Helicopter is on Battery Bus?

[Honest989]

What the heck does that mean? Obviously it's something bad because 30 seconds later I lost power and had to perform a botched Autorotation (broke my landing gear) but if it's of any help, I was in High altitude conditions with anti icing and icing prevention on

[EagleEye]

Exactly what happend to my helo on a mission recently! I had also anti icing and icing prevention on, thought I wasn`t in a high altitude. No idea what to do if that happens... Generators fail, but why?

Edited December 5, 2008 by EagleEye

[Tango]

Anti-Ice systems take power from the engines, and if you are at a lower power setting to boot, and then demand more power by pulling collective, it can cause the generators to run below minimum speed, and cut off as the RPM drops momentarily before the turbines can spool up to compensate.

 

This phenomenon gets worse at higher altitudes.

 

The trick is to be smoother with the collective. ;)

 

Best regards,

Tango.

[AlphaOneSix]

The AC generators have voltage regulators that turn them off if they are producing below a certain voltage. If your rotor RPM drops too low, your AC generators will cut off. They will come back on if you get your RPM back up. When your AC generators cut off, you're on battery power.

[Acedy]

Did you guys have the throttle levers in the auto position (2 clicks up from idle)? If they are set below, the generators may not produce enough electricity and the heli starts to use batteries, which in turn might not be enough to power all your systems.

[tusler]

Yes exactly

 

If it says you are on the Battery Bus it means you are running on batteries only, I'm sure in the real manual something akin to the Navy NATOPS there is instruction for the pilot to make an immediate landing, I hope we can also get the emergency manual for this bird some day.

 

Imagine your 4000 feet in the air and your alternator quits leaving you with enough battery power for only a couple of minutes before your headlights go out. :lol:

[Honest989]

...ah. You learn something new every day.

 

Maybe we should start a sticky with Ekran warning descriptions so we know what's happening and how to try and avert disaster :smartass:

[GGTharos]

They're in the manual ...

[Honest989]

You misunderstand me - Ekran does have an extensive list of code meanings in the manual, but there are certain examples that just don't help. "Helicopter on Battery Bus" being one of them. The reason I had to ask here is because I couldn't figure out what was going on. The dip in electrical whine led me to believe that there was a battery issue going on with the helicopter (I recognised it from a bad alternator on my car lol) but I didn't realise you could correct the issue

[EagleEye]

I will try to find the track file. It was on a MP mission and the file should be in the temp folder... Stay tuned. Will come back if I find it and start investigation (thats the cool part on BS, because the depth on the systems modeling).:)

[EagleEye]

So here is the trk file for dl (File size is 12Mb, the small download button is the right one): http://www.file-upload.net/download-1300071/client-20081128-232925.miz.trk.html

Please do a fast forward (best do it in Map view) to 10:53 than go to the cockpit view. I´m hovering in front of a town, than suddenly EKRAN reports and I lost Power and crash.

[GGTharos]

You seem to be flying with weapons selected, which is removing some flight info from your HUD ...

 

Your altitude warning isn't set ...

You're flying at top speed but I guess that's ok for cruising, then again, if you're cruising, fly higher and maintain 130 IAS (most economic speed).

 

You're not using the autopilot ... which is fine, though I'd claim that autopilot is your friend! ;)

 

Still watching your track ... ok, done.

 

Let's address your crash first.

You should have engaged engine anti-ice when you got the rotor anti-ice warning, just in case. I don't know if that was the reason for your engine failure, but it isn't unlikely. The other possibility is that the multiple hits you took caused problems.

 

Your left engine quit in mid-air, but there were warning signs: Throughout your flight, the EGT behaved differently and in the end, it started to rise rapidly, but weren't paying attention ;)

When that engine quit, instead of pushing the stick forward to fly, you insisted on hovering - you probably added collective even... this resulted in the rotor RPM becoming too low (the zebra light warning is pretty clear), and the other clue should have been the fact that you were on battery (rotor provides electrical power) - so something's up with your rotor sped.

Because you decided to stay in the hover, the loss of power resulted in rapid descent which eventually became VRS. You could have recovered, but you remained in a hover anyway.

 

Finally, taking multiple hits should have been your hint to abort and go home. You're not supposed to really discover enemy location by leting them shoot you up ;)

 

Your 'turn around pop-ups' were tactically unsound - if I was carrying a Stinger you'd have uh, 'crashed' a lot earlier than you did, during one of those pop-ups ;)

Edited December 6, 2008 by GGTharos

[EagleEye]

Hey thanks GGTharos for taking time for this analysis!

Yes, I must admit that my flying and troubleshooting were not that well... Haven´t learned emergency procedures yet...

I have not really a clue what I should do, if I can´t find the enemys position. Without a wingman who could do recon...

[GGTharos]

If you find the enemy by being shot at, evade them and move on to your primary target - that's how real crews do it. And don't overfly your target.

[EagleEye]

Yes, the focus should be on the primary target. Though is hard to resist to engaging all enemys on the way...:music_whistling:

I flew this mission again yesterday and turned on also the engine anti-ice. Yeah, I forgot about this one and all the other heaters to prevent icing...:doh: