What causes a uncontrollable spin in a helicopter?It seems like this occurs when I apply rudder? Are you not supposed to apply rudder?Is this a problem with the standard FS 2004 Helicopter model? Is there a better one to use?Thanks!Barry

There is no problem with the FS2004 helicopter model.What are doing when this problem occurs -- that is, are you hovering or in forward flight? If hovering, how high off the ground ?Cal (CYXX)

It's all about practise.In a hellicopter the rudder control is actually the tail rotor, and you need to have good control of the tail rotor to keep the hellicopter steady.In the hover it's very different from flying a plane. You need to keep the chopper upright with the stick, also known as the cylic. The rudder controls the direction the hellicopter is facing, and the throttle actually controls the collective (choppers generally have a governor controlled constant rotor rpm).The hellicopter will start moving in the direction that the rotor disc is slanted. For instance if the rotor disc is slanted slightly to the left, where the left side of the rotor is lower than the right, the hellicopter will start drifting to the left. The movement causes the hellicopter to want to face left, and you need to keep that from happening with the "rudder", whilst moving the cylic to the right slightly to slow and then stop the unwanted drift.To fly a hellicopter well in a hover takes a #### of a lot of practise, take it from me!Good luck in your ventures!James

I've come to the conclusion that the uncontrolable spin is the result of unintended rearward flight at significant speed. Atempts to hover over the blurry general ground texture make it difficult to diferentiate between vertical motion and foreward/aft motion. I think the aircraft is trying to rotate its nose into the direction of flight.In one of the earlier versions of Flight Simulator the taxiways and apron of Meigs field had a blurry appearance similar to the general ground textures. After having the typical tough time flying over the apron area I flew to a low altitude position over the more detailed runway texture. I suddenly found that maintaining a stable low speed flight or hover MUCH EASIER. The numerous Autogen objects in FS 2002 and FS 2004 also seem to serve as a VALUBLE visual reference when I hover or land within a hundred feet of them.RobertVAFlying multiplayer most weekends on FlightAdventures.com

That's precisely why I asked what he was doing when the "spin" occured. And your conclusion is correct, unintended rearward flight is the culprit. This, in turn, us usually caused by hovering too high. You lose ground reference. The higher you hover, the more difficult horizontal movement is to detect. Hovering above 10 ft, you are susceptible. 3-5 ft is ideal.The points you make are all covered in my lessons at HoverSafe Academy, http://members.shaw.ca/hoversafe/Hoversafe.htm -- created over 6 years ago.The typical flight controls available today are quite adequate for fixed wing flying but marginal for helicopter flying. A little too coarse. The MOI for yaw (in the Aircraft.cfg file) is quite high and when the so-called realism control is less than full, it get's higher. This makes yaw control sluggish. If you lower the value in the .cfg file, you have a much better chance of recovering the "spin". But, as you and I both know, the best way is to never let it happen in the first place.Cal (CYXX)Chief InstructorHoverSafe Academyhttp://members.shaw.ca/hoversafe/Hoversafe.htm