Altitude and hover

[darrenl]

What's the best way to increase your altitude while hovering? I've read some say the collective break, but right now I'm just turning off the altitude hold and slowly inching my way up in order to peak over hills.

 

...thoughts?

[PhoenixBvo]

The collective break does not function completely as in reality. In the sim, it only has a function when alt hold is turned on. Then it temporarily disables the altitude holding mode to allow the pilot to make adjustments. When released the new altitude is set as reference value for the autopilot.

 

The only (correct) way to change altitude in hover is to use collective. It doesn't matter whether you do this with altitude AP and collective break held or without altitude AP. As long as you remember to press the collective break when changing altitude with alt AP enabled otherwise the helicopter will fight your input with 20% control authority (meaning you can still change altitude, but with reduced effectiveness).

 

Does that answer your question?

[darrenl]

I think so Phoenix...

 

Just to make sure though,. Imagine that I'm behind a hill and want to pop up and fire...so I'm in auto hover already. What you're saying is to press and hold the collective break...increase collective to "pop-up" to the desired alt. Release collective break once I get to the desired alt...then unleash hell :joystick:

[Haril]

You need to reduce collective again to maintain a stable altitude before releasing the collective brake, but otherwise, yeah.

[PhoenixBvo]

correct :) Give em hell! :thumbup:

 

Oh and perhaps a little tip: DO NOT rapidly reduce collective in such a situation. You might be tempted to do so when you see a smoke trail or tracers heading your way. The heli is very likely to enter a vortex ring state in that case. Instead disable autohover and apply sideways cyclic to slip away in any desired direction. You will then automatically loose some altitude which should be enough to drop behind the ridgeline again.

Edited May 10, 2010 by PhoenixBvo

[nemises]

...you can also use "Decent" mode (default key "d", hold when in autohover) for safe (2m/s) decent rate (ie no VRS), but it can feel a little slow when those missle trailes are snaking towards you ;)

[darrenl]

..thanks guys.

 

Very helpful as usual. I'll try this out tonight for sure.