How to actually fly a helicopter?

[Tasky]

On 9/30/2025 at 4:28 PM, Yurgon said:

One easy way to share your progress with us is to do a short flight, demo your takeoff problems, and then after quitting the mission, hit "Save Track" and share that .trk file with us (maybe via Google Drive/OneDrive etc. if it's too big for the forum). That track recording allows us to virtually look over your shoulder and give some more specific advice.

Prepare yourselves - This is going to be embarrassingly abysmal...

 

TaskyGazTrg1.trk

 

On 9/30/2025 at 8:01 PM, TFS said:

Also, if you have VR, or can stomach and afford it and your PC can run it well. It's basically a cheat code for helos, full depth perception and can get the sense of vertical reference. 

I have an old CV-1 Vive and I decided to give that a go... It did make situational awareness much easier, though I still didn't have much control over the aircraft. I also found it hard not to just reach out and touch the controls, such was the immersion. Firing weapons was great, looking outside and seeing the rotor swash arms actually move was great, and it all went well until I had to start rolling the aircraft into turns.... BLEURGGGGHH!!! Auto-Hover was similarly nauseating, as it suddenly wibbled all around. 

Ultimately though, this headset is pretty useless as I don't have the resolution to read text, so can't see any instruments without putting my nose 2" from the dashboard. Damn good fun, though!

 

On 9/30/2025 at 9:56 PM, Hiob said:

Your pickup problem sounds to me as if you haven’t mastered the coordination between inputs yet. You can‘t stop doing one while adjusting the other. The more collective you apply, the more anti torque pedal you need to give etc. That‘s not a shortcoming, just a lack of practice.

Try to apply a curve to the cyclic to make it less responsive around the middle position. Make use of trim (and check the different trim options in the special options).

For all the helicopters we have in dcs, the cyclic must be pulled back (about half an inch) for vertical pickup. (and a quarter inch to the left or right, depending on the the direction of your main rotor). Trim it in this position before trying to lift of. Your necessary corrections on the Stick (depending on length) should be mm rather than cm…..

I think there are two main issues...

Firstly as TFS said, I can't (or don't know enough to) recognise what's going on, so can't apply whatever the correct inputs should be. I also find that whenever I'm watching the instruments to make sure I'm at the right levels, the stuff outside goes to rat-spit, and vice-versa!!

Secondly, my WinWing stick is so very, very light around the central 2" that the slightest touch can have you at half deflection and you can't physically feel any difference from zero. I don't really want to set a 50% deadzone, but the idea of using "pressure rather than movement" (as the aforementioned British Army guy said) only works if there's pressure to push against. I might need to change the cams, or fiddle with the dampers perhaps?

I may also need to reconfigure my chair setup, as the weight of my feet on the pedals create stiction and fine control is abysmal. 

[Hiob]

45 minutes ago, Tasky said:

I think there are two main issues...

Firstly as TFS said, I can't (or don't know enough to) recognise what's going on, so can't apply whatever the correct inputs should be. I also find that whenever I'm watching the instruments to make sure I'm at the right levels, the stuff outside goes to rat-spit, and vice-versa!!

Secondly, my WinWing stick is so very, very light around the central 2" that the slightest touch can have you at half deflection and you can't physically feel any difference from zero. I don't really want to set a 50% deadzone, but the idea of using "pressure rather than movement" (as the aforementioned British Army guy said) only works if there's pressure to push against. I might need to change the cams, or fiddle with the dampers perhaps?

I may also need to reconfigure my chair setup, as the weight of my feet on the pedals create stiction and fine control is abysmal. 

Don't look at your instruments while picking up. Outside references are far more important and easy to pick up.
This pressure rather than movement is the weirdest advise (for helicopters, at least in the sim world) I think I ever heard. Helicopter controls are light and often have no recentering spring at all (for a reason). I would also advise against a deadzone for helicopters. There is no distinct center position for a cyclic, so where is the deadzone supposed to be?
 

Try to flatten the response curves for pitch and roll a bit. That may help with fine control around the middle. But keep it at bay. Maybe 10% max 20%.

Make sure you do it slow.

Have you tried the trim options?

Edited 8 hours ago by Hiob
choice of words

[MAXsenna]

When picking up or hovering. Look forward at an angle of 45° and it will be much easier to see the drift direction(s).

Cheers!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Tasky]

2 hours ago, Hiob said:

This pressure rather than movement is the weirdest advise (for helicopters, at least in the sim world) I think I ever heard.

Have you tried the trim options?

The pressure thing was a British Army instructor teaching new pilots to take off/hover in their first Gazelle lesson, in a 1990s documentary. I figured he'd know what he was talking about...

I already have no curve set, nor any saturation. It's all on default, +/- zero. I'll have a play with the trim later tonight... and try not to look at my dashboard!

[Hiob]

10 minutes ago, Tasky said:

The pressure thing was a British Army instructor teaching new pilots to take off/hover in their first Gazelle lesson, in a 1990s documentary. I figured he'd know what he was talking about...

I already have no curve set, nor any saturation. It's all on default, +/- zero. I'll have a play with the trim later tonight... and try not to look at my dashboard!

I'm not so sure if the real world methods are applicable to a Joystick in front of or on top of a desk....
Trust me on that. The less resistence your stick offers, the better for helicopter flying.
Ideally you would have a stick that has no/little/adjustable spring re-centering force and holds every postion you put it in (like a real world cyclic would), but that would need a FFB-Device like the VP Rhino of FFBeast (or the frinckin' Moza). VERY recommendable - but VERY expensive as well....  

With a common spring loaded joystick, it is vital, that you choose the right trimming mode in the special options and learn how it works!

You DON'T want to fight the stick!

Edited 6 hours ago by Hiob

[drPhibes]

Some tips:

Input:

When learning the basics of hovering, you'll never need the full travel of the stick, so reducing the Y saturation on both the pitch and roll axis and/or adding a curve helps a lot (especially in twitchy birds like the Gazelle). Then you can just dial the settings back when you feel like you are starting to master the basics.

Trim:

First of all, configure your trimmer. The Gazelle has a trim hat on the cyclic in addition to the traditional magnetic brake that most helicopters have, so you can use both. Generally, I use the magnetic brake when doing stuff like transitioning from hover to forwards flight (or vice versa), and the hat for fine tuning (either in a hover of in ff). I have a non-ffb stick (Orion2 ViperAce Ex) and use the "Instant" cyclic trim type in the special options. This is the same as the "Default" mode mentioned in vsTerminus' excellent Mi8 video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt8-BkGShTw)

Regarding the helicopters themselves, perhaps the most important thing to know is that no helicopter in DCS is trimmed for a hover when the stick is centered. In the Gazelle I generally trim to the rear and left, so that the top and right points of the diamond touch the vertical and horizontal lines in the control indicator. I don't like pedal trim, but the red line at the bottom shows a good pedal input for a IGE hover with no yaw:

 

Edited 3 hours ago by drPhibes

[MAXsenna]

1 hour ago, drPhibes said:

Input:

When learning the basics of hovering, you'll never need the full travel of the stick, so reducing the Y saturation on both the pitch and roll axis and/or adding a curve helps a lot (especially in twitchy birds like the Gazelle). Then you can just dial the settings back when you feel like you are starting to master the basics.

Fair points! Depends! Personally I have never used curves or saturation nor deadzones in any module, because I tend to pick up bad habits. (I do have some saturation/deadzones for my collective to ensure I reach both endpoints. Also the "throttle" in the Gazelle needs to be able to get at 100%). So this is a personal preference. Extensions and the stick between your legs makes hovering much easier. 

And beware. DCS does not support curves/saturation changes with FFB. 

I have FFB, so I often fly with the magnetic brake off. I usually only use it when I hover and trim. 

1 hour ago, drPhibes said:

I have a non-ffb stick (Orion2 ViperAce Ex) and use the "Instant" cyclic trim type in the special options. This is the same as the "Default" mode mentioned in vsTerminus' excellent Mi8 video

Interesting. Why? As the correct option for you should be "without springs and FFB". The "Default" is for instant trimming and FFB.

1 hour ago, drPhibes said:

Regarding the helicopters themselves, perhaps the most important thing to know is that no helicopter in DCS is trimmed for a hover when the stick is centered

Excellent advice!  

[Hiob]

I should clarify that by trim I meant force trim aka re-centering the middle point. (See special options for things like “Instant trim” etc….)

The incremental 4-way trimmer is something different and can be used for fine trim once in a stable attitude.

But force trim is far more important (imho)

[drPhibes]

23 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Interesting. Why? As the correct option for you should be "without springs and FFB". The "Default" is for instant trimming and FFB.

 

No, the "without springs and FFB" option (which is labelled "none" in the gazelle options) is definitely not the right trim for a regular stick with centering springs. Of the four options available in the Gazelle, it's the only one that's not usable at all, since it does nothing to the trim in the game. It's meant to activate force trim in the physical stick, for devices that have such fancy features.

[MAXsenna]

No, the "without springs and FFB" option (which is labelled "none" in the gazelle options) is definitely not the right trim for a regular stick with centering springs. Of the four options available in the Gazelle, it's the only one that's not usable at all, since it does nothing to the trim in the game. It's meant to activate force trim in the physical stick, for devices that have such fancy features.

I misread, I thought you had a non-centering, non-FFB base.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[tekwoj]

42 minutes ago, drPhibes said:

No, the "without springs and FFB" option (which is labelled "none" in the gazelle options) is definitely not the right trim for a regular stick with centering springs. Of the four options available in the Gazelle, it's the only one that's not usable at all, since it does nothing to the trim in the game. It's meant to activate force trim in the physical stick, for devices that have such fancy features.

In my experience the none option does what it says, it sets no trim and the magnetic brake remains in the center position, not in the newly set position (probably has to do with polychop's implementation of magnetic brake combined with manual trimming), so your ffb stick is centered and you can't do anything.

For ffb sticks the option that works better is instant trim, the option that works best is flying with magnetic brake off.