The trouble with helicopters is that all controls are interactive with each other... you change collective you have to comensate with a change in rudder inputs... If you don't... then you get a crash... :-) ... and your brain tells you to compensate more than you should and then you get in to an overcompensating battle which you will loose..

Add this to not having any physical ques and it becomes more difficult

I find the transition from forward flight to hover more difficult than starting in a hover...

 

I flew UH 60 army simulator .... wasn't too bad until my son switched off the hydraulic assists....

While on this topic, I fly, most of the time, with a yoke and pedals. I have tried to install my joystick together with these and also separately. The controls section always forgets one or the other and I have to go back through the whole setup again. Is there a way to get around this or would I be better off (or is it possible) to use a joystick for FSX and the yoke for P3D? Since I have both, this might be the solution.... Thoughts???

 

John

I fly, most of the time, with a yoke and pedals.

 

I keep different copies of standard.xml for each kind of control setup. I've got one for yoke, another for joystick, another for helicopter, and a couple that have been customized for specific aircraft. Once you've got the controls set up exactly the way you want them, make a copy of standard.xml with a name that makes sense to you... I keep mine in different folders so all I have to do is copy over the original.

 

The standard.xml file is found in the AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\Controls folder.

 

Hook

Thanks Hook. I'll give it a try - hopefully this evening..

 

John

Actually, you should land like a plane. Set yourself up on final, 1/2 mile to a mile out and about 1000 feet up and adjust pitch for 60 kts. Keep your speed right at 60 kts all the way down by adjusting pitch. Adjust your glide path with collective. Aim for about 500 fpm but mainly adjust so that you keep on a glide path toward the threshold in the usual way.

 

As you approach the threshold and about 50 ft, begin a flare with pitch. You will need to adjust collective to keep from gaining altitude, particularly if you flare too quickly. As you slow from the nose up, and transition into hover, you will need to raise collective and add in rudder to stay straight. Then you will slow to hover 10 ft or so over the runway. You then hover taxi to parking, or hover land at that point.

 

This is hard, of course, but practice makes perfect. Practice hovering from takeoff and then settle down again, over and over.

Not to be a smartass, and each to his own, but I think helicopters are the spawn of the Devil! Clankity, clackety, pieces banging and sliding past each other, waaaay too much racket for the results.

 

Compare this to the graceful flight of a fixed wing aircraft.

Actually, you should land like a plane. Set yourself up on final, 1/2 mile to a mile out and about 1000 feet up and adjust pitch for 60 kts.

 

Absolute true and well described. It is only the transitioning of the last 10-15 ft iro using the throttle (collective) that is a bit different to landing a plane. So YEs the initial section is like landing like a plane but the last 10-15ft you always have the ground effect to compensate and even if you going into a hover for taxi to landing zone you will need to adjust collective up to compensate for ground effect on blades,(that is if you want a super soft landing/proper hover and yes I am talking real life experience of just over 20 years and no we never taxi at 10ft but at about 2-3 feet.)

Old_As_Dirt, you sound like just the right guy that would be a perfect beneficiarry of Fsuipc. I know where you're coming from since my own control setup recently expanded to incorporate a joystick/hotas setup (for modern military planes), plus two new additional throttle quads on the left side (great for vintage fighter planes) in addition to the throttles on the right hand side plus the yoke for airliners/GA, which can be stowed to the side. For Helicopters, I'm currently using the Warthog setup. Having separate Standard.xml files to handle this is obviously one way of doing things, but I think most people would agree that the optimal way to handle things is through Fsuipc. It might be something you would greatly benefit from, so I urge you to check it out if you aren't familiar with it.

 

@everyone, this is a great thread. I just fired up the Hokum helicopter in DCS and already am a little better off by mentally not viewing the landings as radically different than fixed wing operations. Sometimes the barrier really is just in the way you look at things.

A plane wants to fly, a helicopter wants to crash, however it can be the most rewarding thing to fly in the sky.

 

I found that by practicing the hover and taxi all over the airfield until I could move it anywhere and keep it there when I wanted was the trick for me.

 

Unfortunately since flying DCS Blackshark and the Dodosim 206 these are the only things that feel like the one time I flew an R44 irl.

I think helicopters are the spawn of the Devil!

 

"Helicopters can't actually fly. They are so ugly the earth repels them."

 

I heard once that the first sentence you hear in army helicopter school is, "An airplane is a collection of sound aerodynamic principles that flies. A helicopter is a collection of mistakes that flies."

 

we never taxi at 10ft but at about 2-3 feet.

 

I've heard that the ground effect is fairly substantial. In FSX the ground effect is pretty subtle. Got any thoughts on that?

 

Hook

Good luck with your playstation controlers..

 

I haven't got many choices.. until I got myself a rudder pedal recommended.

 

 

So I stayed awake and tried enormous landings. For now, it is best for me to stop flying by the hand and using my head to visualize the rate of descent, I only read the instruments just to adjust the pitch. Estimating 500ft per minute and flare at around 20-30ft were just adding stress.. no doubt they may be the right procedures thou..

 

Thanks for the inputs.. couldnt imagine downloading a platoon on LZ in Nam and quickly taking off..

"Helicopters can't actually fly. They are so ugly the earth repels them."

 

I heard once that the first sentence you hear in army helicopter school is, "An airplane is a collection of sound aerodynamic principles that flies. A helicopter is a collection of mistakes that flies."

 

 

 

I've heard that the ground effect is fairly substantial. In FSX the ground effect is pretty subtle. Got any thoughts on that?

 

Hook

 

I fly RC helicopters, although my most recent helicopter had a gear failure and hasn't flown in a while (weak point of RC copters--the gears are made of plastic and they can wear or break). Ground effect is quite noticable compared to FSX/FS9. It's so strong that even if I can't sustain a hover at say, five feet above the ground due to a dying battery, I can sustain a hover for quite some time in ground effect--for several minutes.

 

John

I haven't got many choices.. until I got myself a rudder pedal recommended.

 

I'm using CH Products Pro Pedals, but for helicopter use you might find one of the Saitek's to be better: you can keep your heels on the floor and that makes it a lot easier to do the necessary fine corrections. If my pedals ever die, that's what I'm going to get.

 

I use a joystick and a separate throttle, both CH Products. Set the throttle up in reverse, so that full forward is zero and full back is full throttle. Yeah, it takes 10 minutes to get used to having the throttle reversed when you switch between fixed and rotary wing, but the reversed throttle is more intuitive for helo flying.

 

For pretty much any aircraft approach I'll use visual cues and only refer to the instruments to make sure I'm in the ball park. For fixed wing I set the airspeed with the elevator trim and mostly ignore it after that, just gotta make sure I don't pull back on the yoke or stick.

 

Hook

Yes it is well known fact that FSX is not that great on helicopter dynamics, but still good enough to bring about the "feel" of flying helicopters. I understand/read Mr austens version is much better iro helicopter dynamics. (though I have not tried it yet - solely based on what I have read..).

 

The other thing there is only one helicopter who closely got it right in FSX and that is the dodo. I fly dodo exclusively 96% of the time. Only other times I fly anything else is when a new helicopter see the light, then I install, take it for a spin or two but before I know, I am back with the dodo. All other helicopters are very docile and easy to fly in fsx. (again there is some developments like what they have added over at hovercontrol to sort of enhance standard helicopters flight dynamics.)

 

 

For pretty much any aircraft approach I'll use visual cues and only refer to the instruments to make sure I'm in the ball park. For fixed wing I set the airspeed with the elevator trim and mostly ignore it after that, just gotta make sure I don't pull back on the yoke or stick.

Hook

 

So I wasn't entirely wrong measuring descent rate visually? Might try landing on heavy fog when I get home. Thanks,you've been helpful

 

Yes it is well known fact that FSX is not that great on helicopter dynamics, but still good enough to bring about the "feel" of flying helicopters. I understand/read Mr austens version is much better iro helicopter dynamics. (though I have not tried it yet - solely based on what I have read..).

 

The other thing there is only one helicopter who closely got it right in FSX and that is the dodo. I fly dodo exclusively 96% of the time. Only other times I fly anything else is when a new helicopter see the light, then I install, take it for a spin or two but before I know, I am back with the dodo. All other helicopters are very docile and easy to fly in fsx. (again there is some developments like what they have added over at hovercontrol to sort of enhance standard helicopters flight dynamics.)

 

In what aspect FSX doesn't depict helicopter's FD correctly? My guess is something related to sudden spinning when making rudder inputs? btw I just took a look at a few Dodosim's video on YT.. tell me if you are fascinated by the exterior model, cause I am not quite..same like Jayhawk and Seahawk, they are far by anything special, looking at Milviz's Huey but too bad no one has written a review about it..