How the hell do you fly this thing?

[Witchking]

Hi guys,

 

OMG! I thought the shark was harder to fly. This thing is sooo finicky. I can hardly even fly up without it doing a tail spin on me. I am trying to keep the left pedal pushed in a bit and the stick pulled back a little to the left, but still...I cannot take off and fly without going out of control.

 

And talk about landing this baby.... holy crap.... once I hit the rotor wash from the ground, thats game over. and even during flying, I cannot help but have the chopper just go uncontrollably down or bow back up.

 

Crazy crazy difficult. I have more respect for chopper pilots now. lol!

 

Any tips or suggestions?

 

thanks,

 

V

[HiJack]

It will get better as you fly much. Flight Model is still WIP (Work In Progress)

[FZG_Immel]

It gets better after 10hours :) i can now fly that thing like a bicycle ;)

 

the real trap are VRS.... but there are ways to get out of it, and apparently, they are fine tweaking them too..

[lanmancz]

Don't forget to use trim + curves on stick and rudder. I even enabled rudder trim in options - that helps me a lot. I'm still rubbish but at least I can sort of hover, takeoff and with a bit of luck even land :-)

[PilotMi8]

Any tips or suggestions?

 

V

1. Understand how it flies (read manual, section 9.2. TAKE-OFF AND HOVER)

2. Try, try and try:noexpression:

[159th_Viper]

Any tips or suggestions?

 

Only one golden rule:

 

Anticipation

 

All else follows.

[ebabil]

after 10 hours triyng to land , you can surivive about 50%. but new flight model has been announced , make trainings and wait for update

[Mt5_Roie]

All great advice and like any new aircraft you fly, nothing will be easy. Any thing you buy with DCS level will require some time to be able to fly and a long time to master.

 

Trimming and curves are a great start. Watching the videos and seeing where the controls go is a great thing too.

 

My favorite thing to learn from is the autopilot. Put the control indicator on and then put the autopilot on. You can see where the control inputs should be to fly straight and level. This way in the future you can do it wihtout the autopilot. You'll basically learn to juggle the cyclic, collective, and rudders.

[PeroperoDokkiri]

Read posts about controller settings. Saturation is a must with current FM and default joystick stick. It requires long floor mounted stick to be controlled with what we have. It took me days to grafually lower saturation settings, right now I can fly with 0, but it's far from what I can do with 10 or more saturation.

[Witchking]

Thanks a lot for all the suggestions everybody. I'll play around with the settings and keep you guys posted with updates. DCS A-10 was way more easier. I just needed time to learn the avionics.

[mmaruda]

Well, the UH-1 is exactly the opposite - not much avionics, hard as hell to control - my kind of simulator.

[algerad3]

Only one golden rule:

 

Anticipation

 

All else follows.

 

So, you wanna turn this into a Heinz ketchup commercial?

[cichlidfan]

So, you wanna turn this into a Heinz ketchup commercial?

 

So you are old enough to remember that too!! ;)

 

Note, I purposely did not insert a Carly Simon video here. :D

[algerad3]

I appreciate that !!!!

Was not sure if anyone would understand/remember where I was going with that!!!

One rep for you .

[cichlidfan]

I appreciate that !!!!

Was not sure if anyone would understand/remember where I was going with that!!!

One rep for you .

 

:)

[BubbaMc]

Thanks a lot for all the suggestions everybody. I'll play around with the settings and keep you guys posted with updates. DCS A-10 was way more easier. I just needed time to learn the avionics.

 

Of course it was, fixed wing aircraft fly themselves for the most part.

 

Welcome to the wonderful world of rotary wing aircraft :)

 

Keep at it mate, you'll get there. Took me a few days but I now can land successfully and in control 100% of the time. Make sure you're using a joystick with a soft spring action. Changing from the Warthog TM stick to a CH combatstick made one hell of a difference for me.

[Sn8ke]

Trimming the helicopter is absolutely essential. After trial and error, you will find a "sweet spot" position of the cyclic for takeoff. This is a trimmed position that will require virtually no cyclic movement and just applied pressures as you add collective and left pedal. I couldn't even take off four days ago, and learning how to trim I can now hover, land, hover taxi, etc.

[BubbaMc]

Well I wouldn't say it's essential, I find it easier to fly without the use of trim.

[hog_driver111th]

Here's a few notes I can give from my helo flying days (mind you, I don't have a ton of hours... 200 or so to be exact, but I can fly them). When you start to add collective, due to torque and weight, you will need back and left cyclic, along with left pedal. The opposite for lowering the collective. If your speed is nil - in a hover - you will only need to relax the controls towards center a little. Keep your pedal turns slow. Use the gun site (M key) as a reference point. When transitioning to forward flight, you will need to add collective, more left pedal, nose down, and watch the roll. Once above 20kts or so, reduce the pedals to center as they become less effective.

Two last tips. Don't over compensate, and practice!

 

Some training tips. If you are having trouble with lifting and settling, once you get airborne but are still in ground effect (2-8 feet is best), move your helo out towards the runway or wide open ramp (ie: Kobuletti). Practice first stabilizing your hover. Then move forward a little ways similar to a hover taxi, and stop. Push the collective until you touch down. Lift back up slowly, adjusting controls as needed until back in a hover. Move forward again and repeat.

Once you can manage that with a degree of smoothness, try doing it faster, in terms of forward speed. If you can get good at that, the next part will be easy. Find a point (tower or vehicle at the base) and try to rotate around it keeping the nose pointed at it. You won't need to touch the collective at all, as the Huey is very forgiving in this area.

Here's a 26 point list from my original training syllabus:

A. Preflight (get that Huey running properly first, this includes trim)

B. Straight and level flight, climbs, turns

C. Airport Operations (plan what and where on the base you plan to practice)

D. Configuration/Power Changes

E. Normal Takeoff & Approaches

F. Hover turns / Patterns (good to practice when flying MP)

G. Lift Off / Set Downs

H. Max Performance T/O

I. Steep approaches (getting into the LZ fast)

J. Quick stops (ever see an Apache do these?)

K. Straight in autorotations

L. Hovering autorotations (keep right pedal/ right cyclic!)

M. Settling with power

N. system malfunctions (RTFM!)

O. Slopes (up or down hill, and landing on them)

P. running T/O

Q. Running landings

R. Confined areas (try landing in an area with little space)

S. pinnacle approaches

T. 180* Autorotations

U. Enhanced Autorotations

V. Full Down Autorotations

W. T/R Failure

X. T/R Loss of control

Y. Low RPM recovery

Z. Cross Country operations (Navigation)

 

One thing to note, not every flight had all areas. First flight was A-G, second A-H + K, third A-L + Q....

Hope this helps!

Edited May 8, 2013 by hog_driver111th

[Sundowner.pl]

I would add finding a good airport to practice from - I choose Kutaisi, as the area is mostly flat, what helps with patterns, as those are flown at 500 and 300 feet AGL, so I can go entire pattern steady on baro. There are also both ILS and NDB, which help with the landing patterns - turning into base leg when crossing perpendicular to NDB. And align the final both visually and with ILS. ILS is not very helpful in vertical plane since our approaches are much steeper than those of fixed wing.