Share your best tips for newbies

[rogue_blade]

im confused by this trim business. the only time ive ever used trim is in IL2 when climbing or diving cuz props can never hold an attitude

[Pizzicato]

im confused by this trim business. the only time ive ever used trim is in IL2 when climbing or diving cuz props can never hold an attitude

 

You never used trim in Lock On?

 

Or Flaming Cliffs??

 

Or Black Shark???

 

Sir - I have no idea how you do it.

 

Why are you confused by it?

[rogue_blade]

You never used trim in Lock On?

 

Or Flaming Cliffs??

 

Or Black Shark???

 

Sir - I have no idea how you do it.

 

Why are you confused by it?

 

well i dont have BS im just interested after reading this topic. but no i never used it in FC...:music_whistling:

i mean now that i imagine it im guessing in the KA50 you need to push forward on the stick to nose down and accelerate. im guessing you would use trim to keep the nose a few degrees down and you can release the stick?

 

edit: never used it in Lockon of Falcon4 cuz flying the f15c and falcon...its like riding on rails. i point the nose and it goes thataway

[mjolner]

Map trim button to your stick. I use a cougar and I have mine mapped to S3.

 

Trim, and trim some more, and when you think you are trim, trim again. When you speed up or slow down, trim.

 

Accelerate slowly and be sure to not over control and trim.

 

Dont forget that when you are holding the trim button down and moving the pedals (or how ever you use rudder ) you will be trimming rudder as well. Things seem a little crazy, check that rudder trim.

 

Use the axis display CTRL + ENTER.

 

Dont even try high speed until you can trim like a pro.

 

Dont drop fast when slow, watch that envelope or you will drop right out of the sky.

 

So many others. Lots to learn.

 

Have fun

[MrReynolds]

Map auto hover and turn to target to stick.

Now, when having these great little guys working for you, REMEMBER TO TURN THE BUGGERS OFF when you move on. Causes no end of "Havok"!!! :megalol:

[skypirate]

well i dont have BS im just interested after reading this topic. but no i never used it in FC...:music_whistling:

i mean now that i imagine it im guessing in the KA50 you need to push forward on the stick to nose down and accelerate. im guessing you would use trim to keep the nose a few degrees down and you can release the stick?

 

edit: never used it in Lockon of Falcon4 cuz flying the f15c and falcon...its like riding on rails. i point the nose and it goes thataway

 

 

In LockON you still need to trim (whatever there you are flying) especially when changing speed, dropping flaps, gear etc.... Otherwise you will ALWAYS have to use the joystick OFF the center position to be able to go wherever you are goin......:joystick:

 

In BS the trim philosophy is different though the outcome is same - be able to fly the aircraft straight and level with HANDS OFF the stick

[Flash1606687761]

Map auto hover and turn to target to stick.

Now, when having these great little guys working for you, REMEMBER TO TURN THE BUGGERS OFF when you move on. Causes no end of "Havok"!!! :megalol:

 

Remember that turning autohover off leaves the alt holding autopilot on.. Makes her fly quite differently..

[d0ppler]

Remember that turning autohover off leaves the alt holding autopilot on.. Makes her fly quite differently..

Yeah, about that.. why does ALT HOLD goes ON when I initiate auto hover, and worse; why doesn't it goes off when I disable autohover? It's kinda annoying, so I must do something wrong I guess...

[Riserburn]

Map the auto heading button on your stick and activate it when you are on course. Deactivate it when you need to bank, turn etc... it needs to be activated for turn on target as well. other than that i leave it off. If you leave you auto heading activated, you will fight your aircraft endlessly.

Edited January 6, 2009 by Riserburn

[Sunjah]

Don't call yourself a newbie!

[aledmb]

Map the auto heading button on your stick and activate it when you are on course. Deactivate it when you need to bank, turn etc... it needs to be activated for turn on target as well. other than that i leave it off. If you leave you auto heading activated, you will fight your aircraft endlessly.

 

maybe that's the most important one after correctly trimming the aircraft.

[RvETito]

Try always keep the slip ball centered. You'll find your flying and aiming much more precise. Besides, this is an essential thing pilots on russian helicopters are trained to get used to.

 

Screw autohover, you only gain bad habits with it.

[einar-st]

Yeah, about that.. why does ALT HOLD goes ON when I initiate auto hover, and worse; why doesn't it goes off when I disable autohover? It's kinda annoying, so I must do something wrong I guess...

 

It's pretty natural that it would turn on seeing as hovering is beeing suspended in the air. ALT HOLD keeps the Y axis in check. The reason it's on afterwards is a safety feature if I had to guess.

 

In any case you're not doing anything wrong. That's just how it is.

[einar-st]

Screw autohover, you only gain bad habits with it.

 

Yeah... and if you need to be in a kind off hover, a manual hover with a good trim is just as good. Less to think about and less to forget about when you need to keep moving.

[rogue_blade]

In LockON you still need to trim (whatever there you are flying) especially when changing speed, dropping flaps, gear etc.... Otherwise you will ALWAYS have to use the joystick OFF the center position to be able to go wherever you are goin......:joystick:

 

In BS the trim philosophy is different though the outcome is same - be able to fly the aircraft straight and level with HANDS OFF the stick

 

Jesus where have i been :(. can you explain an example of why you would trim when "changing speed, dropping flaps, gear etc"

and you say "Otherwise you will ALWAYS have to use the joystick OFF the center position to be able to go wherever you are goin"

what does that mean?? how can you fly an airplane with the joystick centered?

as far as i know "trim" holds your aircraft at an attitude so when you say...take off and have to climb to 20k, you dont have to pull back for the time it takes to climb that high. plz enlighten me :joystick:

[Stingray]

Jesus where have i been :(. can you explain an example of why you would trim when "changing speed, dropping flaps, gear etc"

and you say "Otherwise you will ALWAYS have to use the joystick OFF the center position to be able to go wherever you are goin"

what does that mean?? how can you fly an airplane with the joystick centered?

as far as i know "trim" holds your aircraft at an attitude so when you say...take off and have to climb to 20k, you dont have to pull back for the time it takes to climb that high. plz enlighten me :joystick:

 

The goal is to be able to fly whatever aircraft you are in (jet, prop, helo), most of the time, without having to have your hand on the stick, rudder or throttle, so called "hands-off" flying. Now, of course when you are doing some maneuvers, you will of course be required to have pressure on the stick.

 

As an example: lets say you are flying the good ole' F-15C in LOMAC, you are playing a mission, and manage to kill 4 Su-27 on the 169th online hyperlobby server, but one of your engines is damaged and you have 50 miles to travel back to Sochi airbase nd you would like to land so you get all of your points (plus bragging rights for having killed online + landed). Now, you notice that in order to fly your ship straight, you have to have loads of left-rudder, some roll, and some back pressure on the stick to keep your nose up. Rather than constantly having to apply this pressure on all 3 surfaces, you can use the trim. So, you trim your plane using the roll, aileron, and rudder trim, so that your damaged aircraft flies perfectly straight with the required input, but you can have your hands fully off the stick and rudder pedals, much easier to fly. The amount of trim that must be applied changes with every little aspect of your planes flight: altitude, attitude, airspeed, drag, everytime one of those things changes, you will need to re-trim your aircraft to maintain hands-off flight. So, lower your speed, drop your gear, both your airspeed and drag have changed, your going to need to re-trim. Once you get into the habbit of trimming it is a very, very, very valuable tool (especially when combined with modifying your joysticks input curve, I explain this below). I even make a lot of use of using elevator trim in dog-fights. By keeping my stick near the center position, I and modifying the input curve, I am keeping my stick nearest where its movements are the "most accurate", and my aiming ability in IL-2 and LO are improved.

 

 

For IL2, with the gryo of the rotating prop and asympetric prop wash trim is very, very, very important.

 

Now, you can do the same thing with the helo in DCS:BS. For flying forward most of the time at any speed, you are going to have to have anywhere between 25 and 75% deflection on the forward cyclic and some right rudder. Rather than having to keep your hands in this posistion, you "trim" your stick, so that when the joystick is centered, i.e. you are not touching it at all, it retains that cyclic and rudder posistion.

 

One very, very handy thing that is done, is to adjust your joystick "input curve" settings, so that the sticks movement near its center posistion is damped, i.e., it takes more stick movement to do the control input, this makes your stick movements more accurate. By keeping your joystick in the center position, you can maintain a much more sensitive stick input. As your stick deflects away from center, the movement is "accelerated" until the full throw of the stick is enabled, this allows more rapid movements, but can be less accurate.

 

This way, when you are flying the DCS:BS and say you need to do a little correction, your stick is in the center position and you can apply a tiny correction, where your joysticks movement is more sensitive, rather than having your stick at a very large throw, where movements can be very coarse and not very "fine", then, you simply re-trim, move your stick back to center, and keep flying.

 

Trim often. I trim every few seconds now. When I first started, I was fighting the trim, not trimming very much. Once I started trimming, the movement of the helo was very "smooth", I wasn't oscillating, bouncing, jawying around wildly and I was no longer fighting to fly the bird, it feels like I can place it wherever I want it now. Trim is your friend, use it lots.

 

Stingray

Edited January 6, 2009 by Stingray

[wildone_106]

Turn OFF the flight director (Ctrl+A) oh what a difference that makes..feels like I have the control and not fighting the Autopilot or Trimming constantly. I also turned off my force feedback as it was a constant fight of the controls..now I can maneuver exactly as I want, landing is a cinch.

I only turn the director on when I need to auto hover & acquire targets..:thumbup:

[Flash1606687761]

Now this might sound stupid.. But I just worked something out.. So my top tip is..

 

'Remember you are flying a helicopter!'

 

I'm used to fix wing and just relialised I am trying to fly like fixed wing. I worked this out and just did 3 spot on landings.

 

I came in a little off centre and where as before I would fly a route in like a fixed wing aircraft to correct this, this time I stuck in some right rudder so I was straight with the runway and trimmed it to hold it. Then gave some left cyclic and a touch more rudder to fly sideways and line up. :)

 

Make any sense? Felt a lot more in control this time..

[104th_Crunch]

..

I only turn the director on when I need to auto hover & acquire targets..:thumbup:

 

Correct me if I am worng but Auto Hover does not work with Flight Director on.

[BRraptor]

Retract your gear after taking off.

 

Turn master arm ON before shooting.

 

When flying in a cold environment, snowing or up in the mountains, turn all your ANTI-ICE devices (rotor de-ice and engines de-ice, pitot & AOA heat), all in your TOP panel. You should have 5 green lights in the top lights panel.

[Nomad]

Turn OFF the flight director (Ctrl+A) oh what a difference that makes..feels like I have the control and not fighting the Autopilot or Trimming constantly. I also turned off my force feedback as it was a constant fight of the controls..now I can maneuver exactly as I want, landing is a cinch.

I only turn the director on when I need to auto hover & acquire targets..:thumbup:

I guess you mean turning flight director mode on rather than off. Thats not a good tip for newbies and in fact, the amount of topics and threads about this matter indicates that best tip for newbies would be to learn that to stop fighting the autopilot you don't just disable it in one way or another, but learn how to use it. When autopilot becomes your friend, you will find out that it is actually a very very nice thing, and makes flying easy and relaxed.

[uhoh7]

Most important gauge for me is the VVI or rate of climb/descent on the upper left. If I'm on the TV/abris view I watch the alt on the abris.

 

You save yourself alot of vortex crashes paying attention to that.

[aledmb]

well, this is what i have learned so far...

 

regarding the hardware:

1.

use a hotas controller.

2.

use rudder pedals.

3.

use a head tracking solution.

4.

setup the graphics for performance (maximize frame rate).

with regard to learning:

1.

if you're new to helicopter sims (as me), try to learn how this type of aircraft works by reading books, manuals, articles, etc.

2.

read the flight manual cover to cover.

3.

watch others flying (demos, youtube videos, your mates).

4.

learn the start-up/shutdown procedures.

regarding your flying time:

1.

always remember to retract/lower the landing gears.

2.

learn, practice and use the trim function often (to me, this is key as proper heel and toe in racing sims).

3.

learn the HUD and use the flight controller position indicator, RCTRL + ENTER (very useful when trimming the controls).

4.

practice hovering, using the hover function and doing smooth movements with the controls (remeber tai chi).

5.

when not in cruise flight or

hover

ing (that means maneuvering), disable the heading hold function in the autopilot panel (it will reduce at least 50% of the fight against the chopper everyone is talking about).

regarding practice:

1.

have a flight plan and do your best to follow it (i like flying along roads, pursuing trains, or doing laps around an imaginary circuit established before takeoff).

2.

always monitor your aircraft's state, most importantly attitude, airspeed and altitude.

3.

do your best to bring that chopper back home without too many scratches (be safe).

some of these are part of what i think is the best to learn this game,

while others are tips from the pros (mostly collected in this forum).

 

after almost 4 weeks after buying this sim, i'm still focusing on

the flight simulator and i will leave the combat part to when i

feel comfortable in the cockpit.

 

hope someone benefits from this.

 

cheers!

:thumbup:

[Slayer]

-Use Helmet Mounted Sight to quickly get the shkval into the target area then fine tune with slewing. This coupled with the auto turn on target enables you to quickly take out targets.

 

-When flying at high altitude or over mountains don't forget to turn on the engine and rotor heaters on the overhead panel or you will be icing up and have power loss and crash.

 

-Map a key to trim reset (in addition to the trim button). If you start getting uncontrollable turning with the AP channels on or having problems with auto turn on target , this will usually fix it. Soon as you reset though your nose will pitch up so just hit reset, then trim it again right away.

 

-Map a key to the collective brake, this has the dual function of also setting the altitude when you have the altitude channel on your autopilot turned on. Use it like the trim button.

 

-

[rogue_blade]

thank you stingray. But im confused about what you said about the input curve. I have mine set to be very sensitive for accurate movement but you state that you dampen it so it is less sensitive near the center?