reported Huey's new performance profile discussion

[SMH]

5 hours ago, dsc106 said:

I believe we’ve all been patient and at this point the delay on fixing this module is downright offensive.

I would have expected a fix within 1-4 weeks maximum, given that a fix could have constituted a reversion to the prior state until fully corrected.

There has been no word at all on forthcoming changes and it has essentially ruined my favorite module for several months now. I understand that some tweaks are indeed an actual improvement in accuracy, but the negative net effect has been thoroughly discussed and demonstrated.

Ditto! And nobody can whine "Early Access" at us this time!

3 hours ago, Volator said:

Luckily you can go back to the old FM manually without breaking integrity check:

 

 

The old FM feels much better and is closer to real life Huey performance (at least according to what I've been told by a former Huey pilot) than what we have now.

Yes it does but it's still a bit overpowered.

But it's not just about the aircraft you're flying. People are expected to fly AGAINST the "Super Huey" too! Wrong is wrong and it doesn't belong in our supposedly high-realism sim.

[CHPL]

Let's be fair.
The old flight model had small weaknesses and it is actually commendable that ED is not satisfied with it and always continues to work on improvements.
However, if you notice that you have made a mistake, from the customer's point of view, and then let it stand and ignore it, is not understandable without more information. Why does one not go a step back to the best flight model in simulations ever, make it better and avoid such discussions.
BUT. 
ED works at the same time on large conversions in the core of DCS and bundles its forces with security rightly. 
Also it is important not to waste time on things that may become obsolete with 2.9. It is possible that the Huey will get a much bigger update in the future than we can imagine now. ( No I don't know about anything, but hope is allowed )
And yet disastrous mistakes happen again and again in the communication, which are absolutely unnecessary and incomprehensible.

[Tim_Fragmagnet]

I've been busy researching flight dynamics and constructing a document regarding the DCS huey's flight model and its critical glaring errors that have somehow gone unchanged for an entire decade.

However, I am going to take the time to simply say this.

If you think the new huey performance model is overpowered, you are wrong.
In cruise above around 90knots, the new huey performance model is still UNDER performing. It should actually be going faster at any power setting at these speeds at any weight than it currently does.

Once again, the point being made isn't the speed the module can reach, the point being made is the engine power used for any specific speed/weight combination.

If you think the problem right now is speed, you fundamentally misunderstand the problem.

As it stands, the engine is almost correct, it just lacks power at high throttle settings

the actual main performance problem is the lift provided by the rotor being entirely wrong.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Tim_Fragmagnet

[DishDoggie]

I agree Dcs Could be working on larger things we know nothing about for the Huey. We have seen New Helicopters of New never before in game Helicopters announced. All New makeovers of old now new versions of in game helicopters Refreshed updates to in game Helicopters and then the Huey the one Helicopter in the game that is my love and passion to fly and I feel like I have to travel to the U.S. Air forces abandoned desert Graveyard for retired aircraft and pull one out of mothballs to fly it with the engine out of a old ejection seat sled found from the 50's at the same yard. The Huey fans are Awesome people. If you need lessons on how to Wait, How long to Wait, and how not to give up hope come talk to us While all the other High Def models fly over the field waving good-by to us. Lol I can paint a good picture in my mind can't I? The reason for this is because I am 67 Years old and I honestly think I will be Dead before ED gets to the only Helicopter left in the field of updated models in DCS. The Huey. Best Dang Vietnam Helicopter in History.

[BIGNEWY]

Folks please bear in mind it does take time to check and verify claims made here on the forum, we also have to fit it in with other tasks the teams may have. So for now you will need to continue to be patient. 

thanks

[fapador]

2 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Folks please bear in mind it does take time to check and verify claims made here on the forum, we also have to fit it in with other tasks the teams may have. So for now you will need to continue to be patient. 

thanks

Can we expect any improvement on Huey Fm in the upcoming patch?

[BIGNEWY]

33 minutes ago, fapador said:

Can we expect any improvement on Huey Fm in the upcoming patch?

No, as mentioned we need time to check the claims, and make any changes if necessary. We also have to wait for the team to clear current tasks.  

[SMH]

7 hours ago, Tim_Fragmagnet said:

I've been busy researching flight dynamics and constructing a document regarding the DCS huey's flight model and its critical glaring errors that have somehow gone unchanged for an entire decade.

However, I am going to take the time to simply say this.

If you think the new huey performance model is overpowered, you are wrong.
In cruise above around 90knots, the new huey performance model is still UNDER performing. It should actually be going faster at any power setting at these speeds at any weight than it currently does.

Once again, the point being made isn't the speed the module can reach, the point being made is the engine power used for any specific speed/weight combination.

If you think the problem right now is speed, you fundamentally misunderstand the problem.

As it stands, the engine is almost correct, it just lacks power at high throttle settings

the actual main performance problem is the lift provided by the rotor being entirely wrong.

 

So a fully loaded (indeed, overweight) Huey can take off straight up with zero translational lift and climb at 2000 FPM? I don't think so!

Ground effect is gone (or we have too much power to notice it). VRS can be easily powered out of with no other action required. And the needles STILL don't split when the throttle is chopped! This is no longer a realistic module. It was my favorite! 
 

5 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Folks please bear in mind it does take time to check and verify claims made here on the forum, we also have to fit it in with other tasks the teams may have. So for now you will need to continue to be patient. 

thanks

You've literally had months. And are you implying this won't even be addressed in the coming 2.9 big update? Unacceptable!

7 hours ago, DishDoggie said:

I agree Dcs Could be working on larger things we know nothing about for the Huey. We have seen New Helicopters of New never before in game Helicopters announced. All New makeovers of old now new versions of in game helicopters Refreshed updates to in game Helicopters and then the Huey the one Helicopter in the game that is my love and passion to fly and I feel like I have to travel to the U.S. Air forces abandoned desert Graveyard for retired aircraft and pull one out of mothballs to fly it with the engine out of a old ejection seat sled found from the 50's at the same yard. The Huey fans are Awesome people. If you need lessons on how to Wait, How long to Wait, and how not to give up hope come talk to us While all the other High Def models fly over the field waving good-by to us. Lol I can paint a good picture in my mind can't I? The reason for this is because I am 67 Years old and I honestly think I will be Dead before ED gets to the only Helicopter left in the field of updated models in DCS. The Huey. Best Dang Vietnam Helicopter in History.

Their newest helicopter model (the Apache) is their worst, and progressively getting even worse with every update. I fear they've recently lost some talent in that department. PLEASE just roll the Huey code back to what it was! (Same as what editing the lua does but remove the ability to cheat by having "Super Huey" mode enabled.)

Edited October 10, 2023 by SMH

[NineLine]

16 minutes ago, SMH said:

So a fully loaded (indeed, overweight) Huey can take off straight up with zero translational lift and climb at 2000 FPM? I don't think so!

Ground effect is gone (or we have too much power to notice it). VRS can be easily powered out of with no other action required. And the needles STILL don't split when the throttle is chopped! This is no longer a realistic module. It was my favorite! 
 

You've literally had months. And are you implying this won't even be addressed in the coming 2.9 big update? Unacceptable!

Their newest helicopter model (the Apache) is their worst, and progressively getting even worse with every update. I fear they've recently lost some talent in that department. PLEASE just roll the Huey code back to what it was! (Same as what editing the lua does but remove the ability to cheat by having "Super Huey" mode enabled.)

 

Dear SMH, while I understand your frustration and what you have deemed as issues with the Huey improvements, as BN said you have to have patience. We have real helo guys on staff, including an AH-64 guy. None of these guys on staff let our devs off the hook easy either, and if they feel there is an issue they will push as hard as anyone to get it resolved.

That said, please try to remain constructive and mature in your feedback. The AH-64D is still in early access and like all modules in this state can have good and bad months. It's part of being involved in Early Access. The Huey, while fully released, received major changes and tuning and bug hunting are ongoing. We know it's never fast enough but the team is working hard to check and address any issues. 

We have not lost anyone from the dev team, that said, we have very talented people on staff and, they can also be stretched between projects when needed. As you can imagine talented people like we have are hard to come by or train up. And, as always, it's much faster to find an issue than to fix it in most cases, again pointing back to the talent on the team and the complexity of these flight models.

We will see if we can get an update on these reported issues, but while patience is hard, being constructive is not. Thanks.

[CHPL]

Don't look for problems where there are none.
Going back to the old flight model is a simple and viable solution.
Personally, I fly with the new model and live with the limitations. 

[Tim_Fragmagnet]

2 hours ago, SMH said:

So a fully loaded (indeed, overweight) Huey can take off straight up with zero translational lift and climb at 2000 FPM? I don't think so!

Ground effect is gone (or we have too much power to notice it). VRS can be easily powered out of with no other action required. And the needles STILL don't split when the throttle is chopped! This is no longer a realistic module. It was my favorite!

Define fully loaded.
Do you believe 9500lbs is ACTUALLY fully loaded?
Because the real thing can hover at over 13,000lbs at sea level 2ft off the ground.
The 9500lbs MTOW is not the weight at which it can no longer hover and take off at, it is the weight at which the engineers are confident with what the airframe is going to do during maneuvers.

Also, what are the conditions your claims are being made in?
At what temperature?
At what air pressure?
At what altitude?
External stores or just internal cargo?
Is it raining?
Is there icing on the rotor?
How high are you pushing the torque?

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, because as it stands, the huey is significantly UNDER performing in a hover. As per the data recorded by real pilots and flight engineers, and I trust their claims far more than I trust yours.

The data I have been working with is from our exact model of huey, 
The WSPS from 1979
The new particle separator from 1988
The new rotor blades from 1989

Yes, our huey is from the 90s.

No, the new performance model is not perfect, it has some big issues.
However, the old performance model was worse overall.

Just because you LIKED the old performance model and got used to it over time, does not mean it was realistic.

Enough of this.
I have documents to look through.

[SMH]

1 hour ago, Tim_Fragmagnet said:

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, because as it stands, the huey is significantly UNDER performing in a hover. As per the data recorded by real pilots and flight engineers, and I trust their claims far more than I trust yours.

 

I can't come up with any condition or regime where it won't hover so I'm not sure what you mean by "underperforming". You can either hover or you can't.

I'll find a video that shows what's wrong, I saw some on YT recently but forget where exactly.

[EDIT: Can't seem to find it now, I'll make a track file.]

Edited October 10, 2023 by SMH

[SMH]

 

4 hours ago, NineLine said:

but while patience is hard, being constructive is not. Thanks.

Being critical is not unconstructive. Just the opposite. I haven't been rude here at all and I've contributed significant time to the testing and reporting of my formerly favorite module. You should thank me, not scold me.

Edited October 10, 2023 by SMH

[NineLine]

Just now, SMH said:

 

Being critical is not unconstructive. Just the opposite. And I've contributed significant time to the testing and reporting of my formerly favorite module. You should thank me, not scold me.

 

Using the words you have been using, and add in that you have not once included a track for the issues you are seeing, then yes, I would say yes you are being unconstructive. Nothing you have done has helped point the team at issues or solutions. If you are not going to include tracks of issues you are seeing and how you think it should work then no, you are not helping and I will have to start removing your posts from this active bug report so that we can see important information, not "roll back to the old one" or "here is how I modded it to be the old one" 

Once you start doing that, I will be happy to thank you, like I would like to thank Tim and others that have been working so hard to show issues and problems.

Thanks. 

Let me note again, from here on out, all OT or unrelated posts, including ones to just say 'Huey bad' and the likes will be removed. 

[NineLine]

Thread cleaned of off-topic. Please only add new information or issues related to the topic and with tracks and evidence of issue. Thanks.

[SMH]

57 minutes ago, NineLine said:

Using the words you have been using, and add in that you have not once included a track for the issues you are seeing, then yes, I would say yes you are being unconstructive. Nothing you have done has helped point the team at issues or solutions. If you are not going to include tracks of issues you are seeing and how you think it should work then no, you are not helping and I will have to start removing your posts from this active bug report so that we can see important information, not "roll back to the old one" or "here is how I modded it to be the old one" 

Once you start doing that, I will be happy to thank you, like I would like to thank Tim and others that have been working so hard to show issues and problems.

Thanks. 

Let me note again, from here on out, all OT or unrelated posts, including ones to just say 'Huey bad' and the likes will be removed. 

The "modding" feature is your own creation. We're not at fault for employing it. (If we weren't supposed to change it it would break Integrity Check, right? But it doesn't.)

And you do realize that we are paying customers, right? I have never seen a business with such clear contempt for its revenue stream providers. 

Working on your track file of something everyone can clearly see just by simply bothering to try it... 

[NineLine]

3 minutes ago, SMH said:

The "modding" feature is your own creation. We're not at fault for employing it. (If we weren't supposed to change it it would break Integrity Check, right? But it doesn't.)

And you do realize that we are paying customers, right? I have never seen a business with such clear contempt for its revenue stream providers. 

Working on your track file of something everyone can clearly see just by simply bothering to try it... 

So start your own thread in the modding section, otherwise if you have any info to add, please add as I have asked. There is no need to post in this thread and make it harder to go through and find good posts. Thanks. 

[SMH]

I couldn't get it to climb in hover fully loaded but with 100% fuel (7747 lbs), standard day, sea level she'll climb at 2000 FPM easy with both Torque and EGT at the top of the safe-range. Also note the extreme amount of left pedal required to counteract the Super Huey's extreme torque, over 66% of the pedal range! (Should be more like 25%, ask any Huey pilot or even just watch their feet in a video.)

The needles also do split this time but not nearly enough. (There must have been an undocumented change since the Aug 2 update because every time the Changelog mentions a Huey FM change I reenable the new engine model and re-test it. EDIT: Or it might be that I did a poor job of entering autorotation and I had to get the rotor RPM back up with airspeed and the engine RPM remained where it had dropped to before the needle split, I'll try that again not in a hover and not concentrating on my controls display and instruments so much.)

So, better than the last time I tried it but still way beyond plausibility.

Caucasus_Super_Huey_Test_02_100Fuel.miz

Super_Huey_Test_02_100Fuel2000FPM.trk

Edited October 11, 2023 by SMH

[SMH]

Found one more issue, the Torque gauge will go over the red line which I believe is supposed to be impossible (because the sprag clutch is designed to slip at the maximum torque to protect the rest of the powertrain). 

Also note the full speed run I do out towards the ocean, which is about 130 knots, my stick is 100% forward. Couldn't nose-down if I wanted to!

I perform the autorotation in this one a little bit better and it seems to verify my suspicion that the engine RPM needle won't ever go lower than the lowest speed the rotor RPM reaches after the throttle is chopped. Note how the engine RPM is higher during the autorotation in this one than in the previous one. (I'll try to do one more with no needle split at all... I'm flying without trim here to keep things simplified so I'm a bit wobbly. And of course my muscle memory no longer applies.)

(All of these effects are explainable by way too much power and torque from the main rotors now. The pedals can barely counteract it, and the stabilator can barely keep the tail down at full speed even with full forward cyclic deflection.)
 

Super_Huey_Test_02_100Fuel130knotsEngineRPMDuringAuto.trk

Edited October 11, 2023 by SMH

[SMH]

There's two good autos in this one but I run into some VERY weird behaviors on the first try that feels a lot like the original throttle-skids bug I reported early in this thread. After the first auto I can't get the engine to throttle back up on the ground. (Yet it's showing 600 degrees EGT! I even checked external view to see if it was on fire or something.) I had to restart it to get the engine RPM back up. (Ignore the 2nd auto attempt, I messed up the auto by forgetting to chop the throttle.) 3rd flight at 8:09:30 has another not quite so extreme vertical takeoff and a normal autorotation.

I do vertical takeoffs in this one to show how unrealistic they are. Have you ever seen a Huey leap into the air like that? My 2nd takeoff has me at +2400 FPM vertical, zero airspeed and torque over 100% and about 80% left pedal deflection to keep from yawing right (see attached image). Same mission as before, standard day, sea level.

One thing I seem to have been wrong on is how much the needles should split. I don't quite understand why this is, I'd think the engine would drop to 40% idle RPM because the sprag clutch is slipping behind the rotor with almost zero friction. But I just found this and it looks like what we see so... okay! https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=260084811682777

Please just put it back to how it was. There definitely shouldn't be a connection between throttle and skids. There is no "weight on skids" sensor in a Huey. This new model is clearly broken in some fundamental ways and probably needs to be completely "refactored". Very surprising to me no experts are noticing it, but then just being an expert doesn't necessarily mean you're paying attention.
 

Super_Huey_Test_04_100FuelAutosWeirdThrottleSkidsInteractionAgain.trk

Edited October 11, 2023 by SMH

[Tim_Fragmagnet]

@SMH
I'm going to make it as simple as possible for you. Since you're having an issue comprehending it.

The rotor does not generate enough lift, thus meaning, for any specific volume of lift generated by the rotor, you need to apply more power than is realistic.

So, with the unrealistically high power requirement, that also brings about an unrealistically high left pedal requirement.

This isn't saying that the engine currently has too much power in dcs, quite the opposite, at the high end it does not have enough.

The reason real pilots don't use that much left pedal, is because they never go into those power ranges, because the machine does not need to.

The official Vne of the UH-1H is about 120knots. This means that pilots are encouraged to stay below this speed, not that the machine can't physically pass it.

At sea level, at 15C
At 120knots, at 6500lbs, the torque gauge should be at about 31.8psi
At 120knots, 9500lbs, the torque gauge should be at about 39psi

39psi to reach the machine's Vne
39psi on the huey's torque gauge is when the engine is pushing about 912shp to the drivetrain

Read that again.
912shaft horsepower, to go 120knots while at a weight of 9500lbs.

The transmission is rated for 1158shp, the engine itself at sea level is capable of pushing out 1390shp.
And yes, the engine can in fact push all 1390shp through the transmission into the rotor and overtorque the drivetrain.

Yes, this means that the UH-1H from the 90s, IE the one we have, as engineered, has a SIGNIFICANT portion of excess engine power available to it that simply goes unused most of the time.

This is no "super huey", in fact it's quite weak as it stands due to the low volume of lift generated by the rotor.

______________
Now, I, and I'm sure many others, would appreciate it if you would do more experiments and provide test data, but only post about it when you are CONFIDENT in your results.
No more half answers, no more guesses, no more improperly tested theories.

I previously fell into that trap.
When I realized what I was doing, I stopped entirely. Sat down, and asked myself.
"Do I actually know what I'm talking about?"

At the time, the answer was no.

So I took a step back and wondered, "how many huey documents are there?"
As it turns out, there are a LOT, this machine was brutally tested and documented in multiple stages of development at multiple times.

I quite literally took an entire year to sit down and go through as many huey documents as I could find.

I will tell you this right now.
I previously did not know what I was talking about, but I now realize

A lot of people on here don't know what they're talking about either.

Because I now know at least a little of the truth.

So please, step back, and take your time to test your theories properly. Do some thorough research. Give it a few months. Gather as much data as you can.

And then come back and we'll chat about it.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Tim_Fragmagnet

[SMH]

I'm getting a little tired of your condescending posts. You do not tell me when I may or may not come back, and I really don't care to "chat about it" with you at all. I don't believe you even looked at my tracks and you don't seem to grasp through your spec tunnel-vision that you can't just change one part of this model without needing to change every other part. (Just like you can't move one control on a chopper without needing to adjust all the others.) It is far more important that the model behave plausibly than that any one particular performance spec is met, and simply adding more power to try to do that breaks everything else. You also don't seem to grasp that the instrumentation (like everything else in the sim) is imaginary. I know far more about software development than you know about helicopters and we're not building a helicopter here, we're modeling one in software.

I also think the slip ball is broken. (I know the Huey likes to crab a bit at high speed but it's crazy now, flies forward at almost 30 degrees left of the direction of travel when you get the ball centered.) Again, explainable by the power/torque being increased and nothing else being increased to match. The vertical stabilizer no longer gets enough push from the slipstream to keep her straight. It's also shuddering hard, even well below 110 knots. It never did that before either except when much closer to vMax.

I may have figured out the engine shutting down on me thing. I just managed to reproduce it while doing a full shutdown, by pulling full collective once I had reduced throttle to idle. That brought engine RPM below 40%, and that killed it and stuck the temperature at 600, then it went instantly to 0 when it stopped completely - clearly wrong. I don't know offhand if the engine cutting out when the rotor drags it down below 40% is right but I'm pretty sure it didn't do that before. (Will check...) Actually, wait a second, the power take-off is a free-wheeling turbine. The engine might overheat but it shouldn't shut down as there's no physical connection between it and the rotor at all.

In the mean time you can find me a video of a Huey doing a +2400 FPM vertical takeoff. Ours now does that easily even with 100% fuel so there should be plenty out there. (There aren't. Because it's not realistic.)

Do we have a list somewhere of what ED were even trying to accomplish with these massive changes to a long established and (formerly) widely loved module?
 

Edited October 11, 2023 by SMH

[SMH]

Okay, here's one more track. You can ignore the engine tests as I think now that's actually correct (and wasn't an interaction with weight-on-skids like we had early on in this new model). I still have yet to try it in the old model but it makes sense. (The EGT still drops way too fast but that's a nitpick.)

But what this track does show is me powering out of VRS in a hover with no translational lift to speak of. 100% fuel, sea level, standard day.

 

Super_Huey_Test_05_EngineDyingLowRPM(ProbOK)AndPoweringOutofVRS.trk

Edited October 11, 2023 by SMH

[Tim_Fragmagnet]

ok so we're going to do it this way then. @SMH

You want to keep complaining about left pedal requirement.

So allow me to prove you wrong on that front.

In your previous image you conveniently didn't provide information on the air temperature, so I'll assume the default of 20C
your torque is at about 54psi.
the torque gauge on the huey reads 54psi at about 1247.5shp.
1247.5shp results in a coefficient of power at 20C of about 30.
at a coefficient of power of 30, we should see a coefficient of thrust of about 39.3

so what does this mean.

Well, if we look at the OGE hover chart.

 

We can see that at this coefficient of thrust presented from our coefficient of power, we need a pedal input of 1.2 inches from full left.

1.2 inches from full left in a flight profile that produces 54psi on the torque gauge.

ok 

but we can't really do anything with that information if we don't know how much travel the pedals have

but we do know how much travel the pedals have



7.7 inches.

so lets just do this then




Looks close enough to me.


You can stop complaining about left pedal now.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Tim_Fragmagnet

[SMH]

Ground effect hover in the OLD engine model... note the pedal deflection. Then compare with the new EM. Almost no pedal range left! Just to hover in ground effect!

The old EM behavior jibes with every real-world video I've carefully observed over the 7 years I've been flying this module. The needed pedal deflection has more than doubled. We don't have enough authority in cyclic, pedals, or stabilator anymore. (Again, no doubt because the new EM is overpowering them. You can't just change one thing independently of everything else and if you do you throw out literal man-years worth of testing and tweaking!)

Stop obsessing over little numbers in tables and take a look at the whole thing together! It's no longer coherent or believable. Do your really think it was that wrong before and is now right?
 

18 minutes ago, Tim_Fragmagnet said:

In your previous image you conveniently didn't provide information on the air temperature, so I'll assume the default of 20C
 

I have said "Standard Day, Sea Level" several times. You're just not listening. You even have the Mission file to try it with and check anything you want in.

Edited October 11, 2023 by SMH