Kang Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 Slowly getting onto the bandwagon of the AH-64 I noted that when trying to hover the Apache has a rather 'squirrely' tendency do try and get away from me, something I last experienced when I was trying out the Gazelle. Other pilots quickly pointed me towards Wags' introductory video of getting airborne and hovering. Am I the only one who got the sensation that that video is basically ten minutes of 'fly it like a helicopter! Just git gud!'? (I think it is true, though, trying it a few times I can feel it getting easier and less stressful already. Still kinda funny.) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dburne Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 Yep just takes lots of practice and coordinating the correct amount of pedal and cyclic input. 1 Don B EVGA Z390 Dark MB | i9 9900k CPU @ 5.1 GHz | Gigabyte 4090 OC | 64 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 MHz CL16 | Corsair H150i Pro Cooler |Virpil CM3 Stick w/ Alpha Prime Grip 200mm ext| Virpil CM3 Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Base w/ Alpha-L Grip| Point Control V2|Varjo Aero| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flamin_Squirrel Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 The Apache does seem a little squirrely - but hovering is unlikely to ever be easy for newcomers in their first heli and will always take practice. "Just git gud" is a blunt way of saying there aren't any short cuts, which is true to an extent. That said, there are tips that can help. Probably the best one is understanding that maintaining the attitude of the helicopter is key. To be able to hover means your eyes have to be very sensitive to detecting correcting changes in the helicopter's attitude. Find a wide flat area, lift off the ground and try to hold an attitude. If you start to drift don't panic, just readjust the attitude a little to try and correct and hold it again. See what happens, and repeat. AVOID LARGE CORRECTIONS! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S. Low Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 Practice. Lift her up and focus on a tree or a building a ways in front of you. Use your peripherals to adjust the helo. You're making movements in anticipation of what the aircraft will do, not necessarily what it has done already. You have to be mentally ahead of it. I'm just a simmer not a real pilot - the real deal can probably give you a better tip on this. Eventually it becomes sort of muscle memory. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cow_art Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 One thing I noticed yesterday is that I need more deadzone on my cyclic axes than I do on other modules. The Apache seems to be quite sensitive to small inputs. I have an older CH Fighterstick which often does not re-center perfectly, especially after small inputs like the ones you make when you try to fine-tune a hover. So in case you (like me) usually manage to get in a pretty good hover ( < 10 knots or so) but then struggle to keep it stable and reduce the drift to near zero, try increasing your deadzone. I now use a deadzone of 5 for both cyclic axes (which is more than double of what I usually use). Hovering has become a lot easier for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhinozherous Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 (edited) Just watched this from casmo... interesting for things like hover: Edited March 26, 2022 by Rhinozherous 2 i7-14700KF 5.6GHz Water Cooled /// ZOTAC RTX 4070 TI Super 16GB /// 32GB RAM DDR5 /// Win11 /// SSDs only DCS - XP12 - MSFS2020 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WOPR Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 Watch this. I find the settings in this video work extremely well for the Warthog and Thurstmaster TPRs. I suspect they will set you on a good path for other controllers and being able to manage in a hover. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ED Team BIGNEWY Posted March 26, 2022 ED Team Share Posted March 26, 2022 Practice practice practice, you will improve, and once altitude hold is ready it will be a breeze for you. 2 Forum rules - DCS Crashing? Try this first - Cleanup and Repair - Discord BIGNEWY#8703 - Youtube - Patch Status Windows 11, NVIDIA MSI RTX 3090, Intel® i9-10900K 3.70GHz, 5.30GHz Turbo, Corsair Hydro Series H150i Pro, 64GB DDR @3200, ASUS ROG Strix Z490-F Gaming, HP Reverb G2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaders Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 (edited) When you first start just hold the stick with your finger and thumb. This usually helps prevent the over controlling that most have to start with. Edited March 26, 2022 by Chaders 1 Best Regards, Chaders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5ephir0th Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 When i first start to fly RC helicopters someone tells me "With helicopters you have to be flying it always" meaning that on planes, if you relases the controls the plane will continue to flying on the same attitude (more or less, of course) but on helicopters you have to maintain all axis on movement to fly it correctly and thats change my mind. With that and practice you will get it, as to planes when doing precise flying like air refueling, you have to anticipate the corrections to the movements, if you wait to correct after the helicopters start to move, you are late and for that you need more practice 1 NZXT H9 Flow Black | Intel Core i5 13600KF OCed P5.6 E4.4 | Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX | G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo DDR5-6000 32GB C30 OCed 6600 C32 | nVidia GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition | Western Digital SN770 2TB | Gigabyte GP-UD1000GM PG5 ATX 3.0 1000W | SteelSeries Apex 7 | Razer Viper Mini | SteelSeries Artics Nova 7 | LG OLED42C2 | Xiaomi P1 55" Virpil T-50 CM2 Base + Thrustmaster Warthog Stick | WinWing Orion 2 F16EX Viper Throttle | WinWing ICP | 3 x Thrustmaster MFD | Saitek Combat Rudder Pedals | Oculus Quest 2 DCS World | Persian Gulf | Syria | Flaming Cliff 3 | P-51D Mustang | Spitfire LF Mk. IX | Fw-109 A-8 | A-10C II Tank Killer | F/A-18C Hornet | F-14B Tomcat | F-16C Viper | F-15E Strike Eagle | M2000C | Ka-50 BlackShark III | Mi-24P Hind | AH-64D Apache | SuperCarrier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayrayblues Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 17 hours ago, S. Low said: Practice. Lift her up and focus on a tree or a building a ways in front of you. Use your peripherals to adjust the helo. You're making movements in anticipation of what the aircraft will do, not necessarily what it has done already. You have to be mentally ahead of it. I'm just a simmer not a real pilot - the real deal can probably give you a better tip on this. Eventually it becomes sort of muscle memory. ^THIS^ 1 SLAVA UKRAINI MoBo - ASUS 990FX R2 Sabertooth, CPU - AMD FX 9590 @4.7Gb. No OC RAM - GSkill RipJaws DDR3 32 Gb @2133 MHZ, GPU - EVGA GeForce GTX 1660Ti 6Gb DDR5 OC'd, Core 180MHz, Memory 800MHz Game drive - Samsung 980 M.2 EVO 1Tb SSD, OS Drive - 860 EVO 500Gb SATA SSD, Win10 Pro 22H2 Controls - Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X, Monitor - LG 32" 1920 X 1080, PSU - Prestige ATX-PR800W PSU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAXsenna Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 Yup, practice, practice and practice. AAR, formation flying and hovering go hand in hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killjoy555 Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 I tend to pause my TrackIR when transitioning so I can see the changes in attitude a lot better. That has really helped me get a better feel for it. I think I was correcting attitude changes with my head subconsiously, so I didn't notice them as much. Still need a lot of practice to "git gud", but its getting there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scaley Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 I did this in the Huey but all the principles are the same as well as the practice methods: 476th vFighter Group Main Page -- YouTube -- Discord Scaley AV YouTube - More videos from the 476th Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kang Posted March 29, 2022 Author Share Posted March 29, 2022 Yea, also adding a little bit of advice: do check on the trimmer method selected in the options. Mine was set to 'instant' by default which is quite the change from the 'center' I always used for the Huey. Little things, a little bit of practice. As I said in the original post: things already got better after an hour or so trying around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sollymans Posted March 29, 2022 Share Posted March 29, 2022 One of the biggest mistakes people make when learning to hover is looking to close in front of the helicopter. If you look to close to the ground in front of the helicopter every movement will seem exaggerated and will cause you to over correct, try moving you eyes much further out away from the helicopter. Pick a spot, a tree or a building and look at that instead, it will help. everything else is just down to practice, remember every time you move one control you have to move the other two. So if you move the cyclic to stop a drift you lessen the ground effect under you just splighlty so you will need to pull pitch to compensate this in turn will require more left pedal to counteract the increased torque. Once you are back on the ball of air you will need to reduce pitch and again the right pedal…….rinse and repeat. imagine the helicopter is sitting on top of a ball of air which is trying to throw you off in every direction!!! evenutally your muscle memory will start acting automatically so that you are moving all three controls in unison almost before the control input is needed……but it takes time and patience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle7907 Posted March 29, 2022 Share Posted March 29, 2022 My best description for beginners flying any helicopter…Airplanes are like bicycles. They require periods of attention, but can be controlled with little effort when properly trimmed. A very stable craft.Helicopters are like unicycles. Inherently unstable. They require constant attention, with constant corrections. However, once properly trimmed only requires very small correction, but still constant correction. The trick is preventing yourself to make too big of a correction or to prevent yourself creating an oscillation. Recognize, correct, and repeat. Keep the corrections small. Remember, small corrections are easier to fix than large ones.With that in mind, check your input gear and settings, they may be preventing you of making small corrections. But that’s the general mantra I use.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro Win 10, AMD FX9590/water cooled, 32GB RAM, 250GB SSD system, 1TB SSD (DCS installed), 2TB HD, Warthog HOTAS, MFG rudders, Track IR 5, LG Ultrawide, Logitech Speakers w/sub, Fans, Case, cell phone, wallet, keys.....printer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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