Anything in latest update of World that affected AH-64D's collective or any other flight control?

[salsantana]

I've seen a bit of discussion about Apache flipping to one side or other but it seemed that pertained to takeoff. Since most recent update of early May 2023, my collective and roll seem to have changed in terms of effect but during flight; it's as if it rolls to one side and so quickly you can't be at all graceful with the counteraction. Prior to the update I'd enjoyed what I'd considered "optimal" curves and axis tuning. Since the update it seems adjustments to those parameters do little to nothing.

I've also had no luck finding the most recent change log, hoping I could have answered this with a look at the tasks completed.

Thanks much in advance for any info!!

 

[Floyd1212]

The best way for others to see what you are experiencing is to post a track file.

Fly an Instant Action mission for a few minutes and see if you can get the aircraft to behave in the way you are describing, then quit the mission and click “Save Track” on the Debriefing screen. Post it here and we can take a look.

In general, I think most of the rolling forces people are seeing are related more to pedal inputs and the tail rotor than the collective alone. 

[Leg2ion]

12 hours ago, salsantana said:

Since most recent update of early May 2023, my collective and roll seem to have changed in terms of effect but during flight; it's as if it rolls to one side and so quickly you can't be at all graceful with the counteraction.

Yup - seeing the same - though think its more to do with yaw controls - but since the last update I think I have managed to barrel roll unintentionally 3 or 4 times, whereas previous to the last update hadn't done any.

[GrEaSeLiTeNiN]

I flew it the other day without any rockets or missiles loaded and got myself into uncontrollable rolls. I suppose it is easier to enter a roll when the aircraft is light.

Edited May 15, 2023 by GrEaSeLiTeNiN

[hotrod525]

22 hours ago, Leg2ion said:

Yup - seeing the same - though think its more to do with yaw controls - but since the last update I think I have managed to barrel roll unintentionally 3 or 4 times, whereas previous to the last update hadn't done any.

Had several uncommanded roll, those are quite, surprising ? to say the least haha!

[Tom Kazansky]

Same here. Tried a hover landing today and had an uncommanded 360° "aileron"-roll (yeah, helicopters don't have ailerons) at an altitude of 500 ft and survived.

You see those rolls are very fast.

(I'm sorry I have no track file.)

Edited May 15, 2023 by Tom Kazansky

[Leg2ion]

1 hour ago, Tom Kazansky said:

Same here. Tried a hover landing today and had an uncommanded 360° "aileron"-roll (yeah, helicopters don't have ailerons) at an altitude of 500 ft and survived. You see those rolls are very fast. (I'm sorry I have no track file.)

 

Yup - found that to. It is so fast and whereas for the most part I think I am definitely heading to oblivion it is somehow recoverable. 

I have noticed the yaw/drift indicator may be slightly offset (normally with a bit of right pedal bias) then with a little bit more it suddenly deviates to max deflection and a subsequent roll.

[salsantana]

On 5/14/2023 at 9:48 AM, Floyd1212 said:

The best way for others to see what you are experiencing is to post a track file.

Fly an Instant Action mission for a few minutes and see if you can get the aircraft to behave in the way you are describing, then quit the mission and click “Save Track” on the Debriefing screen. Post it here and we can take a look.

In general, I think most of the rolling forces people are seeing are related more to pedal inputs and the tail rotor than the collective alone. 

Thanks to all for the generous consideration  ......... I see others have noticed something different about the behavior of the collective. Perhaps the track file attached will help. Note that any % values referring to collective are rough percentage of the throw length of the slider on my stick, not the torque of the engine/rotors.
Prior to the update, the collective from 0 to the point where torque would spin heli clockwise was quite linear. I'd made a long, shallow curve that gave me plenty of fine-tuning without any "grabbing" until about 75%. Reduced Y saturation can be quite helpful.

After update, as we might see in track file, aircraft would roll hard right. I'd reduce collective, try countering the force with stick to left, and no dice. It's like a Bactrian camel.... two humps!!

Now the question is more like:

"should there be any point between 0 collective and 50% collective that would force a hard roll to right?"

 

AH-64D_Roll_Problems.trk

[Floyd1212]

I watched your track, and it is very similar to the second track posted by Dejmos here:

Like I told Dejmos, it looks like you might not have enough right pedal for cruising straight and level at the speed and torque shown in that track.  You can see the slip ball is to the right of center at times.  I think most people would fly with the ball centered (in aerodynamic trim), or with the ball to the left (in nose-to-tail trim), or somewhere in between.

But the big problem is the sudden drop in the collective which initiates the roll.  Not sure if this was a control sync issue after switching to the front seat and back again, but there is a drastic drop of the collective soon after you switch back to the PLT seat.  This has the effect of more thrust applied to the tail rotor, like if you were suddenly giving it a lot of left pedal, and that starts the rolls.

I am seeing that your controls are rather jittery, probably as a result of your specific hardware.  (And maybe using a twist stick for yaw control?)  I think higher quality controls would benefit you with smoother inputs, but I realize that isn't in the cards for every DCS simmer out there, especially if you only play casually.

Work on smooth inputs on the controls (if possible with your setup) and make slow and minor adjustments.  Hope that helps.

 

[Emme]

Yes, something's different with the controls. You guys should def check out the "in" and "out" of your axis input!

For example I've had to completely change my rudder settings after the last update, but curiously only for the left pedal, due to it's range somehow completely changing after the update.

I'm using Logitech G29 racing wheel pedals for rudder input and set them up in a way that makes the clutch (left) and acceleration (right) pedals act like one axis. To do this I need to invert one axis and tune the saturation in a way that makes both axis meet in in the middle at 0 input.

So before the update both settings looked like this:

Axis A - left pedal: X100, Y50, curve -25, set as slider

Axis B - right pedal: X100, Y50, curve -25, set as slider + inverted

 

After the update the input of the left pedal was "overshooting" so now i've had to change the Y setting to:

"Axis A - left pedal X50, Y50"

to make both axis meet right in the middle again.

 

Had to do this for all modules and I absolutely don't understand why, because everything was working fine before the update...

So maybe that bit of information does help some of you to figure out your control settings.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Emme

[GrEaSeLiTeNiN]

Best way to survive the sudden roll is to complete it 360 
https://media.tenor.com/zpSU_noxqVYAAAAd/rolling-olympics.gif

[Trigger]

Zitat

Best way to survive the sudden roll is to complete it 360 

How true!

[salsantana]

FIRST, and this is due to a slightly feeble cerebral performance issue, the forum interface seems to be missing an individual message reply option. Is something like @(username) proper?

Now, on topic, @Emme provided a detailed and somewhat surprising account of dealing with the suddenly aggressive rolling issue........ I don't have pedals (yet); I understand your settings and the inversion of one side but I don't see a way to translate them to the Extreme 3D Pro twist handle for rudder.

@Floyd1212I'll concur on the controls; it's likely there's fatigue at this point. First to go, famously, on this model Logitech is that twist handle. Easy to abuse when trying to yaw your way out of a situation. And thanks for the attention to what I will now pay more attention, like the slip ball's position and its indications. If I could just find a way to emulate gravity for the cues it'd give, huh?

[salsantana]

On 5/17/2023 at 9:25 AM, Trigger said:

How true!

Same here........ what I'm most often inclined to do, perhaps a habit from some other sim is to release stick and hope things might stabilize, which often enough is good enough to restore sanity, unless rotor disc did a faceplant on ground.

Trigger your avatar is hilarious....... reminds me of my late silver tabby's "madcap mad-cat snarly-face". Love me some cats.

[runer]

This was changed in the first April patch. See the changelog entry “Fixed: Dumping Vy and altitude holding is not IRL (WIP).”

There is a forum post somewhere around the time of this patch that explains it more but dumping collective too fast now induces roll.

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/news/changelog/openbeta/2.8.4.38947/

[salsantana]

The hope now is that someone else with the subject stick misbehavior might stumble upon the happenstance (luck) solution I did.

I'd installed a few *3rd-party aircraft prior to the subject update, started to push the capacity on my boot/DCS SSD space, and when sacrifice time came, I noticed a much much better stick condition......... however there does seem to persist a harsh increase/decrease in collective with minute movements........ really wish I could get it back to the nice long, shallow curve that made takeoff just about perfectly manageable. Collective slider behaves much better at a pretty good forward speed, but at least it's not causing the Apache to do the horizontal tornado dance

I believe it was the F-22, F-15E (not DCS of course), Gripen, and M2000 I laid to rest and sanity was restored.