FM Too Easy?

[cgrxman]

11 hours ago, KeyserSoze62 said:

I'll definitely try that but the Apache has SCAS and I think lots of people would say it was a challenge to fly when released.  Maybe PolyChop just did a fantastic job with the model?  I've never flown a Kiowa so I'm just wondering.

 

I only have about 2000 hours in the KW, but it seems true to life IMO.  Great FM and the best I've seen yet on a DCS helicopter.  Big thanks to PolyChop for not going down the ridiculous VRS path that other devs can't seem to get over.  You don't fly around worrying about settling with power all the time.

7 hours ago, Hiob said:

I still think, that the Mi-8 has a equally good flight model (at least), but yes - why would a helicopter especially one so heavy (relative to its power) and equipped with a SAS be inherently unstable?

Second best model IMO.  Only issue is the unrealistic VRS implementation.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

10 hours ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

I almost choked on my drink. That's a gas.

[Gunfreak]

1 hour ago, cgrxman said:

I only have about 2000 hours in the KW, but it seems true to life IMO.  Great FM and the best I've seen yet on a DCS helicopter.  Big thanks to PolyChop for not going down the ridiculous VRS path that other devs can't seem to get over.  You don't fly around worrying about settling with power all the time.

Second best model IMO.  Only issue is the unrealistic VRS implementation.

As someone with zero real life experience in a helicopter. I've always felt if real helicopters VRSed as much as DCS helicopters did. There would be far more fatal helicopter crashes then there are. Kinda same with warbirds engines if they really were that delicate. Far more allied pilots would have ended up in German POW camps because their engines would break after a 5 minute dogfight. If you fly a DCS warbird like ww2 pilots did(basically full throttle until the fight is over, based on first hand descriptions) then you'll break your engines.

 

[flyingscotsman]

Glad to find this thread, I have been in various RAF Helicopters, sometimes in the left seat, but I'm no pilot. But I agree with Gunfreak, I never recall the problems landing from hover that we seem to have, (Maybe because the Wessex weighed a ton and just flopped down due to gravity) But I have just been able to hover taxi the Kiowa around Anderson AFB, with just light touch on the controls, the way I recall a Puma pilot just holding the stick with his fingers. (Not gripping it like a gorilla, like what I do)

So my question to Polychop, Can we copy and paste this FM to the Gazelle. I flew around Northern Ireland in an army Gazelle, and the pilot was gently moving things as we did knap of the earth flying that was so smooth. It's not a critisim, I just find this more like what I experienced  all those years back.

THANK YOU, It's a lovely module

[stburr91]

7 hours ago, Chipwich said:

Not challenging enough?  Go fly Tobsen and @Eight Ball's excellent OH-6A for a month.  You'll be begging for a little SCAS or force trim 

 

 

 

It's interesting you mentioned the OH-6. I'm new to DCS, and have been mostly flying the OH-6 because it's so challenging to fly. I've flown a few of the mod helicopters, and they are downright boring compared to OH-6. 

 

I was considering getting the Kiowa as my first module, and this thread caught my attention, and is in part, why I'm likely going to pass on this module. This is not a criticism of the Kiowa, but if it's so easy to fly, I don't think it would hold my interest for long.

 

I guess my point is, that the opinion expressed by the OP, as unpopular as it may be with some, has value to others.    

[ARM505]

Being easier to fly, you just attempt more precision stunts with it, that's all.  Playing around online last night, I could nose through small gaps in treelines, hover into and turn around in hangars, land on small towers with one skid etc. Stuff that is actually possible in real life in other words, because safe, certified aircraft aren't supposed to instantly do backflips if you leave the controls for a second, or somehow settle into an instantly generated column of descending air, and I like to replicate stuff I've seen actual helicopters do which I know is possible.

So....the challenge is up to you and what you make of it. A Boeing 777 is challenging to fly.....if the challenge is to make it look like the loc and gs dots are painted in position in a gusty crosswind.

[SloppyDog]

20 hours ago, Ramsay said:

Note the Huey's mechanical Stabilizer Bar damps out oscillations with periods greater than 5 seconds and AFAIK in real life is more stable than in DCS i.e. the real Huey has active (mechanical) stabilization.

Yes, I understand. By active I meant an electronically active system to stabilize the system. I imagined the Huey stabilization as a passive system, but I agree that it is a mechanically active system.  

[dahui]

10 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

As someone with zero real life experience in a helicopter. I've always felt if real helicopters VRSed as much as DCS helicopters did. There would be far more fatal helicopter crashes then there are. Kinda same with warbirds engines if they really were that delicate. Far more allied pilots would have ended up in German POW camps because their engines would break after a 5 minute dogfight. If you fly a DCS warbird like ww2 pilots did(basically full throttle until the fight is over, based on first hand descriptions) then you'll break your engines.

 

The danger of VRS is real and should be taken seriously. But on the MI8 it comes too quickly. Of course the „treshold“ of falling into it depends on the model (diameter, profile of blades etc)

Edited June 7, 2024 by dahui
Typo

[Gunfreak]

2 hours ago, dahui said:

The danger of VRS is real and should be taken seriously. But on the MI8 it comes too quickly. Of course the „treshold“ of falling into it depends on the model (diameter, profile of blades etc)

 

It's not just the MI8, according to real helo pilots (civilian and military) they all say all the DCS helicopters go into VRS to easily.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

3 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

It's not just the MI8, according to real helo pilots (civilian and military) they all say all the DCS helicopters go into VRS to easily.

Yes, but the Kiowa seems to break with that trend which is great!

5 hours ago, dahui said:

The danger of VRS is real and should be taken seriously.

Yes it should…
 

*edit: changed video due to feedback below*

Edited June 7, 2024 by Raven (Elysian Angel)
original video was not VRS

[dahui]

4 hours ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

Yes, but the Kiowa seems to break with that trend which is great!

Yes it should…

deleted

Edited June 7, 2024 by dahui
Video from OP was corrected

[Hiob]

30 minutes ago, dahui said:

This video is not a vortex. Its a driveshaft failure

I was about to ask that - because the vertical speed seemed way to small for VRS to develop.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

1 hour ago, dahui said:

This video is not a vortex. Its a driveshaft failure

Thanks for correcting that. I had another clip in mind I wanted to share but I couldn't find it on short notice so I shared that one instead. I'll edit the original post when I find the clip I was actually looking for.

[ARM505]

Just to add, VRS in the Kiowa is still entirely possible, just in much more reasonable entry conditions (IMHO).

[RealDCSpilot]

On 6/6/2024 at 7:43 PM, cgrxman said:

Only issue is the unrealistic VRS implementation.

This only comes from a technical limited perspective. Imaging being a deaf person in the middle of the crowd on a dance floor, but everybody is wearing headphones. You simply hear and feel nothing. The track just entered a break section and everybody calms down. And then the DJ let the next beat kick in. All you can do is wondering why everybody is going crazy. That seems to be how most people experience VRS in DCS. No wonder, because the most people sit in front of a monitor, only with a spring-centered joystick or maybe a HOTAS. But DCS does much more, it exports real-time telemetry output. Feeding that into a motion seat or into a haptic seatpad via Simshaker opens up much more information your aircraft is telling you all the time. Hull vibrations, turbulences... everything is there. VRS, retreating blade stalls etc. announce themselves long before it happens. A simple seatpad with Simshaker already does the trick to make you feel what the aircraft is telling you. It doesn't matter if you have thousands of hours in the real thing. A SME, equipped only with a small monitor and spring-centering stick, is not able to tell you much about how good a flight model truly is. He is missing out on a lot of information. You'll need at least a VR headset for all the three-dimensional references of the world around you, the much larger field of view that simply gives you all the information on movement of everything around you. And on top of that a haptic solution for telemetry output. To let your body feel what is going on. It's up to you how much you want to dive into DCS. But don't judge stuff by just looking through a small cellar window that makes you miss the most of what is going on under the hood.

 

Edited June 10, 2024 by RealDCSpilot

[Slippa]

^ I love the Loach. The current version is much less taxing to fly now, for me anyhow. Still nippy enough to challenge but not by too much. It’s mustard. 

I’ve more affection for that little heli than any other. It dragged me out of flying my props for a bit and I love my props. I fly the Huey too and have the Apache and Gazelle but haven’t really flown them much.

As soon as I tried the Kiowa I took off and floated around easily and I’m no heli pilot really. No need for any curves or anything just on, up and away. Never had control of a heli IRL but have been up a couple of times in a Bell Ranger. If pilots that have flown them say the FMs ok I’ll take their word for it. 

[cgrxman]

5 hours ago, RealDCSpilot said:

This only comes from a technical limited perspective. Imaging being a deaf person in the middle of the crowd on a dance floor, but everybody is wearing headphones. You simply hear and feel nothing. The track just entered a break section and everybody calms down. And then the DJ let the next beat kick in. All you can do is wondering why everybody is going crazy. That seems to be how most people experience VRS in DCS. No wonder, because the most people sit in front of a monitor, only with a spring-centered joystick or maybe a HOTAS. But DCS does much more, it exports real-time telemetry output. Feeding that into a motion seat or into a haptic seatpad via Simshaker opens up much more information your aircraft is telling you all the time. Hull vibrations, turbulences... everything is there. VRS, retreating blade stalls etc. announce themselves long before it happens. A simple seatpad with Simshaker already does the trick to make you feel what the aircraft is telling you. It doesn't matter if you have thousands of hours in the real thing. A SME, equipped only with a small monitor and spring-centering stick, is not able to tell you much about how good a flight model truly is. He is missing out on a lot of information. You'll need at least a VR headset for all the three-dimensional references of the world around you, the much larger field of view that simply gives you all the information on movement of everything around you. And on top of that a haptic solution for telemetry output. To let your body feel what is going on. It's up to you how much you want to dive into DCS. But don't judge stuff by just looking through a small cellar window that makes you miss the most of what is going on under the hood.

 

 

I appreciate your analogy. The 3D headset recommendation is great, but TBH half of my time flying the KW (and many other types) was with NVGs strapped to my head seeing the world through a 40 degree, Gatorade colored, 2D image.  That's a pretty small cellar window if you ask me.  I never got into VRS.  I did demo the onset and recovery many times in the Agusta A109E. We had to go out of our way to get to where you could start feeling it.  I mean to the point where you were asking yourself how you would get there in normal ops.

The KW gets you the closest to a realistic helicopter FM IMO. It also frees you up to enjoy the other features of the aircraft and weapons systems.  There's a Bell badge on this module.  I'd be surprised if they didn't get a chop at the FM. 

[PL_Harpoon]

On 6/6/2024 at 7:43 PM, cgrxman said:

Second best model IMO.  Only issue is the unrealistic VRS implementation.

Not to go too much offtopic here, have you considered overpitch? The engines in Mi-8 and Mi-24 seem to have relatively slow spool times which may induce VRS.

vsTerminus made a good video about it a while ago:

 

[RealDCSpilot]

20 hours ago, cgrxman said:

The KW gets you the closest to a realistic helicopter FM IMO.

Oh man, please stay realistic. Is it the most accessible helicopter FM, easy for beginners? Yes. But that's only because it's the Fiat Panda of DCS's helicopters. It clearly got it's DNA from a civilian machine. Power, weight, materials... Atm the Kiowa FM also has issues. I have a random problem with ground effect, slowly gliding in to a landing spot leads to a strange bouncing off effect sometimes. As if the aircraft dropped a ton of weight all of a sudden. Retreating blade stall seems also very undefined, it simply switches to "hey, i'm a stone now" in a split second.

Edited June 11, 2024 by RealDCSpilot

[todd022]

10 hours ago, RealDCSpilot said:

Oh man, please stay realistic. Is it the most accessible helicopter FM, easy for beginners? Yes. But that's only because it's the Fiat Panda of DCS's helicopters. It clearly got it's DNA from a civilian machine. Power, weight, materials... Atm the Kiowa FM also has issues. I have a random problem with ground effect, slowly gliding in to a landing spot leads to a strange bouncing off effect sometimes. As if the aircraft dropped a ton of weight all of a sudden. Retreating blade stall seems also very undefined, it simply switches to "hey, i'm a stone now" in a split second.

 

Um, this is awkward, but the Bell 407 (widely used civilian version) came from the advancements in the airframe and systems of the OH-58D. The Bell 206 came from the OH-58A. This flight model is very close to the feel of every light single-engine Bell helicopter I've flown. Stop throwing shade based on your assumptions.  

[Zentaos]

Ha! I love this!

We can't seem to get away from the VRS discussion trap...

Yes, there are more stimuli letting you know what's happening with the helicopter when you are sitting in one. However, the "over modeling" of VRS in DCS helicopters isn't just a perception issue. It comes on more sudden, and more easily than it does in a real helicopter. When I trained with my instructor for demonstration and recovery, we had to work at it to get VRS to develop. I also never demonstrated RBS, we only discussed how to recognize and recover. 

 

There is also quite a difference in the handling of 2-bladed teetering systems, and fully articulated rotor systems like those on the KW. I haven't had enough time with it yet, but it feels really good so far. It's great in VR with my Varjo Aero.  

[firefox121]

Just for join the discussion, I found the kiowa very pleasant to fly (despite some known for all ground efect etc...) just viewing some REAL KIOWA videos, like I post here, the helo seems to go over rails, no much oscilations , flying straight close to the floor....don't know , for me is a grat module with a great and funny FM, I am not looking for stuffs like heat or altitude or something else that drops the engine 3% RMP os somethig else, for me this is just for fun. The only thing that I dislike is the lack of missions and a campaign, hope they add soon.

Here is the video for your fun, Ah! watch carefully the takeoff because its behaviour is just like the module's behaviour

Pollychop keep in the good way, but please, If you think in adding a "hard" Fm for the people that dislikes this, add also a button to switch betwen te two FM.

 

[ARM505]

People who want it closer to 'naked helicopter' can turn off the SCAS. And even then, it behaves more as I'd expect a real, certified, safe to operate aircraft behaves (ie. not trying to kill you every instant).

Compare the AH64's model - I've spent quite a few hours now flying all US helicopters we have back to back (UH1, KW, Apache). And, to put it simply, the Apache needs to calm down. This is all just personal opinion of course. But I'd have expected the Apache to feel like a heavier, more powerful version of the KW's flight model as a very general statement, specifically with regard to stability - it has a very advanced (albeit quirky) SCAS, and all accounts by pilots on these and other forums are that it is very stable and easy to fly. The AH64 in DCS is not quite how I would have expected that to feel. It's not as easy to precisely place, it's more twitchy (especially in yaw) and generally not hard to bump up against the SCAS limits.....

This is a can of worms, and very much personal feel, so there's no need to debate the point really, it's absolutely just my opinion. I'm very, very glad the KW is here though, to open up a little bit of debate about 'hard' vs 'realistic' in helo FM's (again!)

I'm using Virpil gear, the joystick fitted with the longest extension, flying with a Quest 3 in VR, no curves (linear response - technically always the correct answer IMHO with a stick with extension).

 

On an OT point - did I miss something in the Apache updates? When I last flew it seriously, I needed to trim for speed/conditions (basic force trim stuff), now it adjusts everything automatically, as I'd expect, very nice! Might make me sound clueless, I don't know, but it seems like it's a work in progress, which is great.

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

OT: Apache is now much more easier to hover and land than when it was out initially. It does feel the weight a bit, again, it was me. Now, on to UH-1H...