Throttle in game are always at Max when I spawn in Parked HOT..

[Snacko]

Like the title says.  And I have my physical WinWing FA18 Throttles all the back to the detent.  Even if I quickly move them back after clicking Fly, things start shutting down.  And it seems to me that when spawning in HOT on the ground, the game shouldn't even need to sync with my throttles....  Because the game's throttles would always be pulled back when spawning in on the ground Hot!?

[BaD CrC]

Are you talking about the throttle or the collective?

Helicopters throttles are always set to 100% (actually slightly above 100%) when hot. Anything less than that usually means you are in trouble.

Edited January 27, 2023 by BaD CrC

[Snacko]

11 minutes ago, BaD CrC said:

Are you talking about the throttle or the collective?

Helicopters throttles are always set to 100% when hot. Anything less than that usually means you are in trouble.

 

Yea, the throttles.  Sorry, I'm new the the Apache..   When the throttles were at full when I spawned in and pulled up on the collective, it started saying something like "RPM Roll" over and over, and the displays went red.  So,  I thought the throttles were supposed to be pulled back.

I probably should read something about taking off?  What is RPM Roll?  Thanks.

PS: In the Huey, I've always throttled back after landing to reduce lift while on the ground?  It's not the same for the Apache?

Edited January 27, 2023 by Snacko
A question..

[Snacko]

Just FYI..  I had added the AH to a old Nellis mission.  Not sure if that was a problem.    But when I fly the built-in mission 'Takeoff from Runway' it all works fine..  

[BaD CrC]

No worry. As you might have noticed, flying choppers is a bit harder than flying fixed wing. Taking off is more than full throttle, roll, pull the stick.  

When "ready to take off" or hot, you should always be full throttle. Choppers engines normally know only 3 states: OFF, IDLE and FULL. If you are starting to see your gauges indicating less than full when you are flying, either you took a bullet in your engine and it's leaking oil, or you are icing, or you are overtorquing. Generally speaking, things are not looking good for the near future unless you do something quick.

Setting your engine(s) to idle can only be good on the ground (obviously) when you are waiting and want to save some fuel (but then you'll loose the electrical generation and some of the radios too). 

For your hardware throttle, when you are spawning in your hot chopper, the in game throttle will always be set to FULL but the game will read your hardware throttle only if one of its axis is moved, even a small variation. This what might happen if your collective and throttles are both on your hardware throttle. The hardware throttles are set to IDLE, you are pulling on the collective and suddenly the game read your throttles positions and set the in game throttles to IDLE just when you want to take off (not good).

Second possibility, your hardware throttles are FULL as well as your in-game ones. But you are pulling too quick and hard on your collective. This create an overtorque on the engines that forces them to drop. ("RPM LOW")

In general, remember that whatever control you are changing/touching on a chopper will affect all the other ones at the same time. At least the AH-64 is a bit automated so the Fadec will kinda help. For example, pulling the collective will require more throttle, more rudder (left/right depending on the main rotor direction) and a touch on the cyclic to tune the speed if you want to maintain the altitude.

Edited January 28, 2023 by BaD CrC

[Floyd1212]

4 hours ago, Snacko said:

I probably should read something about taking off?  What is RPM Roll?  Thanks.

You are probably hearing "RPM Low".  This happens when you are too aggressive on the collective, and pull too much pitch all at once.  When you yank on the collective, the pitch of the main rotor blades change suddenly and there is a lot of resistance on the blades as they push through the air.  This causes the rotor system to slow down and you get the "RPM Low" warning.  The opposite will occur if you are flying along and all of a sudden drop the collective to the floor.  The rotor system will have little resistance as they blades easily slice through the air and you will get "RPM High" warning.

Bottom line: make gentle adjustments on the collective, especially when lifting off the ground to a hover.

[Snacko]

Thanks again for the replies.  I have a WinWing Taurus Throttle, a nice Collective with a twist throttle and buttons, and a VKB MC stick.  I used to fly the Ka50, Huey, and Gazelle, but I've been away from them for a long time.  

Yea, that was surely RPM Low!  I did the same thing in both the stock mission and my mission, but my mission just keeps going into RPM Low and things lighting up red..  I was looking at all of my missions, going back to 2013!!  I'm sure those are not compatible with the current version of the game.  I should delete many of those missions.  How far back would you say they start to be incompatible with the current DCS?  2017? 2019?  2021?  I need to clean things up..  

[FalcoGer]

On 1/27/2023 at 10:27 PM, Snacko said:

I probably should read something about taking off?  What is RPM Roll?  Thanks.

Helicopters with turboshaft engines always set full throttle during flight. In the Apache that is the "Fly" position. The Lockout position disables the automatic torque matching for that engine in case of a failure of the control unit, so you shouldn't normally use that position. Just put it in fly and leave it there.

There is no such message like "RPM Roll". It might be "Rotor RPM Low", which would indicate that you don't have the required torque. The engines try to match the torque to have the blades spin at a constant RPM.

You don't get enough torque if you don't have the throttles open all the way or when you pull too much collective and the engines can't provide enough power to keep them spinning, in which case you need to reduce the collective.

You get a "Rotor RPM High" warning if the rotor spins too fast. This can happen if you windmill it too quickly, for example you pull out of a steep dive, or when one of the engine controllers fails and commands full power despite it being not needed. In that case you need to manually adjust the throttle to keep the rotor RPM near 101%.