Help me not fly like a noob...

[Temphage]

Alright, I just grabbed this sim, my first time with a helicopter sim. After spending a stubborn hour figuring out how to start the aircraft without any help at all (woo) and getting a handle on the basics... here's some questions.

 

- The training for the control hover shows the helicopter taking off smoothly upwards. Whenever I try it, my helicopter oscillates and shakes like a wobbly old card table.

 

- RE: The above - I think part of the problem is my joystick is too sensitive. Moving it just a hair in any direction induces rather significant control changes (especially in the throttle), so the untrimmed hover check means it's flipping all over the place. It's a Logitech Freedom 2.4 - I went in the profiler and reduced all axis sensitivity to 10%, even cut range to 65%, and it really doesn't solve the problem...

 

- I decided to go for a cruise in the mountains. Was having some trouble getting up there until I dumped my stores and throttled up the engines. Then randomly, out of the blue, my rotors just exploded - proceed to crash and die. As a matter of fact this happens a lot. I understand at lower altitudes I was causing this by maneuvering too much, giving me that rotor beeping warning (I guess I made the rotors collide?). Why does this happen at straight and level (and somewhat slow) flight at altitude?

 

- What is that annoying solid tone I keep hearing (you hear it when you're powering up the aircraft). There's no indications or anything to go with it. It almost sounds like a marker beacon tone, but I get it all the time.

 

- I read the manual for the ABRIS (well at least the parts I couldn't figure out on my own) and for some damn reason it refuses to save my routes. I did what it said - I get the blue lines and the various points, I activate the route, it shows up on the normal ABRIS screen... but it doesn't work with the PVI-800 and won't save.

 

Thanks!

[EtherealN]

On the shakiness - do you have the three damping channels active? (A track file would let me see it all in action, you could do it all over and when done and exiting, make sure to select "save track".) Another possible explanation would be if you have several controllers fighting to give input - f.ex mouse axes also programmed to give cyclic. The problem should be constant though, in that case.

 

The bleeping warning can be a little bit of everything, depending on which bleeping warning it is. It might be overspeed, it might be rotor RPM going low and so on. Do note however that only in a dire emergency (like one engine dying) should you change throttles from Auto setting. Electronic Engine Governor handles the rest. The only thing you should control during flight, in normal circumstances, is the collective angle.

 

Rotor disc intersection can, however, happen for many reasons. One of them is heavy right rudder input while at speed or altitude. Altitude requires a higher alpha on the rotor blades since the air is thinner. (Note - HUD displays ground speed, not IAS.)

 

The solid annoying tone might be pretty much anything. There are some tones and stuff to basically just tell you that stuff is powering up, but without knowing more specifically which tone you mean it's difficult to say.

 

ABRIS and PVI-800 don't talk to each other very much.

 

However, the one big thing for learning to not fly like a noob is: trim. Trim again. Then trim. And trim. Might as well trim some more. Did I mention trim? Yeah, trimming is good. (And so on. :P ) When it comes to controlling the aircraft, trimming is a marvellous tool to have mastered and preferably you should be doing it without even having to think about it or plan it. Map it to a button on your stick because it's a function you'll be using a lot. Basically, every time you've made a maneuver you probably might as well trim. ;)

 

A properly trimmed aircraft also helps you make a picture-perfect takeoff.

Edited October 26, 2009 by EtherealN

[Temphage]

On the shakiness - do you have the three damping channels active? (A track file would let me see it all in action, you could do it all over and when done and exiting, make sure to select "save track".)

 

If you're talking about the three autopilot pitch/roll/yaw options, yes. I'll try making a track file.

 

The bleeping warning can be a little bit of everything, depending on which bleeping warning it is. It might be overspeed, it might be rotor RPM going low and so on.

 

It's the yellow RPM blinker (couldn't remember what it was when I made the topic, heh). The manual is completely full of notations of controlling rotor RPM and the like - yet there's no way to actually control it in-game? Or is that what 'auto' is supposed to do?

 

Rotor disc intersection can, however, happen for many reasons. One of them is heavy right rudder input while at speed or altitude. Altitude requires a higher alpha on the rotor blades since the air is thinner, especially at slow speeds. The latter is because at slow speeds you will get less lift than you would at 130km/h IAS. (Note - HUD displays ground speed, not IAS.)

 

Hmm... good to know I suppose. I wasn't going terribly slow and really didn't change anything. I was actually screwing around with the ABRIS at the time. I got the rotor RPM warning for a brief second and it went out on its own, I ignored it, and then suddenly I'm falling out of the sky.

 

The solid annoying tone might be pretty much anything. There are some tones and stuff to basically just tell you that stuff is powering up, but without knowing more specifically which tone you mean it's difficult to say.

 

Heh, that's the thing, I have no idea what it corresponds to. It MIGHT be an altitude warning or something, but I'm not sure.

 

ABRIS and PVI-800 don't talk to each other very much.

 

So where does the PVI-800 get its waypoint information? I was under the impression that once I have the flight plan in ABRIS, it would talk to the PVI-800 for waypoint and fly-to indicators and such... maybe I'm taking for granted the F-15E where everything shares information with everything...

[Waldo_II]

Shakiness is very likely due to disabled autopilot dampeners. Always, always have these on. Check before you take off, check after you take off, check five minutes after you take off, you get the idea. They like to turn off for a number of reasons (most commonly is when you try to hover at very low altitudes, less than 15 meters).

 

The RPM warning was probably due to RPM being too low because you had the collective at maximum. When collective is maxed out, the engines cannot turn the rotors fast enough to overcome the air resistance, and the RPM warning freaks out. Also, having collective at maximum is a bad idea, especially at high speeds.

 

At high speeds rotors like to get intimate with eachother. By "intimate," I mean they get all touchy-touchy while going at like ten million KPH, and they get divorced straight away. If you get my drift.

 

What happens when you go fast is the advancing rotor blade (right side on the bottom, left side on top) is generating lots and lots of lift while the retreating rotor blade is generating very little lift. The result is that on the bottom, the right blade is angled high, and on top the right blade is at a low angle. This is when they collide. Under normal flight parameters, you won't experience collision, but if you bank right or use right-rudder while at high speeds, you encounter issues.

 

The solid tone is probably the radar altimeter warning up. It turns on, then is all like "HOLY SHIT WE ARE AT ONE METER ABOVE THE GROUND!! AHHHHH" but then after a second it is all like "Oh wait, nevermind. My bad" and it turns off.

 

 

If you would like to learn about flying routes, I suggest watching my video tutorial about it. It is the first video in this thread. I've got some other good tutorial vids in there too. If you only watch a few, be sure to include the last one. Definitely my favorite.

[EtherealN]

The manual is completely full of notations of controlling rotor RPM and the like - yet there's no way to actually control it in-game? Or is that what 'auto' is supposed to do?

 

Rotor RPM is controlled by the EEG's. Your control is through the settings of the yellow lever at the left. Idle is for starting up or shutting down, Auto is for general use, and emergency is for cases where you have lost an engine - it's used to get as much as possible from the remaining engine so you can (hopefully) get yourself back to base.

 

The EEG's basically measure how fast your rotors are turning. When you increase collective and thereby alpha on the blades, they will suffer more drag and will therefore slow down. The EEG's will notice this and tell the engines to supply more power to keep the rotor RPM stable. The inverse when you decrease collective.

 

Many older or civilian helicopters use manual control of the throttle, but that increases the workload on the pilot and generally most constructors are moving to automatic systems.

 

However, have you made sure to increase the throttles to the auto-setting? That is - twice Page-Up from idle, not once. If you are not feeding enough juice from the engines you'll end up at higher alphas to stay in the air, and thereby cause yourself to get closer to disc intersection earlier.

 

 

Heh, that's the thing, I have no idea what it corresponds to. It MIGHT be an altitude warning or something, but I'm not sure.

 

So where does the PVI-800 get its waypoint information? I was under the impression that once I have the flight plan in ABRIS, it would talk to the PVI-800 for waypoint and fly-to indicators and such... maybe I'm taking for granted the F-15E where everything shares information with everything...

 

The PVI-800 has it's own memory, and you can program it through the integrated keyboard and it's related switches. The ABRIS you can consider a bit like the GPS unit you have in your car. A handy tool, but it doesn't talk to much else in the car. (There is some communication though, f.ex with the Datalink.)

 

If you want, you can make a track file with you doing a manual startup and flying a bit, and I'll watch it and see if there's anything I notice that might cause unwanted behaviour.

[Temphage]

That all makes sense (re: the rotor RPM vs. collective) but that makes me wonder how in hell they figure the flight ceiling of the KA-50 is 5000 meters, when where I was at, around.... 3,200 M, it was almost impossible to gain any more altitude, and when I tried it killed itself.

[EtherealN]

Your maximum ceiling depends a lot on your airspeed (130km/h allows you to go highest - faster or slower decreases your service ceiling), and also on weight (fuel load, ordnance) and drag (bulkier weapons on the wing stations create more drag, which makes the helicopter less effective).

 

A common mistake at altitude is to pull the nose up when you find yourself not climbing anymore in spite of still needing more altitude. This will slow you down and eventually place you in a hover, and you'll fall out of the sky. What you instead need to do is adjust your airspeed so that it is around 130km/h (for optimum climb speed) or above if desired. If you are coming up on a ridge that you need to clear and need more altitude - circle while maintainging the airspeed.

[Waldo_II]

I'm curious, why is 130 kmh the best climb speed? I understand that forward flight allows the aircraft to take advantage of the airfoil-shaped "wings," but why is 140kph less efficient? Why is 130 the peak?

[EtherealN]

Lift = Aerofoil Coeficcient of Lift * Air pressure * Velocity squared * Aerofoil Area

 

For this reason, higher velocity equals more lift. The fact that you square velocity means that the advancing blade gainst lift to a greater degree than the retreating blade loses lift. However, you also square air resistance - double the speed and you'll have four times the air resistance. (EDIT: This is simplified. In actuality it's two different types of drag - profile drag and induced drag. Profile drag increases with airspeed, induced drag decreases with airspeed.) In the case of the Ka-50, the optimal balance between these two end up at 130kmh.

 

The wingstubs are only a marginal factor in the gains you get from forward motion on the Ka-50.

Edited October 26, 2009 by EtherealN

[JimMack]

If you're talking about the three autopilot pitch/roll/yaw options, yes. I'll try making a track file.

 

 

 

It's the yellow RPM blinker (couldn't remember what it was when I made the topic, heh). The manual is completely full of notations of controlling rotor RPM and the like - yet there's no way to actually control it in-game? Or is that what 'auto' is supposed to do?

...

 

As soon as you see the yellow flashing light and hear the tone, just lower the collective a touch until the warnings stop.

[ARM505]

Actually, a helicopter benefits from lateral velocity not due to pure velocity squared (as per fixed wing lift formulae), but because of 'translational lift', ie the rotor disk is getting a steady supply of smooth air that it doesn't have to do as much work for, ie suck all that air into and through the disk. Hence, 130 kph as best climb speed. Any more and you're doing too much work fighting drag, any less and you're not getting the best effect from translational lift.

 

Something like that.

[AlphaOneSix]

I'm curious, why is 130 kmh the best climb speed? I understand that forward flight allows the aircraft to take advantage of the airfoil-shaped "wings," but why is 140kph less efficient? Why is 130 the peak?

 

The answer here is extremely simple: Above about 130km/hr, you're using more power to maintain forward airspeed than you are in maintaining a climb. Maybe surprisingly to many people who do not have much helicopter experience, the 130km/hr speed (70 knots) is roughly the best climb speed for almost all helicopters, not just the Ka-50. So if/when the Apache module comes out, it's best speed for climbing will be about 70 knots.

 

Translational lift appears very early, and does not increase with "more clean air". Once you're in trnslational lift (20-30km/hr or so) you've gained all the extra lift that you're going to get from that effect.

[joey45]

If you haven't alreadt do so, have a look at the Producer Notes that can be downloaded from the main site [ need to log in though, but you need to make a new account ], or find them on you tube.

[BigVette]

On the shakiness - do you have the three damping channels active? (A track file would let me see it all in action, you could do it all over and when done and exiting, make sure to select "save track".) Another possible explanation would be if you have several controllers fighting to give input - f.ex mouse axes also programmed to give cyclic. The problem should be constant though, in that case.

Whoa, that was my problem. As a fixed wing PP I was well aware of the importance of trimming, but I guess I failed to realize to arm those guys all the time - before I was drunk and all over the place, now I'm touching down on mid pitch of the local soccer field. Love this sim! :thumbup: