First Impressions

[HuggyBear]

Interesting impressions! My cousin is an Army helo pilot and he started in Oh-58s and Hueys. He always called it mild mannered and docile.

 

If he started on 58s, the Huey would have felt very docile and incredibly over-powered. :)

 

It's the same progression I went through in my training.

 

Also as EB stated, the FM will continue to be tweaked.

 

- Bear

[Mr_Burns]

Is there a SP campaign with it?

[wess24m]

Is there a SP campaign with it?

 

Yes.

[gunterlund21]

wow this machine is a beast. Makes flying the KA look like a walk in the park. One thing Im finding is its extremely important to tune your joystick axis' to the style of flying. Im working on the proper combination of deadzone and curve to come up with smooth stick control. Out of the box its super sensitive. Landing is still on my to do list :-).

[Derk]

imho you don't want a deadzone on you cyclic because that will make it very hard to make those minor adjustments needed for a stable hover. Instead you can set up a curve on your cyclic axis for easier control around the center. I started with 50 and later dropped to 20. That's my happy point, for now.

 

EDIT:

 

I should add that i am flying with a Saitek X52 with 2 coils of the spring tie-wrapped and pro flight rudder pedals.

Edited May 1, 2013 by Derk

[Nopileus]

After trying about 20% curves on the stick and pedals i ended up with going fully linear, this just gave me the most control.

Still far away from doing stable hovers and smooth maneuvers though.

 

I did the spring mod to my Warthog, otherwise it'd be impossible to fly.

[tusler]

I am using my warthog throttles and the CH combat stick for joy, it is working well.

In the startup training mission after everything is running and the eng and rotor rpms are up there at 6600 and 320 respectively...the lesson never progresses to the next step...anyone else run into this?

[JG27_Arklight]

If he started on 58s, the Huey would have felt very docile and incredibly over-powered. :)

 

It's the same progression I went through in my training.

 

Also as EB stated, the FM will continue to be tweaked.

 

- Bear

 

I could see that.

 

I know he started on OH-58s, then moved over to also flying Hueys and Blackhawks (he said the Blackhawk was just plain simple to fly), andf I think now he test flies Apache aircraft.

[Rangi]

My first impression is twist grip rudders dont cut it anymore.......

[Pizzicato]

My first impression is twist grip rudders dont cut it anymore.......

 

LOL! Yeah, I can imagine. :D

 

I'm using a mongrel setup with my Uber NXT Cougar stick, my Warthog Throttle and my Saitek Combat Rudder Pedals. I tried with the stock Warthog and found it too stiff and heavy. The Uber NXT has got a really light feel which works really well for the UH-1.

 

I tried the Uber NXT with the FC3 aircraft (Su-27, A-10A and Su-25) and it felt horrible compared to the Warthog. Far too loose and "imprecise".

 

Looks like I'll be doing a fair amount of swapping controllers in and out over the coming weeks.

[ARM505]

Whew, managed a no-manual startup (small search for the low rotor RPM warning 'off' switch to the tune of WEEY-WEEY-WEEY-WEEY) and circuit, followed by some hover practice and hover taxiing to a new parking spot. With small children attached to my arms (big distraction, 'Daddy, I want to look in the exhaust pipe, Daddy, what is that whining noise etc etc etc constantly). Now I just need to read the manual. And learn to actually hover properly.

 

The Ka50 is certainly a lot more docile. I have a long-throw joystick with hall sensors, that REALLY helped. I still sucked, but at least the chopper is reusable.

 

Nice Huey, well done guys.

[tusler]

Wow this is incredible for a Beta release!

The biggest help I found to hovering and doing hover taxi is to bring my point of view back (zoom out) so I can see the lower clear chin bubbles as well as the windshields. The lower glass gives me an instant since of motion which allows me to put the correction in quicker. If I only look out the windshield I am all over the place. Probably just me but I figured I let you know.

Now its back to the manual to brush up on ADF Navigation :book:

[PeroperoDokkiri]

OK GUYS I GOT IT! Sorry for shouting, but I finally managed to make it work right:) I fly with a Thrustmaster Top Gun Afterburner II. I couldn't controll Huey at all before. Now I set up cyclic axis to 20 curvature (or whatever it's called- it's not linear anymore near the center anyways). Now I managed to do what I expected to do. I did a proper taxi, takeoff and landing, all done right:) Great feeling! Belsimtek- You nailed it! Awesome chopper, have so much fun flying it!

 

So remember guys- most of You gonna need to play with axis settings. It's first sim I have to do that, but now it works just right!

[SmokeyTheLung]

First impression:

 

I love this death trap!

[BubbaMc]

^ Same here!

Edited May 1, 2013 by BubbaMc

[Razor5-1]

Starting to get the hang of it after 2 hours practice so far! Loving every minute of it! Such an amazing aircraft.

A small gripe though, in all DCS aircraft I have the left mouse button moves a 3 position switch up and the right moves in down, this is not the case in some of the switches and is causing me to select the wrong setting,

 

Just a little issue

[Vlerkies]

So I spent most of today just taking off, trying to hover, flying short circuits to point across the airfield and landing.

Oh, yes and crashing in spectacular fashion a lot :music_whistling:

 

Really enjoying it.

I need to read more about this in the manual but I find when you shift from forward flight to hover its like the rotor cavitates and you loose lift rapidly. This seems to happen at alt as well so need to understand this properly.

 

So then I got brave and attempted an oil rig landing.

Found this very challenging. Was reading Chickenhawk and remembered the reference points the pilots were talking about for formo flying.

Tried that and it seemed to help a lot, but its hard to keep the ship steady out there with not much to reference when the rig moves out of sight as a result of poor flying.

 

One of the many, attempts, I did hit the bullseye though :)

 

Finally planted one.

 

:smilewink:

[arteedecco]

... but its hard to keep the ship steady out there with not much to reference when the rig moves out of sight as a result of poor flying.

Key to a good landing (airplane or helo) is a stabilized approach. To that end... try not to "salvage" a bad approach when "the rig moves out of sight...". Instead, abandon the approach and come back around safely.

 

I mean... do what you want of course!, but the lure of a SIM is to train us in bad habits that a RL pilot would never develop since lives would really be in jeopardy.

 

Also... keep working to set a stick position for a pitch / bank picture and hold it, minimizing inputs on the approach.

 

My 2 cents. The one time I flew a chopper in RL (Bell 206) it was like trying to stand on top of a basketball when hovering! Though quite fun. You really try to fly with just a very light touch of index finger and thumb.

[Vlerkies]

Thanks mate, good advice and what I am striving for.

That landing I planted was a nice approach, but got wobbly just as I cleared the railing. I expect a RL pilot would have aborted right then and there but i had white knuckle fever hehe.

[arteedecco]

Hehe... yeah. Well you are practicing and that's good. I expect by the end of the week you'll be quite a bit more comfortable and proficient.

 

Keep it up! And keep sending vids! ;)

[Madone]

First impression from external point of view, it bounces way too much at startup (it was in MP so it could the cause...). Now good news, the sound is awesome and the tracer rounds are madness.

[heloguy]

It seems awesome so far...too bad I have to tear down my sim to move tomorrow. Took it for a couple of patterns in instant action, and it does seem a little squirrely.

 

I'm a UH-60 pilot, and I figured it wouldn't be as stable as a hawk (obviously), but I was sure it wouldn't be this squirrely. I've got a guy in my unit that started out in Apaches, then went to UH-1s before coming to Hawks. When I asked him about flying Hueys the first word that came out of his mouth was 'stable.' This thing feels like the hydraulics are turned off.

 

The pendulum action feels a little overdone. I would expect maybe one or two degrees, but I seem to be getting 5+ degrees with little to no cyclic movement. Using a brand new Warthog btw. I know if I had to go back and hover a 206, it'd be humbling, but I figured this would be somewhere in between.

[fjacobsen]

It seems awesome so far...too bad I have to tear down my sim to move tomorrow. Took it for a couple of patterns in instant action, and it does seem a little squirrely.

 

I'm a UH-60 pilot, and I figured it wouldn't be as stable as a hawk (obviously), but I was sure it wouldn't be this squirrely. I've got a guy in my unit that started out in Apaches, then went to UH-1s before coming to Hawks. When I asked him about flying Hueys the first word that came out of his mouth was 'stable.' This thing feels like the hydraulics are turned off.

 

The pendulum action feels a little overdone. I would expect maybe one or two degrees, but I seem to be getting 5+ degrees with little to no cyclic movement. Using a brand new Warthog btw. I know if I had to go back and hover a 206, it'd be humbling, but I figured this would be somewhere in between.

 

I´m not a real life pilot...

 

But as told in another thread I have tired a real UH-1Dmilitary sim and I found it to be more stable. What bothers me ost is the side to side wobbling.

I also feel that the transistion from flight to hover (comming out of translational lift) is too abrupt to feel safe.

 

Maybe it´s just me needing to hone my skills.

[hassata]

Wot a joy! Thanks Belsimtek. Plus a great way to explore the DCS world.

 

I tried with the stock Warthog and found it too stiff and heavy. The Uber NXT has got a really light feel which works really well for the UH-1.

 

My thoughts as well. The Uber NXT really allows for precise control and cuts down on the squirrelly-ness. I can approximate that with the Warthog by taking out the curves and dead zones, but it takes a lot more muscle power to fly. Too bad my set-up has the NXT as a side-stick :(, but no biggie. I'm sure the FM is only going to go from strength to strength. I'm loving the whole module setup as well-ED did a great job making setup and operation a breeze.

[Hueyman]

Don't want to be " bad mouth " but, all in all, there is no ONE video on youtube about this mighty heli that show great pilot skills. On each one, the virtual pilot is struggling to survive with yo yo-ing heli... The only stable one I saw was when Furia was at controls ( real heli pilot ).

 

Maybe you guys should have spend more time on flying school ( other simulators such X-Plane ) while waiting for this one ;-)

 

When I see a simple approach is soo hard for some of the videos I saw, how can I imagin a quick landing in a hot LZ, and take off just after ? ;-)

 

Pretty sure this sim will be much more challenging than it sounded for many ;-)

 

Hueyman