

 

Hind Solidity.trk

Edited July 6, 2021 by Fenin
Added Track File.

[Fenin]

4 hours ago, Rongor said:

If I had a stick extension mounted to the floor, I might agree with you.

But we people without a fine stick extension setup simply can't achieve the same controls sensitivity as you are enjoying. We are allowed way less applied moving force to move the stick than you with your stick extension to effectively adjust the stick by the same degrees of angle.

The top of your stick moving an inch might mean fractions of a milimeter for us. It's outright impossible for us to enjoy the same sensitivity, let alone with linear response. Curves are our only chance to achieve a remotely similar steering efficiency. Trading off sensitivity at the other end of the curve is a major downside, true. Yet a good trim might help to prevent to get into these ranges in many cases.

 

 

 

Apologies for double posting, but I'm mobile and these were on two pages.

 

I agree, cutting saturation is a poor alternative, curving is as well though, control linearity is imoortant.  As much as I actually hate to say what I'm about to, because I know it comes off as pretentious and arrogant.

 

The fact is from my experience that a desk mounted flight stick is not comparable to a floor mounted full extension.  In the exact same way the console controller is not comparable to the desk mounted flight stick.  The difference is the 'suck it up and get one' price difference is mind boggling between the pair.

 

The amount of money I had to drop for base, spring upgrade, extension, and stick is mind numbing to me.  It caused me real pain to drop what I have into it, but now that I've had it for some time and the absolute terror that I had of sunk cost falacy has passed I just can't see how I flew helos before. 

 

The amount of minute, almost just muscle twitch movements that I used for years on my ch fighterstick do not compare in any way.  Before I would fly about spooked that my little one would bump me and mess up everything, now it hardly matters.  He can climb up into my seat from the side and sit with me while we 'vvvvvv' around the digital sky.

 

If you're ever on the fence to get it, and can afford it, jump the fence.  The grass is beyond greener on the other side.

 

I understand that there is a real possibility that my setup is why I'm not having issues with the Hind, and I'll say the same thing that we've all told our console controller toting friends.  Your gear might be insufficient.  Sorry.

[Baldrick33]

Removing as much "stiction" as possible has been key for me to enjoy flying this aircraft. I did the spring mod for my Warthog stick - removing the big spring and moving the four small coil springs from bottom to top. It makes for very light resistance ( I also have a 10cm extension) but will still recentre although not from full deflection. I tend not to bother trying to trim it and seldom have the joystick centred and I find I have the most control this way.

 

The Warthog throttle on the lightest friction and angled down isn't a bad collective but also using it for aircraft messes with my muscle memory (old dogs, new tricks and all that!). So I have re-purposed an old CH flightstick, removed the pitch spring and angled the base at 45 degrees and it is a super precise collective albeit with no friction to hold it in place. It makes for a great experience as long as you keep holding the controls. With the mouse buttons mapped to the CH buttons there is little need to take a hand off although I have also mapped the collective up and down to the CH hat, so I can drop the collective, immediately pull that hat back to restore it to level flight and then let go if needed.

 

In VR the CH makes for a surprisingly immersive collective

[Hummingbird]

Seen many different people in many different threads now complain about the rocky behavior of the Hind, so at least I know it's an issue for many and not few.

[Baldrick33]

On 7/8/2021 at 12:08 AM, Baldrick33 said:

With the mouse buttons mapped to the CH buttons there is little need to take a hand off although I have also mapped the collective up and down to the CH hat, so I can drop the collective, immediately pull that hat back to restore it to level flight and then let go if needed.

 

 

 

Just to add I tried adding a modifier and by assigning the y axis to an unused camera function in VR I can switch between collective and unused camera mode. This parks the collective where it is. Pressing the button again enables it. Might be useful for anyone who has a collective that doesn't stay in position on its own. Or even to deliberately reduce the friction to get rid of the dreaded stiction!

Edited July 22, 2021 by Baldrick33

[S. Low]

On 7/4/2021 at 12:16 PM, Hummingbird said:

What bothers me the most is the sensitivity of the controls and lack of smoothness & precision during maneuvers, esp. at low speed. 

 

My expectations were based on watching real life demos, such as this one:

 

In this demo, and others, control appears so smooth and precise, and the aircraft appears incredibly stable. i

 

I can't hope to repeat those maneuvers in the DCS Mi-24, it's just too twittchy & nervous. esp. during hovering and at low forward speed.

 

With +10 x/y cyclic curves I’m pretty sure I can do all of that ... guess I’d have to make a video though to put my money where my mouth is

[Rogue Trooper]

On 7/6/2021 at 9:43 AM, Baldrick33 said:

I can throw it rally style around the agility training course https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3309227/ even get in the hangers and turn it around and out again, land on roofs including the curved hanger ones. However my big challenge is slowing down to hover speeds, where I often end up spinning to the left which takes me ages to recover, sometimes not all all, or descend too fast and am unable to recover.

 

For example landing on the ship in the instant access free flight Caucasus everything seems fine until I get near the ship and I am following it with full right rudder and sometimes it starts yawing to the left. I feel I need to drop the collective but don't have enough height, pushing stick forward seems to make it go backwards more. Eventually some forward and left cyclic seems to slowly address the spin, providing I haven't already crashed!

 

Generally I feel it is my impatience to rush the manoeuvre and inexperience but once I am on top of it I find it as easy as the Huey, just getting on top of it from fast to slow, high to low is a real challenge for me!

I think it is better than the Huey.

I think this Baldrick, because I believe the Hind has better modelling in every department.

But this is just my 2 pence worth of input for an old DCS module compared to a right up to date chopper module.

The Hind feels more responsive to input to me. 

More responsive to the environment... but this is just a feeling.

 

For sure the Hind locks into an un aided hover quicker than most DCS modules and it just feels right some how.

An aided hover is just rock solid stone in space.

you can really hover a square or a circle circuit in this bird and it just feels natural, clean and mean.

The Hind is just a Bad Dog, you let go of the leash it will bite someone.

 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Rogue Trooper

[Baldrick33]

44 minutes ago, Rogue Trooper said:

I think it is better than the Huey.

I think this Baldrick, because I believe the Hind has better modelling in every department.

But this is just my 2 pence worth of input for an old DCS module compared to a right up to date chopper module.

The Hind feels more responsive to input to me. 

More responsive to the environment... but this is just a feeling.

 

For sure the Hind locks into an un aided hover quicker than most DCS modules and it just feels right some how.

An aided hover is just rock solid stone in space.

you can really hover a square or a circle circuit in this bird and it just feels natural, clean and mean.

The Hind is just a Bad Dog, you let go of the leash it will bite someone.

 

 

I agree, I recently flew the Huey again and it felt a bit toy like. Sure it is a lot lighter but I also feel it is a previous generation physics modelling wise. The Hind has really captured my imagination.

[Rogue Trooper]

She is, it is very confusing in a sim that was so well modelled for choppers from the get go.

[Lurker]

@Hummingbird I've parked the Hind for the past few weeks. (Was on holiday and got kind of frustrated with the FM) any changes in the last few patches with regards to it's handling?

[Hummingbird]

Not that I've noticed Lurker, haven't really been flying it much myself either as I can't really get over how unstable it is.

 

In addition to this I stumbled upon a peculiar characteristic when attempting to fly sideways, with the heli only wanting to weathervane nose forward when flying sideways to the left, whilst to the right it wants to go tail forward. I'm not the first who noticed this though:

 

 

Sometimes I also find myself in uncontrollable spins where it feels like I have no tail rotor, which is incredibly weird. It's as if the tail rotor lacks effectiveness to counter the torque of the main rotor at times, which seems very odd.

 

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by Hummingbird

[Lurker]

Yeah I've read (and seen the videos) that describe the strange behavior in sideways flight, I hoped that they took care of it in the meantime. The devs should be aware from what I've managed to read on the Russian language forum. As for the lack of tail rotor effectiveness I think that's to be expected in a fully loaded and heavy helicopter like the Hind. 

[Hummingbird]

12 hours ago, Lurker said:

Yeah I've read (and seen the videos) that describe the strange behavior in sideways flight, I hoped that they took care of it in the meantime. The devs should be aware from what I've managed to read on the Russian language forum. As for the lack of tail rotor effectiveness I think that's to be expected in a fully loaded and heavy helicopter like the Hind. 

 

Well if you look at the video, notice how quickly the rotation of the real helicopter can be stopped in either direction despite being in a fast spin. I can't do that in DCS, I simply don't have enough yaw authority, esp. to one side.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Hummingbird

[Lurker]

12 hours ago, Hummingbird said:

 

Well if you look at the video, notice how quickly the rotation of the real helicopter can be stopped in either direction despite being in a fast spin. I can't do that in DCS, I simply don't have enough yaw authority, esp. to one side.

 

 

Try taking the Hind up with only 50% fuel and no armaments. It becomes much easier to control. I do feel that it's a bit overdone in our DCS version, and that there is something off with the LTE as can be demonstrated, but it's only a feel, I have no idea whether it's supposed to be like that in real life or not. 

What we do have is the demonstrable problems of the Hind behaving completely opposite to how it's supposed to in edge cases scenarios, I'm not sure how that relates to normal flight, but it's fair to say that it does cause issues and should be fixed ASAP. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Lurker

[admiki]

Even if it was not mentioned in changelogs, FM has been tweaked almost with every update. I remember when it released, autorotations where extremely hard to accomplish. Now, it's on par with Mi8. I believe FM will be tweaked further.

Saying that, Hind was never meant to be hovering platform, so it wasn't designed as such. Once you get above ETL it is quite stable. 

[fargo007]

18 hours ago, Hummingbird said:

 

Well if you look at the video, notice how quickly the rotation of the real helicopter can be stopped in either direction despite being in a fast spin. I can't do that in DCS, I simply don't have enough yaw authority, esp. to one side.

 

 

This is due to the heavy weight, and not having enough remaining torque to overcome the yaw rate. If you unload the helicopter so that it's well under 100% MGTOW, you won't have that issue.  We don't know how heavy that helicopter in the video is, but I'm sure it matters.

Edited August 18, 2021 by fargo007

[Hummingbird]

On 8/18/2021 at 4:17 PM, fargo007 said:

 

This is due to the heavy weight, and not having enough remaining torque to overcome the yaw rate. If you unload the helicopter so that it's well under 100% MGTOW, you won't have that issue.  We don't know how heavy that helicopter in the video is, but I'm sure it matters.

 

 

I see, I would've thought the tail rotor easily could compensate for that. Which leads me to another thing I was wondering about, which is that when'ever I increase throttle I need to apply more right rudder to counter the main rotor torque (which by itself seems quite logical), but if the tail rotor is connected to the main engine, shouldn't it also provide that much extra thrust as I increase throttle to essentially cancel out the extra torque/yaw force imparted by the main rotor? 

 

PS: Sorry in advance if my questions are stupid, I am most certainly no helicopter expert!

Edited August 22, 2021 by Hummingbird

[fargo007]

Do you mean increasing collective pitch instead of throttle? You shouldn't be running the throttle up and down at all. It should be at maximum and the engine rpms should be steady, not vascillating.

 

Assuming you mean collective pitch - that only changes the pitch of the main rotor. It's up to your feet to make the tail rotor match, or compensate for the change in collective pitch.

 

 

[Ramsay]

2 hours ago, Hummingbird said:

Which leads me to another thing I was wondering about, which is that when'ever I increase throttle I need to apply more right rudder to counter the main rotor torque (which by itself seems quite logical), but if the tail rotor is connected to the main engine, shouldn't it also provide that much extra thrust as I increase throttle to essentially cancel out the extra torque/yaw force imparted by the main rotor?

 

TL;DR:

 

• The main/tail rotors, have fixed speeds (unless rotor RPM falls due to load)

• Increasing collective, increases the pitch of the main rotor's blades, increasing the rotation torque

• This has to be compensated for by increasing the pitch of the tail rotor's blades, this is done using the anti-torque (rudder) pedals.

 

Detail:

 

The tail rotor is connected to the main rotor gearbox (not the engine) and like the main rotor, has a fixed speed (unless rotor RPM falls due to load).

 

Increasing collective, increases the pitch/loading of the main rotor's blades, this would cause the Main Rotor RPM to drop, so the engine governor responds by increasing power to maintain the SAME rotor RPM.

 

The increased pitch of the main rotor's blades also increase the rotation torque to be compensated for. As the tail rotor turns at a fixed RPM, increasing the tail rotor thrust has to be done by increasing the pitch of the tail rotor's blades. This is done by changing the position of the anti-torque (rudder) pedals. 

 

 

[Lurker]

22 hours ago, fargo007 said:

Do you mean increasing collective pitch instead of throttle? You shouldn't be running the throttle up and down at all. It should be at maximum and the engine rpms should be steady, not vascillating.

 

Assuming you mean collective pitch - that only changes the pitch of the main rotor. It's up to your feet to make the tail rotor match, or compensate for the change in collective pitch.

 

 

 

I'd like to add to this, if you have AP YAW channel on, and your feet off the pedals and make smooth, slow changes to the collective, you will not need to make any changes to the rudder inputs. The AP channel will do it for you, to counter any given torque. I'm pretty sure that it was not designed to be used that way to take off and land the helicopter in real life but it's possible to do either without any rudder input in the sim, as long as you are smooth and slow on the collective pitch changes. 

[Hummingbird]

Many thanks for the explanations guys, that would explain the relative lack of yaw authority in some cases.

 

That said it still feels incredibly nervous to fly, and it doesn't appear as stable in DCS as it is when you watch it in real life, irrespective of wether there's a very good DCS heli pilot behind the controls or not. But ofcourse it's still early access, so much can change.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by Hummingbird

[Richard Dastardly]

Havenn't flown since pre-Covid, so I'm comnig at it from someone with many hours in the Mi-8 but relatively fresh to both right now. I use 10 on my stick curves because a desktop Virpil base isn't really quite up to linear - it's possible but I very quickly get cramp & it's not exactly fun.

 

The Hind *is* more twitchy than the Mi-8, but I'm not really sure whether it's the helicopter itself or the SAS - certainly the yaw SAS is prone to oscillation, I trimmed it into a hover & let go of everything & it just sat there waggling it's nose back & forward. The Hip is also pretty awkward if you take the pitch/roll channels out - I think it's worse than the 24 having just flown them back to back like that. I've also noticed the odd pitch oscillation with the Hind but what really sticks out is that the trim feels wierd - sometimes banging the trim button makes the helicopter feel like I have to fight it to maneuver after, and sometimes it's nice and fluid. So yes, maybe something in the SAS needs more tuning. I'd not expect it to fly like a Hip though, they might share lineage but the Hind has a long armoured snout & wings, so it's already very different just from mass & lift distribution.

 

Some people have said they find it rock solid, are you guys using long sticks & not using the trim button?

[admiki]

I am. Still there is up-down oscilation at about 120 kph in level flight. I don't know how it is in real life, but I would expect attack helicopter to be more nimble than transport heli.