I am trying to master the Bell Ranger 206 but I have 2 questions: First, I am using the CH Flight Sim Yoke, and the throttle seems to control the collective nicely, but I never noticed the engine sound change as I increase or decrease power. Then I discovered the prop pitch lever (between the throttle and mixture levers) also seems to control power to a point and the engine sounds do respond nicely. What is this lever controlling on the real thing? Second, I went to external view to see what control surfaces move with control movement as can be done with the fixed wing aircraft. Nothing seemed to move. (I thought rotor blades change pitch or something like that). Are these not modeled in the copter as they are in the other planes? Thanks. Regards, Tom

I can't answer the first two since I know zilch about choppers but for:> Are these not modeled in the copter as they are in the other planes? Thanks.Nope, only thing that moves on that chopper are the rotors which spin and the doors. :+

In FS your throttle controlls the Helicopters Collective, prop pitch controlls the throttle/engine. Always leave the latter maxed so the engine has enough torque for collective to work.Many freeware helicopters will have animations so you can see the collective and cyclic changes The Bell47 here at AVSIM is a well animated model in those respects. The same helicopter also has a sound package that better represents a helicopter than the defualt bell.

Helicopters are flown at fixed rotor rpms, which is why the sound doesn't change. (Actually it should change more than it does - as you pull collective, the blades grab more air and make more "whomp-whomp" sounds. Steve Hanley's 206 replacement has better sounds in this regard.)The prop pitch axis is mapped to the fuel controller in the 206, and the mixture control in the R22. In both aircraft, this control is left alone during flight, and is only used during startup and shutdown.Regarding rotor movement - there's a Bell 47 out there by someone (forget his name) that has excellent animations, although I don't recall if it really models the rotor hub. I think it's in the Avsim library.The names of the controls can give you a hint as to what they do - the cyclic and collective both control the blade pitch of the main rotor, but in different ways. The collective controls the pitch of all blades *collectively*, while the cyclic introduces blade pitch changes to each blade in turn ("cyclically"). The net effect of that is to tilt the rotor system down in the direction that you move the cyclic.The pedals adjust the blade pitch of the tail rotor.Note that there is a dedicated helicopter forum here at Avsim: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=152Dave Blevinshttp://www.flightfactory-simulations.com/h...ster_banner.jpg

Thanks for the help, guys. Regards, Tom :-)