Main Rotor Inertia

[Ironious]

Have been practicing autorotations with an ex Army pilot who flew the Huey and other helicopters in the Army. He said it felt like the DCS Huey main rotor had too much inertia compared to the real one. Allowing a much larger margin for error when pulling the collective at the end. Any real world Huey pilot opinions on this?

[fapador]

@Ironious Ask him what he thinks of right pedal need in high speeds >70IAS and the complete lack of it being implemented... 

Edit: My bad, right not left as I previously said

Edited December 3, 2021 by fapador

[Ironious]

I'll mention it to him. I just tried it though and pulled a lot of collective at about 100kts and the ball took a lot of left pedal to center. Do you mean it shouldn't or should require more?

He also flew the A model Apache when the Army first got them and we're eager to get in that.

 

[fapador]

@Ironious I am talking about level flight, look here especially on page 2. Also I made mistake I mean right pedal need in high speeds

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by fapador

[Ironious]

Really we're using the Huey only so he can teach me to fly a helicopter in anticipation of the Apache. Also, to get him familiar with DCS and PC sims in general since he never really had any interest in them over the years until more recently as the realism has grown. I have a little real world experience in fixed wings and a lot of experience in sims. He's the opposite.  

[Thumper1911]

I was a backseater in hueys blackhawks and number of other helos.   It certainly seems to me like it has way too much.   I think it makes the autos harder because you have to bleed it off and its easy to ballon up.
 

I have been trying to master the huey in preparation for apache.  I am always looking for people to fly huey with.

[fapador]

@Ironious Any update on the matter?

 

[Ironious]

He's out of town for a bit right now. Will ask him when he gets back. He's my younger brother. Army 12 years flying various helicopters then an ATP.

[Ironious]

Let me be sure I understand your issue Fapador, you're saying there should be right pedal input required for level flight above 70kts but there is no right pedal needed for that?

[fapador]

@Ironious Yes thats right. 

[Ironious]

I've been working on approaches lately and it does require right pedal for coordinated flight until reaching a hover. Will ask my brother what he thinks when he returns next week.

[fapador]

@Ironious It should also require in level flight in high speeds.  Of course it does also while descending(dropping collective)

[Ironious]

I see what you mean. Will get his opinion our next session.

 

[fapador]

@Ironious Thanks!  Exactly what I mean, In reality the ball should go to the right at these speeds and therefore right pedal must be stepped. I posted your video in the coordinated flight ball thread, as a video was requested. 

Edited December 10, 2021 by fapador

[Ironious]

It's unlikely I will ever fly a real Huey so if the modeling is a little off it's close enough for me. I don't expect major changes to a module this old. I hope the flight modeling of the Apache is close enough to keep actual Apache pilots interested. 

[fapador]

@Ironious The closest I have been to a uh1h, is the sim Greek army uses to train its crew. The DCS Huey pedal discrepancy has been told to me by a major who had a go in the huey. He also told me that the Dcs huey has a more  "pendulum  like" rotor action than the real thing. By that, he meant that it has a little more pronounced tendency to return upright when banking from what I understood.

You can see some footage of the sim Hellenic army uses (which still operates them as of today) and I have tried here:

However its all in Greek and you probably won't understand a thing.

 

Edited December 10, 2021 by fapador

[fapador]

Also you can see some cool Hellenic army UH-1H airshow here.

 

[Ironious]

Greek to me. 

[cw4ogden]

On 11/25/2021 at 9:11 AM, Ironious said:

He said it felt like the DCS Huey main rotor had too much inertia compared to the real one. Allowing a much larger margin for error when pulling the collective at the end. Any real world Huey pilot opinions on this?

Never flew the huey.  But I've heard anecdotes about how much inertia the rotor held.  These must be taken with a grain of salt, but they were asserted to me as true, and not urban legend.  

Hal Beauchene (my primary instructor pilot) told a tale of showing off to a harrier pilot.  Something akin to the harrier pilot saying, "I can do anything you can do.'  Hal said he rolled the throttle to idle, then pulled up to a 50 foot hover, then autorotated.  Asking then if the harrier if he could do what he just did.  

Other was a guy named Jalmer Blad (instrument instructor).  This guy had an engine failure combined with sprag clutch failure, meaning the engine was being driven still by the rotor adding drag on the rotor.  He explains(ed) his survival by crediting the huey's high rotor inertia.

To me the huey autorotation feels pretty good.  I don't care for the huey flight model, mainly forward flight stuff, but the autorotation modelling feels fairly realistic to me.

 

Edited December 19, 2021 by cw4ogden

[Ironious]

I think if you execute an autorotation properly you may not notice the effect he mentioned to me. If you pull collective too soon you'll stop your descent too soon but still have some left to prevent falling to the ground. It's been a long time since he flew the Army Huey and he didn't fly it long as he went on to the Cobra and then Apache when it became available. 

The way he had me practicing is to flare at 100ft and pull collective at 10. 

[fapador]

In the next days I might be able to have some former operators/militants   have a go on the dcs huey. I will ask their opinion about the rotor inertia. In the meantime, some more cool Hellenic army  UH-1H footage: Enjoy!

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by fapador

[fapador]

Ok as I promised @Ironious,

During the holidays I had 2 operators/  high rank militants, one former and one with 3600hours at the Hellenic Army UH-1H  have a go in Dcs huey . I will keep their remarks short and in point, in a nutshell they said the flight model is ~80% like the real thing. They especially didn't like autorotations and said the rotor felt like a hog compared to the real thing. they also made some remarks about level flight speed and said dcs huey has a strange over tendency to return level when banking. They described it  like the rotor is acting like a "gyroscope" to me. They also said vrs is a little exaggerated and that the huey in reality is not so prone. When they tried some aggressive maneuver flying, BOTH of them ended up with detached rotors (mast bumping) and laughed at how easy this is to happen... Also they said tail rotor is a tad on the weak side on max pedal deflection especially on the left . All in all, they liked some things FM wise,  like tendency to roll with anti-torgue input, amount of required pedal input for hover etc... and very much loved the graphics. Some sound effects also seemed a little off to them. 

One of them  also used to  be battalion helicopter tester and has extensive knowledge of the huey , its capabilities and its complete flight envelope.

He pointed me to this video tape  where he was flying some tests couple years ago . he said its a good example to understand how the  helicopter performs in reality.

The video has poor quality but after watching it, Its really enlightening as to what one can expect. Especially 2:11 and 4:05 (max left turn rate)

Enjoy

 

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by fapador

[Tanuki44]

Interesting 

Did the 2 operators make any particular adjustments or settings to the axes?

[fapador]

16 hours ago, Tanuki44 said:

Did the 2 operators make any particular adjustments or settings to the axes?

Yes we tried  some settings and  settled with these : 2 deadzone curvature 10  (x and y  axis) 0 deadzone full linear for the pedals. They said  more curvature only makes the helicopter feel worse.

We used a  custom t16000 extended joystick and ch rudder pedals with some mods for smooth action. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by fapador

[Ironious]

I've been practicing ILS approaches in zero vis. My brother mentioned that changes to power does not affect pitch as much in the real bird as it does in DCS.