Beginners Questions

[manrammer]

Hello all,

 

I'm new to this rotary wing dealie, so bear with me for a few (hopefully simple) questions.

 

1. I would like the AP to autostabilise yaw, but it appears heading hold only has modes for yaw to track and yaw to waypoint. When flying with HH enabled, I have to fight the black shark to fly on the bearing I want to fly on, while the aircraft constantly tries to yaw according to the HH mode. So I end up with funny looking flight. Is there a mode that will merely cancel any unwanted yawing (ie. the AP will hold a heading unless on yaw input or banking)?

 

2. The standby attitude indicator is up to 30 degrees incorrect after only minutes of flight. Could this contribute to wild autopilot behaviour? (given that, the SAI is a respresentation of the INS input, which i presume is the source of the AP).

 

3. The aircraft is extremely unstable without AP stabilisation, and even with, I'm so hamfisted I turned down my joystick pitch and roll to 50% saturation. Albiet, I completely have to fight the aircraft to do everything , and it's quite difficult to hold, say, a negative pitch, as the AP bucks against my inputs. Whats going on here?

 

Thanks for helping a newbie.

[GGTharos]

Hello all,

 

I'm new to this rotary wing dealie, so bear with me for a few (hopefully simple) questions.

 

1. I would like the AP to autostabilise yaw, but it appears heading hold only has modes for yaw to track and yaw to waypoint. When flying with HH enabled, I have to fight the black shark to fly on the bearing I want to fly on, while the aircraft constantly tries to yaw according to the HH mode. So I end up with funny looking flight. Is there a mode that will merely cancel any unwanted yawing (ie. the AP will hold a heading unless on yaw input or banking)?

 

Trim is your friend. RTFM please! ;) When you hit the trim button you also issue pitch/bank/heading hold.

 

2. The standby attitude indicator is up to 30 degrees incorrect after only minutes of flight. Could this contribute to wild autopilot behaviour? (given that, the SAI is a respresentation of the INS input, which i presume is the source of the AP).

 

No, this is not the case. The ADI is the more accurate instrument you should go by.

 

3. The aircraft is extremely unstable without AP stabilisation, and even with, I'm so hamfisted I turned down my joystick pitch and roll to 50% saturation. Albiet, I completely have to fight the aircraft to do everything , and it's quite difficult to hold, say, a negative pitch, as the AP bucks against my inputs. Whats going on here?

 

Thanks for helping a newbie.

 

You're not trimming.

[scatter]

Try switching on the flight director (the button to the right of the other autopilot buttons). It should help a lot with the fighting against the autopilot which will then basically just help to keep the helo more stable. You'll still have to trim a lot but it should be much easier.

[Frederf]

2. The S-ADI isn't INU driven I don't think. It's just a vacuum driven, manually set, gyroscopic ADI. If you cage it, go into a weird bank, then uncage it it'll be calibrated totally wrong. It just remembers attitude relative to where it was when it was uncaged. It's like a clock, it only shows the right time if you set it right.

 

3. The aircraft is traditionally flown in flight director (assisted stability) most of the time, full autopilot some of the time, and direct manual almost never. It has assisted flight modes for a reason :P Setting some curves for your joystick should help you be a little more gentle around the null cyclic position without sacrificing full deflection. Also remember that our joysticks are $20-200 while the real one is probably $10,000 being very smooth and precise around the mid point.

[GGTharos]

3. The aircraft is traditionally flown in flight director (assisted stability) most of the time, full autopilot some of the time, and direct manual almost never.

 

Actually, it's full autopilot (not ROUTE, just influence) most of the time, flight director rarely, and direct manual almost never (emergency only)

[tusler]

Do a search for Sundown, He has a complete ground school setup for FREE and you will be up an flying in no time!

[aledmb]

Do a search for Sundown, He has a complete ground school setup for FREE and you will be up an flying in no time!

is this online?

can you point us to that?

thanks in advance!

[sobek]

is this online?

can you point us to that?

thanks in advance!

 

Look at the top of this page, the big fat search button is slightly to the right. Press it. Use it wisely. Use it often. ;)

 

Edit: To be fair, its not that big. :D

Edited December 30, 2008 by sobek

[xell]

I think i am slowly on my way to "master" this. :) One thing i did wrong in the beginning. I was obsessed with the autopilot mode. The fixation of using Autohover is what got me killed most of the time when i tried to fight the chopter wanting to keep me in place.

 

But one advise to everybody trying to master this is an advice read here but i mostly overlooked cause i thought he was crazy! :) Learn to fly the chopter. Really fly it. I now never use the autohover or turn into target cause the fixation on getting the hang of these made me forget how to fly the thing.

 

I can now fly on a fixed altitude providing aircover for my assets and i can dutch the sams and take evasive maneuvers without the need to disable the hover, altitude and god knows what.

 

And somebody also wrote how to be able to make quick turns without risking problem! LOWER THE COLLECTIVE before the maneuver and peak on you VSI constantly so you keep it level (if thats what you intend to do!)

 

Something i am also using alot is a zoom in function view from cockpit. It complements my Track IR nicley and I have a rotary on my hotas assigned to that function. I use that to mimic a binoucular i phantom is available to the pilot. It really help you find those pesky targets! :)

 

Reading your post manrammer i see myself the fighting everything but the enemy. If i knew then what i now know i guess it would have been easier!

 

I think the posts and direction how to master the autopilot and trimming just made me think it was difficult and hard to master. It isn't. Now i feel when i need to trim. When i have to fight the the cyclic or rudder to keep it where i want i push the trim button and voila i am centered and ready to go.

[aledmb]

Look at the top of this page, the big fat search button is slightly to the right. Press it. Use it wisely. Use it often. ;)

 

Edit: To be fair, its not that big. :D

 

 

i did it.

didn't found anything free.

[sobek]

i did it.

didn't found anything free.

 

Ok my bad, was a bit hard to find that way. Go to your user control panel( the leftmost link on top of the page, the one that says 'User CP') and follow directions: Networking -> Social Groups -> Ground Troops Aviation Training Center; et voila, study your ass off ;)

[aledmb]

thanks, sobek! :)