FlyInside Bell 47G for MSFS released

[anprogrammer 18]

The activation system is there to make sure no one is sharing one installer/code with the public at large.  A couple of activations across a couple of computers or accounts isn't going to flag anything 👍

[dogmanbird 269]

Awesome. Thanks for confirming 👍

[lupedelupe 315]

If anyone is sitting on the fence on this one: GET IT.

* Have not flown anything in DCS (but gather it's pretty good), previously rated the X-Plane B407 (Dreamfoil, XP11) and UH-1 (Nimbus) top-notch (and the still are), but this Bell 47 is quite brilliant. I've spent a few hours nursing (yes you have to keep a close eye on airspeed, vertical speed, rotor and engine RPM and down't forget mixture) the heli over those high passes in the Alps. Fantastic. 

[dobee51 346]

7 hours ago, keithb77 said:

I think that should be "less than 500 fpm"...but the only RW helo time I have is an intro lesson in an R22

Fly around a bit, hover just controlling the height with collective,
then point at a tree and keep it pointing there with pedals 🙂
Then add cyclic and then watch the instructor recover 😞
Going to have to get this one 🙂

 

What is the proper way to transition from forward flight to a hover?

I generally tend to enter a slow spin, and when I try to stop the spin, I fall over backwards, 

[Bobsk8 12,512]

5 minutes ago, dobee51 said:

What is the proper way to transition from forward flight to a hover?

I generally tend to enter a slow spin, and when I try to stop the spin, I fall over backwards, 

Pull the nose up to reduce speed. 

[Paraffin 2,197]

11 minutes ago, dobee51 said:

What is the proper way to transition from forward flight to a hover?

I generally tend to enter a slow spin, and when I try to stop the spin, I fall over backwards, 

First, get into a stabilized hover at a safe distance off the ground to avoid nearby obstacles in the desired direction of flight, Use anti-torque pedals as needed to maintain heading. From a stable hover, slowly move the cyclic forward just a little to gradually transition into forward flight. If you're lifting from an airport you probably have plenty of free space around you, so you don't need to get much altitude before transitioning to forward flight.

Increase collective as needed to maintain altitude during transition to forward flight, but do that slowly as well. Too much collective too fast when you're not expecting it, could overcome your anti-torque pedal setting and get you into a spin. Anticipate what's about to happen. No sudden moves. Ease into forward flight slowly as you translate into cruise.

FYI, there is another takeoff procedure for larger twin engine (CAT A certified) helicopters where you first make sure there are no obstacles behind you, then you takeoff vertically and slightly backwards, always keeping the takeoff zone visible below and in front of you near your feet through the lower canopy. When you reach a safe translation altitude you ease into forward flight. This technique is designed to keep a safe landing area always in view below and ahead of you, in case you blow an engine and need to autorotate or use a single engine to land back in the takeoff area. 

It's a procedure used with restricted takeoff areas and things like yacht or oil rig landing pads. I don't think this kind of takeoff is normally used for smaller single-engine helicopters, but it's a fun one to practice anyway.

 

[vonmar 121]

12 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

First, get into a stabilized hover at a safe distance off the ground to avoid nearby obstacles in the desired direction of flight, Use anti-torque pedals as needed to maintain heading. From a stable hover, slowly move the cyclic forward just a little to gradually transition into forward flight. If you're lifting from an airport you probably have plenty of free space around you, so you don't need to get much altitude before transitioning to forward flight.

Increase collective as needed to maintain altitude during transition to forward flight, but do that slowly as well. Too much collective too fast when you're not expecting it, could overcome your anti-torque pedal setting and get you into a spin. Anticipate what's about to happen. No sudden moves. Ease into forward flight slowly as you translate into cruise.

FYI, there is another takeoff procedure for larger twin engine (CAT A certified) helicopters where you first make sure there are no obstacles behind you, then you takeoff vertically and slightly backwards, always keeping the takeoff zone visible below and in front of you near your feet through the lower canopy. When you reach a safe translation altitude you ease into forward flight. This technique is designed to keep a safe landing area always in view below and ahead of you, in case you blow an engine and need to autorotate or use a single engine to land back in the takeoff area. 

It's a procedure used with restricted takeoff areas and things like yacht or oil rig landing pads. I don't think this kind of takeoff is normally used for smaller single-engine helicopters, but it's a fun one to practice anyway.

 

The question was:

"What is the proper way to transition from forward flight to a hover? "

When did you reach a proper Hover?

Edited May 2, 2021 by vonmar
added the question

[Paraffin 2,197]

21 minutes ago, vonmar said:

The question was:

"What is the proper way to transition from forward flight to a hover? "

Sorry, not enough coffee this morning. 

Just do what you did for forward flight translation in reverse. 🙂

Okay, seriously... it's not enough to just lift your nose to bleed speed because that will gain altitude. You want to slow down first by lowering collective a little while raising your nose with the cyclic a little, doing both together in a coordinated way.

You'll end up in a glide path similar to a fixed wing landing. You need to do this way ahead of time, anticipating how long it will take to reach the altitude and position of your landing zone. This takes practice and experience. You'll need to anticipate the need for more anti-torque pedal as you slowly transition to a hover.

By the time you're at your destination you should be moving very slowly, and can then do a tiny flare up to kill your speed to zero right over the landing zone and softly drop to a landing with the collective.

Maintain a crawl speed until you reach that spot and you'll stay out of the zone where VRS can kick in. Try to avoid coming to a hover at a large height above your landing zone and dropping vertically. That's where you might hit VRS. If you feel it kick in (and I don't know how accurately this model is for that), the escape maneuver is with the cyclic -- either a sudden push forward or to one side to get out of the prop wash.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Paraffin

[sd_flyer 6,029]

So I'm fixed wing pilot but "I did stay in holiday inn last night" (as per famous commercial). 🙂 In other words I talked to some hell pilots, in particular to medevac helicopter pilots. I've been told that they company rule they limited to 300 fpm  descend in hover. And when they need to bleed altitude they circle over landing spot similar to our fixed wing spiral descent . I'm not sure if flying technique the same in heli as in fixed wing.

 Certainly heli pilot feedback would be most appreciated. My info just pieces and bits !

[MOD71 175]

3 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

So I'm fixed wing pilot but "I did stay in holiday inn last night" (as per famous commercial). 🙂 In other words I talked to some hell pilots, in particular to medevac helicopter pilots. I've been told that they company rule they limited to 300 fpm  descend in hover. And when they need to bleed altitude they circle over landing spot similar to our fixed wing spiral descent . I'm not sure if flying technique the same in heli as in fixed wing.

 Certainly heli pilot feedback would be most appreciated. My info just pieces and bits !

Are you talking about vortex ring state SD? If so, this occurs when you essentially descend into your own rotor down wash. This can occur with decent rates between about 800ft/min to 1500ft/min (these can vary though depending on weight, density etc), and forward airspeed less than 15-20 kts. The recovery technique is to lower collective (to remove angle of attack), and apply forward cyclic to gain forward speed, which will take some time and a lot of altitude as the rotor moves into clean air. You can see the issue here. The conditions for VRS mainly occur during landing phase, where you typically don't have the altitude to recover.

I'm a heli CFI and we practice VRS recovery with students at altitudes above 4000 ft agl. We bring the heli to a hover and initiate a decent with collective. Once we have a decent in the range mentioned above, I get the student to raise collective to arrest the descent. This increases AOA, resulting in greater down thrust, resulting in more down wash. Rate of descent then rapidly increases. The more collective you pull to try and stop it, the worse the problem becomes. It's not uncommon to reach descent rates of 4000 ft/min plus. You can see why altitude is the only savior once this occurs (and proper recovery technique!).

If you need to descend quickly, you can do so at high rates as long as you have a forward speed of 30 kts or more to ensure the rotor is in clean air at all times.

Hope this helps?

[sd_flyer 6,029]

1 hour ago, mdreyer said:

Are you talking about vortex ring state SD? If so, this occurs when you essentially descend into your own rotor down wash. This can occur with decent rates between about 800ft/min to 1500ft/min (these can vary though depending on weight, density etc), and forward airspeed less than 15-20 kts. The recovery technique is to lower collective (to remove angle of attack), and apply forward cyclic to gain forward speed, which will take some time and a lot of altitude as the rotor moves into clean air. You can see the issue here. The conditions for VRS mainly occur during landing phase, where you typically don't have the altitude to recover.

I'm a heli CFI and we practice VRS recovery with students at altitudes above 4000 ft agl. We bring the heli to a hover and initiate a decent with collective. Once we have a decent in the range mentioned above, I get the student to raise collective to arrest the descent. This increases AOA, resulting in greater down thrust, resulting in more down wash. Rate of descent then rapidly increases. The more collective you pull to try and stop it, the worse the problem becomes. It's not uncommon to reach descent rates of 4000 ft/min plus. You can see why altitude is the only savior once this occurs (and proper recovery technique!).

If you need to descend quickly, you can do so at high rates as long as you have a forward speed of 30 kts or more to ensure the rotor is in clean air at all times.

Hope this helps?

Thank you! Can you share how do you guys  practice autorotation?

[MOD71 175]

1 hour ago, sd_flyer said:

Thank you! Can you share how do you guys  practice autorotation?

We pretty much do an autorotation EVERY landing when with students past a certain level of experience. It's so important to develop the muscle memory so it by-passes the mind as much as possible. You don't have much time to make the correct actions if the engine goes in a heli (in a Robinson R22 or 44 you have about 2 seconds before the situation becomes unrecoverable). A lot of fatal accidents in helicopters due to engine failure, and fixed wing too, is down to the pilot not wanting to accept reality that this is happening and you'd better take action NOW. I'm sure you know this only too well SD with your fixed wing students. Pilots wait too long before taking corrective measures, resulting in loss of rotor RPM, which at a certain point is not possible to regain. You're a passenger at that point. 

We start by selecting a landing point, then establish ourselves at 75 kts (this is for Robinsons) and at least 800 ft agl to give the student time to set it up properly. We get the student to call when they think they should enter the auto so they get an idea of how far it will glide at different altitudes. We then initiate by lowering the collective fully, then rolling the throttle off. This will split the engine and rotor rpm needles. We aim to maintain 70 - 75 kts and keep the rotor rpm in the green arc. This is controlled by collective (increase / decrease pitch). Approaching the landing area, gentle rear cyclic and up collective is used to slow the forward speed and decrease rate of descent. At the appropriate point a small forward cyclic check is needed to avoid a tail strike and level the skids. Rotor rpm will now be decreasing, however if you have done it right, you will still have enough to control the descent and touch down softly. In training, I get my students to terminate into a 5 ft in ground effect hover, then I roll the throttle on and let the governor stabilize the RPM's. I do demonstrate a 'to the ground' auto for them and have them follow me through on the controls. 

As far as real life engine failures vs practice, I tell my students that if it happens to you in reality, screw the rotor rpm green arc and get as much energy into that rotor head as you can, especially before touch down.   

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

nm, I just read the other posts...

edit - cleared

Edited May 3, 2021 by Alpine Scenery

[webstef68 52]

On 5/1/2021 at 5:35 PM, Chock said:

Here's a fun fact about resonance in choppers and the materials used to control that. When Hughes were developing the OH-6 Cayuse, which later became the MD500, they developed a material for sound deadening with specific acoustic properties, and one of the things that ended up getting used for later on, was for the bowl back on the Ovation acoustic guitar which was commonly in use with bands in the Seventies!

Another cool example of that was, in Vietnam, there were lots of the populace crippled by standing on landmines and losing a limb as a result of that, so what the army hospitals over there used to do, was use the plexiglass recovered from downed choppers to form into artificial limbs for people. That's pretty cool huh?

'War! Yeah! Good God Y'all! What is it good for?' Well, apparently some things it would seem if you can make a guitar out of its materials, or help a crippled person. Kind of like swords into ploughshares.

Charlie Kaman the inventor was deaf from one ear. He has never been a pilote nor a musician. I own two of those guitars, one has got this Lyrachord composite back and a carbon fibre table, sounds huge ! The history can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_Corporation

[ryanbatc 12,775]

8 hours ago, mdreyer said:

Are you talking about vortex ring state SD? If so...

Thanks for that explanation...no wonder I always died in XP11 using the Dreamfoil Bell 407 lol.  Is there a side escape manuever as well?  I think I've seen a video where they kinda moved out the VRS to the side.