radio alt, alt hold, autohover and 20%

[ChromeWasp]

hi

 

I am using RALT mode, and radio alt is working fine

when I am in autohover the aircraft maintains

the correct altitude, even in the face of strong cyclic inputs etc.

 

but if flying along rising terrain - it doesn't seem to notice

the change in radio altitude and eventually just crashes into the ground

 

I thought the whole point in having radio altimeter + autopilot was to avoid

crashing into the ground during low level tactical flying etc.

 

is this:

 

a) a bug in black shark

b) a bug in my flying

c) the way it is in real life

 

I enjoy some high speed low level flying you see ...

 

ps when I hold D "descent" I can see the control move to D position but the aircraft doesn't descend

[Distiler]

Check you have alt autopilot engaged (one of the blue squared buttons).

 

Press&release "f" (collective brake) to set the actual altitude for the autopilot to try to maintain (mind, it has only like 20% authority over collective). You'll see in the hud a bar about this and you'll see the rotor pitch indicator moving to try to maintain altitude.

Edited August 7, 2010 by Distiler

[ChromeWasp]

thanks for tips

 

my ALT HOLD light is on (so are all 4) not FD AP though

 

when I press F I see a triangle against a scale

everything works except it seems to use barometric not radar

(it strongly resists my collective inputs)

 

does it work for you? can you fly up a hill at a constant height?

 

also the manual says the baro-radar switch only has 2 settings but it also has a center setting

[bumfire]

hi

 

I am using RALT mode, and radio alt is working fine

when I am in autohover the aircraft maintains

the correct altitude, even in the face of strong cyclic inputs etc.

 

but if flying along rising terrain - it doesn't seem to notice

the change in radio altitude and eventually just crashes into the ground

 

I thought the whole point in having radio altimeter + autopilot was to avoid

crashing into the ground during low level tactical flying etc.

 

is this:

 

a) a bug in black shark

b) a bug in my flying

c) the way it is in real life

 

I enjoy some high speed low level flying you see ...

 

ps when I hold D "descent" I can see the control move to D position but the aircraft doesn't descend

 

No, that would be terrain following radar.

 

Radar Alt just tells you your height about the ground and tries very subtly to keep you at that specified height.

 

What it wont do however is keep you X feet above the ground when flying over hilly terrain unless you are above its highest point, as the radar alt beam cannot see the terrain infront of the aircraft/helo.

 

The radar bounces down from the tail of the KA50, so if you are flying along and have a hill infront of you, the radar doesnt seen the hill, it only sees whats directly below the helo, thus when you start flying over the start of an incline, the radar wont see it for a few seconds after you have started to fly over the start of an incline, thus the autopilot wont respond at all or in time for it to avoid crashing into the side of the hill.

 

Its best to use radar alt autopilot only when flying over flatish land or when you can clearly see whats infront of you so that you dont get a surprise kiss in the face by an immovable object.

 

To change height whilst flying with radar alt AP engaged, use the collective brake and keep it held down until you reached the desired alt and then release and it should hopefully keep you at that alt.

Edited August 7, 2010 by bumfire

[Distiler]

thanks for tips

 

my ALT HOLD light is on (so are all 4) not FD AP though

 

when I press F I see a triangle against a scale

everything works except it seems to use barometric not radar

(it strongly resists my collective inputs)

 

does it work for you? can you fly up a hill at a constant height?

 

also the manual says the baro-radar switch only has 2 settings but it also has a center setting

 

It uses radar alt if you have the selector for it.

And don't expect to climb a step hill. First because it has only 20% of collective authority and second because the radar looks just down.

But for a trip with some minor elevations and some depressions, it works; you press collective brake at, for example, 100-200m altitude, activate the route autopilot and you can more or less forget about it.

[ChromeWasp]

ok thanks - it works very well on the flat

[Baal1606687932]

Hi,

I had similar question about manipulating collective during Altitude hold without using collective break, but I found the answer in previous posts.

Thanks Distiler.

As far as I understand Altitude hold button will not work correctly when collective is to high or to low, ie. 20% margin of current collective position does not allow to maintain current altitude. Changing collective possition during Altitude hold will change margin in which autopilot can do its work.

Am I right?

 

And following ChromeWasp question.

Can you tell us what Descent mode on collective does?

 

EDIT:

Ok, I figured this out. Auto-Descent performs vertical descent while in a hover.

Edited August 8, 2010 by Baal

[bumfire]

Hi,

I had similar question about manipulating collective during Altitude hold without using collective break, but I found the answer in previous posts.

Thanks Distiler.

As far as I understand Altitude hold button will not work correctly when collective is to high or to low, ie. 20% margin of current collective position does not allow to maintain current altitude. Changing collective possition during Altitude hold will change margin in which autopilot can do its work.

Am I right?

 

And following ChromeWasp question.

Can you tell us what Descent mode on collective does?

 

It does exactly what it says it does, it slowly descends you when you are in a hover and only when you are in a hover with the AP engaged.

 

You have to hold the button down until you descend to the altitude that you desire, it goes slow though and can take sometime to get to a desired altitude, especially if you want to drop like 500metres or something, you will sit there for ages trying to get it down, ideally its only good for small adjustments because of the time it takes.

 

It only works down to 4 metres off the ground, any lower and it cuts off along with some other things. So DO NOT try to land by using the auto decent button, you can use it down to say 5 metres but then you must manually descend and land, if you do try and land with it, its likely to end in tears :(

 

The alt hold, you need a fair amount of collective for you to stay at the height selected, too little collective and it wont be able to maintain a steady level height and too much and you will start porpoising up and down or your height will just keep rising.

Edited August 8, 2010 by bumfire

[Frederf]

Cut off for the descent mode is 4m. It's there to keep the aircraft out of VRS by limiting the hover descent rate to a safe value. It's nice for descending 0-30m or so with a hillside in front of you after reconnoitering an area to regain terrain mask when in combat.

 

The ALT hold function can only do so much to the collective blade pitch angle (centered on the physical collective lever setting) so gross collective lever adjusts do move the hold authority window around with it... In other words yes.

 

Radio ALT hold is good at:

1. Slow speed

2. Greater than 4m height (system limit)

3. Less than 50m height (recommended)

4. Gently rising or falling terrain (more speed, less slope)

[ChromeWasp]

for me

autohover always results in a constant sideways motion

it never regains its original position - there is no indication that it is even trying - I have reset trim etc.

ALT HOLD only holds barometric altitude and ignores radio altitude whatever the settings

DESCENT doesn't desend, even though the descend light comes on

I have checked and double checked all the settings

I just want to fly not debug all these things - is there some simple thing common to these symptoms I am missing?

Edited August 8, 2010 by ChromeWasp

[Distiler]

Post a track.

[ChromeWasp]

here is a track showing:

 

- I hover manually

- I start autohover

- I check AP settings are ok

- I trim to set hover point

- I use cyclic to move away from hover point

- nothing happens, aircraft does not return

- I turn on FD

- following FDs guidance I reach hover point

- I turn off FD

- I hold D to descend

- nothing happens

 

maybe there is some small switch I forgot ...

[Distiler]

ahh I see, I think you're using easy flight mode.

 

Go to options -> gameplay and switch off "game flight mode" and "game avionics mode", then switch on "use these options for all missions". And try again with "f" (collective brake) and "d" (descent mode).

 

Mind from now on you'll have to setup controls for "ka-50 real" in the first drop-down menu of options -> controls.

Edited August 8, 2010 by Distiler

[ChromeWasp]

strange that, I used the "Real" install option

but it set "Game Flight Mode" ON and "Game Avionics Mode" OFF

also I setup all my controls OK on "Real" and it worked OK

 

maybe the installation got confused

 

I turned off "Game Flight Mode" and now:

 

> D - descend works ok

> but autohover still doesn't hold position

 

please find second track

 

thanks for your help btw

[Distiler]

Now it's ok, but:

 

-you messed to much with auto-hover. You have to switch it on at less than 20km/h or it won't be able to hold position. Don't trim with the autohover switched on. First trim, get an steady position (manual hover) then, and only then, switch the auto-hover. The more steady the manual hover is, the less drift you'll notice with auto-hover.

 

 

-Also you messed with the collective brake and r-alt/baro switch, sometimes it was in neutral position. The alt-autopilot was in fact trying to maintain altitude but you messed to much with auto-hover and collective brake.

 

Anyway you'r doing well! remember part of the endgame of this simulator is to master the heli, not to destroy a "boss" XD

Edited August 8, 2010 by Distiler

[ChromeWasp]

I restarted BS and now it seems to work OK

heli returns to hover point

also since switching to "real mode" the quick start

defaults to HDG/BANK/PITCH off

so it helps to turn those back on

and now the heli maintains its radio height up gentle hills

 

learning the helicopter is easy compared with getting the software to work properly

 

that is why the flight sim market is dead - not because people don't want to flight sim - because they hate the shoddy software available

 

for all I know BS is the best helicopter sim around - but I may never know

after spending 3 days messing about with LUA files etc. to achieve basic things like setting up 2 monitors - and even then the GUI is now split across two screens so editting control options is hellish

 

i would happily spend $300 on this software if the easy things were taken care of properly - as it is I resent paying money for entertainment and then having to spend hours on a bl**dy forum - looking up things that are absent from the manual - and then to be told "training missions are no longer available - because you installed a bug fix patch" etc.

 

<constructive rant over/> thanks for your help :-)

[Baal1606687932]

Thanks for your explanation bumfire.

There is also a paragraph in the manual about Vertical Descent. Probably I'll dedicate my second monitor to Manual instead of Shkval:smartass:

[topdog]

Real mode quick start (assuming you meant left-win + home) does enable those 3 AP channels; but your inputs during this time can interfere with the startup sequence since it basically simulates a series of keypresses itself in a macro.

 

Remember not to engage auto-hover too low (or leave it on when descending too low) as that will start turning off and freaking out the AP channel buttons too.

 

Hopefully none of your problems have been caused by editing of .lua files. There's nothing wrong with editing them, just a mistake can cause for some ugly and difficult to trace issues.