SA-342 Gazelle 2023 "FM" Update

[Flarpt]

Will the Special Options PRE 2.9 and/or FM 'Improvement' for the Gaz be returned to assist with rudder and other physics or not?
If so when?

Does anyone here know which files might possibly be transplanted from 2.7 to 2.9 to return the Gaz to a normal, A.K.A FUN and flyable condition?

Because I liked it before it was rendered UNUSEABLE. And IF I want to fly it I have to return to my locked off protected 2.7 to do it. So, is that a possible solution maybe, to copy over a PRE-'Improvement" file perhaps?

It looks like MOST INVESTORS liked it far better when it could be flown without going crazy for zero reasons every 20 seconds as well. Making something unflyable for most INVESTORS is not an improvement and does not equal making it more realistic. I play for FUN, not training to serve one day. I think most are about the same.

Without going back through 15 loong pages of mostly off-topic, no real help, and excuses why worse and unflyable is better; Will there be ANY help, or is it toast?

[Hiob]

On 10/27/2023 at 8:58 PM, Flarpt said:

It looks like MOST INVESTORS liked it far better when….

Which FM exactly are you referring to? The old „wing commander“ one or the first iteration of the new FM (which I liked the most btw.)?

Either way - the above statement is a far stretch. Where do you conclude that from? A handful complaints in the forum?

[RealDCSpilot]

@Flarpt Feel free to return to games like Battlefield if you prefer that kind of simplified behaviour for aircraft of any kind.

[Flarpt]

I provided a perfectly viable solution. And I did so respectfully. 
There is nothing wrong with the solution as it has been used before successfully in other titles where players requested it.
And, I never asked, "Hey, who disagrees with me and wants to be disrespectful?"

It is pretty clear from over 15 pages of bewilderment posted that most people facing the 'UPGRADED" FM have found it unplayable and just want help.
Me too. 
Some have offered what they think is help instead of showing their social issues, but the responses still seem to clearly be, 'OK..... will there be a patch to fix this...?'

What flight model do I want HOIB?, I already said so. "Returning to 2.7 to fly". I flew Gaz just fine in 2.7, whatever happened between it and 2.9 ruined the FM for me. And apparently a lot of other people too. That's when I did not have these issues of trying to balance a bowling ball on top of a ten foot pole while standing on one leg in a canoe in stormy weather, while the laws of physics suffer seizures. 

As to 'realdcs' above; When is returning to a previously held  [FOR YEARS] 'realistic' FM considered running away to Battlefield? This is your best?

There are problems between MANY of the investors and the new FM. If you disagree at least take the effort to not get the thread hijacked with the above nonsense so there remains at least some small hope that this is not the FINAL STATE of the FM. It needs to be better.
I am hoping  to revert to what I paid for and enjoyed.

So, are there certain files or settings I can copy from my last enjoyed FM, or does that make me undeserving of air and life itself to even dare ask?

 

[BIGNEWY]

@Flarpt sorry you do not like the flight model, but you cannot make demands to the team for change without evidence that something is wrong. 

Feelings just wont cut it when it comes to flight models. Unless you have evidence, and or real life experience with the helicopter you wont get far. 

The dev team spend a lot of time working on flight models and collecting and working with data, so if you think something is wrong you will need to be specific and have data to back the claims up. 

Best regards

bignewy 

[grim_reaper68]

In my vitrual pilot opinion, the FM is good, maybe is the swinging effect,when you apply rudder, too much (never flown the gazelle IRL, so i can't tell if it's exagerated), lift off seems to be good too compared to the previous FM and compared to videos from real Gazelle. What's today really needed in my opinion is that the CSV/ALV works properly (i know it's still WIP), so I will be patient. Because if you're flying solo, searching, pointing and flying at the same time is a real challenge. I can understand some frustration, but every new FM needs to relearn and forget the muscle memory from the previous FM.

Continue your great work on this wonderfull heli. 

[RealDCSpilot]

@Flarpt To keep it simple: the former flight model, that was implemented for 7 years, was not a helicopter flight model. The "new" flight model is a helicopter flight model that fits DCS standards for the first time. To be clear, i can not say that it is a realistic Gazelle SA342 flight model, but it now passes at the most points a helicopter flight model has to prove itself within the DCS engine. I'm into DCS helicopter simulation since 2009, always having the best possible equipment for input etc. (cyclic simulation). Everything you wrote leads to the conclusion that you don't know much about helicopter flying and their real world physics. I can assure you that the Gazelle is now in a very good spot in DCS and i hope it gets more polished. It had a long and bad history here and it's really sad to see how your group of "Investors" can't catch up with reality. You were enjoying something that was utterly wrong for such a long time.

[fapador]

Its funny because some group of people supported the previous fm by saying things like: its not so bad, you need to build muscle memory, add curves etc and other claims in an effort to defend the product. 

Now that the new fm is out they do the same all over again only this time all this applies to the new fm...

I dont aim to offend anyone and certainely not the developers. Personally I agree that the fm needs more work. All Dcs modules Fm's actually can improve as none is 100% accurate. Matching a Fm Is like trying to match a color 100% by eye but 100 times harder due to volume of research, study and various complex calculations.

 In conclusion,If the Fm's were perfect then Lockheed, Boeing, USAF etc would hire ED themselves to train their pilots and the sim would be FAA aproved at least...

 

Edit: My bad for mistakenly referring to @RealDCSpilot apparently he wasnt involved in any of this.

Edited November 2, 2023 by fapador

[BIGNEWY]

2 minutes ago, fapador said:

Its funny because the same group of people like you actually supported the previous fm by saying things like: its not so bad, you need to build muscle memory, add curves etc and other claims in an effort to defend the product. 

Now that the new fm is out you do the same only all this applies to the new fm...

I dont aim to offend anyone and certainely not the developers. Personally I agree that the fm needs more work. All Dcs modules Fm's actually can improve as none is 100% accurate. Matching a Fm Is like trying to match a color 100% by eye but 100 times harder due to volume of research, study and various complex calculations.

 In conclusion,If the Fm's were perfect then Lockheed, Boeing, USAF etc would hire ED themselves to train their pilots and the sim would be FAA aproved at least...

 

 

 

DCS is for entertainment purposes, and while we aim to be as true to life as possible you have to remember DCS is for fun.

Professionals use other software which is another topic and not for here. 

thank you

[fapador]

1 hour ago, BIGNEWY said:

DCS is for entertainment purposes, and while we aim to be as true to life as possible you have to remember DCS is for fun.

Professionals use other software which is another topic and not for here. 

thank you

Thank you too BIGNEWY, I cannot agree more!

[Flarpt]

That was a lot of emotions addressing not much of what I really posted. 

I never questioned the FM being true to Gazelle? Or claimed to be a real pilot, although I have flown a few choppers and props in life, so not just a 'gamer'. Prolly quadruple the age and life experience of any here.
Now:
I literally requested a fall back to what I paid for option in settings. Several times. That is not a demand. 
I literally re-restated the obvious of 15 pages of frustrated players requesting help with the FM. If anyone can't see that there is no helping them up.

All the rest of the above, there is no telling where it was pulled from to hijack the thread and my simple requests and ideas.☺

And I have posted with far more respect than being shown here. Do better or avoid answering please.

Again, this request has been implemented in other games successfully and there is nothing wrong with requesting what we paid for as an option. Nothing at all.
Don't care what any non devs think, there is no further need to continue to hijack the thread with the reading with retention issues making up things I never wrote.

So, again, dearest Devs, how about an 'easy' or 'lite' or 'fallback' mode in the options?

Oh, and IF there is a simple FM file I can switch out in 2.9 to fly with what I flew for all these years I once again A S K  if anyone can steer me how to do it.
Again, I am asking Devs and I am not asking for how much everyone wants to disagree and disrespect me for no reason.

[Whirley]

On 10/27/2023 at 1:25 PM, Whirley said:

Thanks, so maybe it is mostly correct with SAS and just feels weird to me. Probably because it has less inertia than the Apache, Hip, Hind and Huey. After all many people seem to see a major improvement.

I also fly springless and never trim (yaw channel off in Hind, but stability on on everything else in those who have) so maybe I was fighting the SAS at the time I tried the new flight model.

I gave it another spin.
I think I really might have had a problem with the SAS or with the strongish wind on the Hoggit Training server when I first tried it after the update. I also didn't pay much attention to the ball then.

It feels pretty nice now.

No idea how real it is but if people struggle with it then try to fly it without SAS and watch the wind direction and pay attention to the ball a bit. That might help you.

[Flarpt]

1 hour ago, Whirley said:

I gave it another spin.
I think I really might have had a problem with the SAS or with the strongish wind on the Hoggit Training server when I first tried it after the update. I also didn't pay much attention to the ball then.

It feels pretty nice now.

No idea how real it is but if people struggle with it then try to fly it without SAS and watch the wind direction and pay attention to the ball a bit. That might help you.

Thank you I will try that too and see what happens.

 

[Hiob]

I have a very specific question (or a problem) about the current FM. When I am in a stable hover (out of ground effect) and want to accelerate into forward flight, I pitch forward as you normally do. But that introduces a strong left roll initially. No other DCS-heli does that (afaik), at least not to this extend.

The only reasoning I can come up with is the 90 degree offset effect of the lift differential between front and back of the rotor disc from the forward pitch. But shouldn’t the linkage kinematic of the controls take that into account?

[MAXsenna]

@Flarpt
You're 200? That's awesome! What's your secret?
Anyway, "game mode" support is pretty much being discarded and discontinued for all modules in the future. We can't expect devs to continue the maintenance and development of multiple flight models. Just look how much work campaign creators have to deal with.
Out of curiosity, what's your peripheral setup, and what's your issues with the new FM compared to the old one? Not that I doubt you when you say you have flown helicopters while still prefer the old flight model. That's interesting. I have not, but the new FM seems to more like the other helicopter FMs in DCS.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. I have an MS SW FFB2, and I turn off the magnetic brake, which is the same as having a springless joystick. I so also have a collective and pedals, and a second joystick for the Viviane/periscope sight. There's a special setting for this. Hovering at night can be tricky, not so much during the day, and plinking tanks during flight is actually very easy with the Viviane. BUT, it takes PRACTICE. Like most things in DCS.
Cheers!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Polychop Simulations]

5 hours ago, Hiob said:

I have a very specific question (or a problem) about the current FM. When I am in a stable hover (out of ground effect) and want to accelerate into forward flight, I pitch forward as you normally do. But that introduces a strong left roll initially. No other DCS-heli does that (afaik), at least not to this extend.

The only reasoning I can come up with is the 90 degree offset effect of the lift differential between front and back of the rotor disc from the forward pitch. But shouldn’t the linkage kinematic of the controls take that into account?

Hi there. I could write a lot about this but nothing I say will explain it as well as this wiki article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transverse_flow_effect

Transverse flow, and anticipating the effect is key in countering it  

[Hiob]

1 hour ago, Polychop Simulations said:

Hi there. I could write a lot about this but nothing I say will explain it as well as this wiki article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transverse_flow_effect

Transverse flow, and anticipating the effect is key in countering it  

Thank you, I will have a read. I‘m not completely unaware of such effects. It‘s just that it is very pronounced in the Gazelle. Perhaps due to the low mass/inertia. Cheers 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Hiob

[Whirley]

Experimented a bit more.

I found it weird that the Gazelle is so easy to hover in VR without SAS. Not only hover alone, but also looking through the periscope sight or the monitor and targeting things I find a lot easier than in other helicopters (and that is with SAS on in Apache for instance, and hovering in Mi-8, Hind, Huey). But I didn't compare them all right now and my memory might serve me wrong. I only compared against the Huey right now.

It seems to be easier to hover than all the other helicopters. With them sooner or later you will leave equilibrium and 2 axes will need correction. With the Gazelle it seems so stable and that you mostly need only work against the drift in a single axis and you are fine again.

So I wondered whether the SAS channels are actually modeled or if they are always on. So I tried them out.

I found that if the SAS channel switches are on they have an effect on the aircraft. You can see the SAS channel indicators showing values then and you can notice the aircraft getting different control input when you toggle the switches on and off. You don't need that master autopilot switch to the left of them on for that, it can remain off. For instance close to hover in a slight roll to the right if you toggle the roll channel, the roll attitude would start to change. And if you toggle back the helicopter will tend to stay in the previous attitude.

So it is not that the SAS is always on and not actually modelled as making a difference.

I didn't investigate whether turbulance makes a difference or not. In the server I just tried a slight turbulance and wind was on (Kirk's Hangar).

Or maybe it is just a difference in input handling compared to ED helicopters. I don't know.

Something else is that when you tilt the Huey to the left or right in a hover it will start yawing almost immediately (with slight wind from front).
When you do that with the Gazelle it will only tilt. Only in exaggerated tilt (or forward flight and tilt, I don't remember) will it yaw into the tilt direction.

Being no pilot and not remembering all the theoretical helicopter dynamics I've read I can't tell what is more realistic. And obviously it even might differ between the airframes.

But it is somehow weird that it is so stable, even though it is lighter and would probably be more nervous in wind. But weird need not be wrong, maybe the big Fenestron tail stabilizes it more in the slight wind from the front.

Edited November 10, 2023 by Whirley

[Ramsay]

1 hour ago, Whirley said:

... it is somehow weird that it is so stable,

Note that AFAIK the Huey's rocking motion in DCS is unrealistic, although the RL Huey doesn't have a SAS, it's main rotor has a mechanical stabiliser bar that performs a similar function.

 

[jojo]

On 9/18/2023 at 11:45 PM, DmitriKozlowsky said:

In real world , the fenestron is disliked by American helicopter pilots , who consider it a safety issue. Note that UH-72 Lakota, a variant of EC-142 , foregoes fenestron. Bell Invictus armed recon helicopter, likewise, foregoes fenestron for traditional tailrotor.

SouthAtlantic.miz 16.15 kB · 10 downloads

UH-72 Lakota is a variant of EC145, there is no EC142.

UH-72 was selected in 2006, there was no feneston variant of EC145 back then.

Fenestron came with EC145 T2 which first flew in 2010.

Edited November 13, 2023 by jojo

[LuseKofte]

Personally I liked the agile old fm. The one in between could hardly get the chopper in the air. 
I can live with what we got now, but it do not feel like a 3 bladed light chopper anymore. It feel like an automated underpowered stabilised weapon platform. I always turned to the gazelle for fun and agile flying. Now one can compare it to the heavier two blades Huey , just more stable and easier to fly

It got problems in hot weather more so than any other chopper we got. 

Edited November 19, 2023 by LuseKofte

[MAXsenna]

Personally I liked the agile old fm. The one in between could hardly get the chopper in the air. 
I can live with what we got now, but it do not feel like a 3 bladed light chopper anymore. It feel like an automated underpowered stabilised weapon platform. I always turned to the gazelle for fun and agile flying. Now one can compare it to the heavier two blades Huey , just more stable and easier to fly
It got problems in hot weather more so than any other chopper we got. 

I'm starting to wonder if we actually have the same FM. I find it super agile, while behaving more like I would expect it to, without ever have flown one in real life. For me the Huey is completely different.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Jaguar 1-1 - Ant]

Is it possible Polychop has given their customers (us) two or more different versions of their product to see which is most popular before they settle on the most popular version in the near future? I am also enjoying the more realistic flight model but am struggling with many of the issues others have already stated, which make it too unreliable to use in "combat". I suggest the different versions idea because I am seeing some current youtube footage of really stable flying from other DCS Gazelle users with seemingly little effort., and other users having the same issues as I. I have an average setup of controllers which includes a floor extended warthog base with F/A-18C stick, very lightly sprung, Warthog throttle (used in reverse as collective), Pro flight rudder pedals and Delan clip head tracking and believe I am very competent with Mi-8MTV - flown since launch, flew the original Gazelle from it's launch and agree it was fun but ridiculous.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Jaguar 1-1 - Ant
extra info

[MAXsenna]

Is it possible Polychop has given their customers (us) two or more different versions of their product to see which is most popular before they settle on the most popular version in the near future? I am also enjoying the more realistic flight model but am struggling with many of the issues others have already stated, which make it too unreliable to use in "combat". I suggest the different versions idea because I am seeing some current youtube footage of really stable flying from other DCS Gazelle users with seemingly little effort., and other users having the same issues as I. I have an average setup of controllers which includes a floor extended warthog base with F/A-18C stick, very lightly sprung, Warthog throttle (used in reverse as collective), Pro flight rudder pedals and Delan clip head tracking and believe I am very competent with Mi-8MTV - flown since launch, flew the original Gazelle from it's launch and agree it was fun but ridiculous.

Nah, I was joking. It's really easy to be stable, much better than before. The ones who does not approve just have to get used to it. It's like reading the Apache discussions. They're both super easy to fly. What most people just don't get their head around, is that the cyclic is NOT supposed to be centered. I fly with an FFB stick, and I just turn the mag brake off. In the Huey too. I might turn it on again and trim when I hover. And all helicopters disserves pedals, as you know. Doesn't even need to be expensive ones, but that helps. A collective will also come a long way, as it is easier to do small inputs, I can promise you it's way easier to throw it around.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[LuseKofte]

I got two setups one with all Virpil and one custom made stick witch got hydronic dampers and can be self centred or choose not to self center. With latter stick with no curve tweaks I control the gazelle much easier than the Huey in hoover and small corrections. I can fly gazelle under a small bridge or in a hangar turn it and fly out again with no atmospheric interference. It also have little ground effect. 
I can do the same with Huey but it got a powerful ground effect and once it out of that it become less cooperative. And in bad weather harder to hoover up high than gazelle. I think gazelle got too little climbrate. But I am not a chopper pilot. I have controlled a 204 in level flight once. And that was more of an airplane experience. 
however after your post I tried gazelle for the first time with my Virpil controllers and indeed it was a different beast. So our different experiences is probably due to different controls. But still I believe climb rate feels too slow. 
I am not saying it is wrong, I just say I liked the fm before we got the lame duck version. The only thing I found problematic about that one was a somehow unstable flight when flying straight and level. It was hard to keep in same altitude. But I find what we have good enough. But somehow I feel it could be better. It lack something

Edited November 20, 2023 by LuseKofte