Questions and a failure that I can't figure out

[andqui]

Flying the first deployment, mission, where you go on the FAM flight, I'm having a problem. I've tried it twice, and these are the only two long BS flights I've done, so I'm pretty wet around the ears.

 

1. When I'm cruising during the mission, should I put the RPM's at the K marker on the gauge and leave them there? If so, how to I speed up to keep up with the Hind that's showing me around? If I put the nose down, I speed up but descend. I was under the assumption that the only way to increase speed but stay at the same altitude was to increase collective?

 

2. What exactly do the pitch/heading/bank/altitude hold autopilots do? When I press the corresponding blue square, does it simply serve to hold me steady? If I'm at 5 degrees pitch down and engage the pitch hold, does it keep me at 5 degrees pitch? Similarily, if I engage the heading hold mode, that should keep me pointing in that heading, right? If I have heading autopilot enabled, and bank to the side, how does that work? I'm just looking for a guide for these autopilot modes because apart from bank hold and hover hold I can't get them to work right, or work the way I think they should work.

 

3. Anyway, I've been doing the mission like this: I'm using the bank, heading, and pitch autopilots to keep me steady as I take-off to a hover, and then disengage all of them but the bank hold as I turn to follow him and accelerate. The bank hold seems to want to keep me steady and upright, so I turn using sight bank with the cyclic and the rudder. I'm able to keep formation with him allright, and when he says accelerate I put the nose down a bit and increase collective slightly. The failure happens when I'm climbing. I pull slightly back on the stick, and increase power to climb, when the aircraft suddenly shudders, and debris comes out the back of the plane. I loose control, and the helicopter starts to roll right, and I have no control. A few seconds later, the aircraft's nose rises steeply, and the engine RPM's rapidly increase, and then I'm forced to eject. What's happening? I didn't notice the governor RPM limit lights, coming on, but they might have. I certainly didn't hear any audible warnings or sirens. Does anyone recognize this failure and what's going wrong. I'm not being shot at, so I'm somehow pushing the plane too far.

 

thanks for the help

[GGTharos]

... you mean you disengage them? ... OMG ... *looks daggers at andqui* ;)

 

Do not disengage the blue buttons. Ever.

That's what I would tell you if I were teaching you to fly a real Ka-50.

 

And yes, the autopilot works just as you said. You need to trim often - as for accelerating, just add colelctive so that you won't descend. When you're up to speed you'll probably need to take away some collective, but this isn't always the case.

 

The failure you're experiencing is rotor collision probably, and you might be going too fast and you've put in too much collective ... are your engine throttles set to AUTO?

[andqui]

1. So I should leave the pitch/bank/heading autopilot buttons on, and when I want to move I should tug the stick and hit the trim button when I've positioned the chopper the way I want? What about the altitude hold mode?

 

2. Yes the throttles are set to AUTO

 

3. So to avoid a rotor collision like that, the best way would be to pull up to slow down before increasing collective?

 

4. What about the K marker on the RPM scale? Should I use the collective to set it there, or manually adjust the governor limits?

[GGTharos]

1. So I should leave the pitch/bank/heading autopilot buttons on, and when I want to move I should tug the stick and hit the trim button when I've positioned the chopper the way I want? What about the altitude hold mode?

 

Altitude hold mode is used when you desire it.

There are a couple of ways to use the trim; hold it down to maneuver, and let it go when at your desired attitude, or move the controls a short distance, then trim, and keep trimming often as required - not very convenient if you are using a non-ffb stick though. Search the forum, there's plenty of threads on trimming.

 

2. Yes the throttles are set to AUTO

 

Ok, good.

 

3. So to avoid a rotor collision like that, the best way would be to pull up to slow down before increasing collective?

 

Reduce collective first to increase spacing between the rotors.

 

4. What about the K marker on the RPM scale? Should I use the collective to set it there, or manually adjust the governor limits?

 

Not sure about that - but the governor limits should be left alone :)