Current state of attitude hold

[Picure]

Is it me or is the attitude hold not as good at holding my heli in a hover than the previous update?

[Falconeer]

try to set the trim, before enabling the ATT hold mode

[admiki]

It works fine on my end.

[Floyd1212]

7 hours ago, Picure said:

Is it me or is the attitude hold not as good at holding my heli in a hover than the previous update?

For me, it will hold the heading fine (in reasonable wind) as I make small and gentle adjustments to the collective.

When I want to adjust the heading of the aircraft with the pedals, I disengage ATT hold, change my heading, settle the aircraft, and apply ATT hold again.  I'm using pedals without springs.

[corbu1]

Works fine for me, too. 

[placsea]

The attitude hold months ago kept you rock solid, now I find it will drift and either accelerate or decelerate over a period of time and is noticeably worse at higher speeds. You could at one point go AFK completely with the hold modes on, I would not recommend that now. 

[Floyd1212]

Ah, you mean while using ATT Hold during forward flight.  I only use it to help hold a hover, which it seems to do okay.

[pii]

On 1/7/2023 at 5:48 AM, Picure said:

Is it me or is the attitude hold not as good at holding my heli in a hover than the previous update?

Nope not you. The whole thing seems to get "sloppy" when you get too slow, like when landing, taking off or trying to hover the helo drifts all over the place. 

[WWSmith]

2 hours ago, pii said:

Nope not you. The whole thing seems to get "sloppy" when you get too slow, like when landing, taking off or trying to hover the helo drifts all over the place. 

Same for me. It worked fine until 2 patches ago, now ATT hold seems to do nothing, even with the heli well-trimmed. I posted a track in another thread, which seems to have gone dead for now.

[Floyd1212]

1 hour ago, WWSmith said:

now ATT hold seems to do nothing

Not sure if you are exaggerating here, or if it literally isn't doing anything for you.

When I get into a stable hover and trim the aircraft with less than 3 knots maintained ground speed, then enable ATT Hold, the helo will maintain that position and heading while I adjust the collective to come up over the trees, etc.  When I launch a missile, the aircraft will buck slightly, but will recover and maintain position.

[pii]

2 hours ago, WWSmith said:

Same for me. It worked fine until 2 patches ago, now ATT hold seems to do nothing, even with the heli well-trimmed. I posted a track in another thread, which seems to have gone dead for now.

Exactly when I saw this sloppy low speed handling begin and its been that way ever since.  Also the ATT is hard to activate now and takes multibly attemps before it takes and turns on. Oh well they'll fix it someday. Until then I fly manually 

Edited January 8, 2023 by pii

[WWSmith]

1 hour ago, Floyd1212 said:

Not sure if you are exaggerating here, or if it literally isn't doing anything for you.

When I get into a stable hover and trim the aircraft with less than 3 knots maintained ground speed, then enable ATT Hold, the helo will maintain that position and heading while I adjust the collective to come up over the trees, etc.  When I launch a missile, the aircraft will buck slightly, but will recover and maintain position.

I wish I was exaggerating, but for me attitude hold really does nothing. Here's the track I posted in an earlier thread. In it, I trim so that I can easily hold a hover with just occasional fingertip pressure, engage attitude hold, and let go of the stick. The moment I let go, the heli starts wandering. It's the same in forward flight, although I don't have a track of that.

 

16 minutes ago, pii said:

Exactly when I saw this sloppy low speed handling begin and its been that way ever since.  Also the ATT is hard to activate now and takes multibly attemps before it takes and turns on. Oh well they'll fix it someday. Until then I fly manually 

 

Me and several other people have also noticed that it's finicky to engage. I think you need to engage within a few seconds after trimming. Are you using a force feedback stick by any chance?

ApacheBug.trk

[pii]

1 hour ago, WWSmith said:

Me and several other people have also noticed that it's finicky to engage. I think you need to engage within a few seconds after trimming. Are you using a force feedback stick by any chance?

ApacheBug.trk 1.12 MB · 0 downloads

No Force feedback it does have to do with trimming but it can still be tricky and even then the heli will drift all over still. 

[WWSmith]

Nuts. I was hoping that force feedback was the common thread here. Otherwise, I can't figure out why some of us have this issue and most apparently don't. I'm not using any curves or deadzones, and saturation is at 100%.

[Floyd1212]

I played back the track and saw what you were experiencing.  I then took control of the track and was able to get it to settle into a stable hover with ATT hold.

In your post above you state that you have no curves, deadzone, or saturation.  I think your issues are a combination of your hardware, and your current trim and axis settings.  Or more specifically, not having a curve or deadzone on your axis for your given hardware, which looks like it wants to drift a bit.

After you trim for the final time before engaging ATT Hold, I can see your inputs on the cyclic jump slightly (as a result of the Instant Trim) and then when you release your stick the white diamond does not stay centered on the red X, but instead drifts forward on the first attempt, and forward/right slightly on the second attempt.  I think without any deadzone, or curve, this tiny bit of input is enough to cause the aircraft to drift.

I fly with an extension on my stick, a curve of 15, saturation of 90% and a deadzone of 2.  I also fly with Center Trim mode.  When I trim for the final time, then enable ATT hold, there is no jump of the inputs, and with the deadzone and curve on the axis, when I take my hands off the stick, there is no deviation between the red X and the white diamond, so I am not influencing the aircraft at all.

I would definitely play with a curve and especially apply a deadzone for your stick axis.  And maybe check the calibration of the stick to make sure it is as centered as it can be.  If you can't get rid of the drift in the hardware, a curve will help reduce the amount of influence the input has on the aircraft, and a bit of deadzone would eliminate it completely.

[WWSmith]

Just for the sake of it, I tried your exact settings, and they made the Apache borderline unflyable for me. Adding any deadzone causes the stick to jump every time I press the trim button, making trimming incredibly difficult, and any but the mildest curves have the same result. I already wasted 3-4 hours experimenting with curves and deadzones, as I mentioned in the thread below, and the lesson I learned was that these don't react well with FFB and a helicopter's force trim system.

In any case, the Apache's attitude hold used to work perfectly for me, while the Mi-24 and Ka-50 still work perfectly for me, so something must have changed with the Apache.

 

[Floyd1212]

Yeah, I could see how the settings I am using wouldn't be compatible with a FFB setup.  Regardless, it appears the drift when you take your hand off the stick is what is causing the issue.

In the past, the hold modes were rock steady, but as they have made changes to the flight model it has changed.  Hopefully they will get things dialed in and it won't be so sensitive.

[WWSmith]

14 minutes ago, Floyd1212 said:

Yeah, I could see how the settings I am using wouldn't be compatible with a FFB setup.  Regardless, it appears the drift when you take your hand off the stick is what is causing the issue.

In the past, the hold modes were rock steady, but as they have made changes to the flight model it has changed.  Hopefully they will get things dialed in and it won't be so sensitive.

Ok, so I just read up on the controls indicator, since I never normally use it. I see what you mean about the white diamond drifting slightly when I let go, which is a consequence of my FFB stick's small mechanical deadzone. (Not sure of the proper term, but basically the magnets aren't applying force within a very small range of center, so the stick can move slightly when I release it.)  However, this shouldn't be enough to override the SCAS, as explained here:

I just flew again with the controls indicator on-screen this time, and the white diamond never comes near the edge of the rectangle, so unless I'm misreading this, the SCAS should have no trouble holding a hover. Instead, it seems that the tiniest input is enough to override it.

[Floyd1212]

It isn't that the SCAS doesn't have enough authority to counter the small amount of drift on your stick, it just isn't doing it.

I just flew another test thinking I would try removing my curves and even try the FFB mode to see if I could reproduce the results you were seeing, but even without any changes to my axis settings, if I move my stick so that the white diamond moves off of the red X by a similar amount to what your track shows, I start drifting off and it doesn't hold position. Interestingly, if I slowly add some pedal I can get all the way to the edge of the light gray SAS authority box before it finally breaks free and can't keep the heading.

It seems like with the current way ATT Hold is working, it is super strong in the yaw channel to maintain the heading, but super weak in the pitch and roll channels, and it doesn't take much movement of the cyclic to get it to drift.  This is probably a change in the FM from before, when you weren't having an issue.

[Picure]

I would like to update on my current experience with the apache.

I am using an old G940 Logitech FFB stick which, when trimmed, have a bit of slack in the center of wherever it is trimmed. Before these recent updates, I was able to trim my aircraft to be in a stable hover under 2kts, hit ATT hold and let go of my stick and be in a very stable over. Now, if I do the same actions, the SAS will start to sway forwards and backwards and oscillate further and further away from the center until I enter translational lift and in forward flight again. I can still get it to over with ATT hold but I have to spend way more time finding the perfect trim point where if i let go of my stick, the slack from my stick wont fall far too forward to let it go into forward flight again. 

If i have a live CPG, im fine with these problems but if im flying alone, entering target points, stuff like that. I have to be in a hover asap and do these stuff and it's unhoverable for me right now

[admiki]

Then switch to front seat and let George do the hovering.

 

[cow_art]

1 hour ago, Picure said:

I would like to update on my current experience with the apache.

I am using an old G940 Logitech FFB stick which, when trimmed, have a bit of slack in the center of wherever it is trimmed. Before these recent updates, I was able to trim my aircraft to be in a stable hover under 2kts, hit ATT hold and let go of my stick and be in a very stable over. Now, if I do the same actions, the SAS will start to sway forwards and backwards and oscillate further and further away from the center until I enter translational lift and in forward flight again. I can still get it to over with ATT hold but I have to spend way more time finding the perfect trim point where if i let go of my stick, the slack from my stick wont fall far too forward to let it go into forward flight again. 

If i have a live CPG, im fine with these problems but if im flying alone, entering target points, stuff like that. I have to be in a hover asap and do these stuff and it's unhoverable for me right now

I can confirm that it has gotten harder to get ATT hold to keep a hover. Now you need to manually get into a pretty good, stable hover before ATT hold can take over. Otherwise it can easily get into oscillations and the Apache will start to drift all over the place. This may of course be realistic (I don't know), I just wanted to confirm that this has definitely changed with one of the last updates.

[WWSmith]

Today's Open Beta update fixed attitude hold for me.

[corbu1]

Interesting….updating just right now and check then as well.

 

[poochies]

Yay!