10 hours ago, Todd2 said:

Can't get it off the ground.  Do you need special controllers?

Which helo are you trying to fly? Would be happy to help you out but as you can see from above posts (in-between some others just providing opinions of the sim) there are some unique procedures for each.

Edit: Oops I missed that it was the H135

 

Edited October 11, 20214 yr by Stoopy

Have you mapped your controls appropriately?  With the 145 there are specific mappings for the controls.  

One tip to get off the ground is that you need to apply some left rudder (sorry I know it’s not rudder in a real chopper but it is in the sim) as you apply power and lift off as the helo will want to rotate right until you get some forward momentum.  So gradually apply throttle, left rudder, in the H135 you should be able to pretty easily take off vertically by doing this.

It’s definitely different than a fixed wing aircraft and takes some practice (particularly with getting used to constantly making small corrections to keep it flying where you want) but the H135 and H145 with their advanced autoflight systems are then most stable and for me easiest helicopters to fly in any sim so far.

As in RL, and in the sim, helicopters require that you (literary) walk and chew gum at the same time😑 

5 minutes ago, overspeed3 said:

As in RL, and in the sim, helicopters require that you (literary) walk and chew gum at the same time😑 

It's more like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. As someone with hundreds of hours as a passenger in helicopters, I can clearly state that I'd never want to pilot one in RL. They are way too finicky.

54 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

It's more like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. As someone with hundreds of hours as a passenger in helicopters, I can clearly state that I'd never want to pilot one in RL. They are way too finicky.

One of my colleagues compared it to juggling while riding a unicycle. Well, I can neither juggle nor ride a unicycle, but I can tell that once you master the skill it's a hell of a sense of achievement.

37 minutes ago, Capt Timeter said:

One of my colleagues compared it to juggling while riding a unicycle. Well, I can neither juggle nor ride a unicycle, but I can tell that once you master the skill it's a hell of a sense of achievement.

Friend of mine was a Helicopter CFII.. He told me that when he would start a student on handling the controls, he would let them start with the Pedals, and let them get used to that, then he would move to the collective, spend some time with the that one. Finally he would go to the Cyclic. Then he would let them do two controls at a time. The last thing was letting them do all three at once, and then he would see them flying all over the sky, while trying to hover. I remember when I learned to fly RC Copters, which I eventually became pretty good at. I spent weeks, doing nothing but hovering close to the ground, before I actually started flying around.  

Todd, start in a wide open spot that you have room to move before hitting something. Taking off and landing are the hardest parts. Add some left pedal before taking off and don't be afraid to pull up more on the collective to get airborne when things start to go all over the place (they will) otherwise you may slam into something else or the ground. It's counterintuitive but you want to get up away from the ground and obstacles when you're first learning.

Once you've flown a little try flying "very" slowly. This requires much more finesse than when you're moving at say 50knots or more and will help get you use all the little required movements required to stay level and on course. Concentrate on keeping the heli pointed in the correct direction and level while moving about 10knots or less without going backwards. Over time (and after many crashes) you will start to get the hang of it and can concentrate more on slow take offs and landings.

All this of this applies to just wanting to fly a heli in a sim. If you want to fly real helis then starting off in a sim may teach you bad habits. Especially because there is no one there to teach you proper methods and take over when needed. In a sim you are also thrown into controlling everything at once where with real life training you are most likely going to start off only controlling the pedals and work up to controlling more and more.

On the Bell Helicopter simple mode, if you map your joystick per the instructions, all you need to do is move both throttles to full and push forward on the stick when it starts to lift off.  

4 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

Friend of mine was a Helicopter CFII.. He told me that when he would start a student on handling the controls, he would let them start with the Pedals, and let them get used to that, then he would move to the collective, spend some time with the that one. Finally he would go to the Cyclic. Then he would let them do two controls at a time. The last thing was letting them do all three at once, and then he would see them flying all over the sky, while trying to hover. I remember when I learned to fly RC Copters, which I eventually became pretty good at. I spent weeks, doing nothing but hovering close to the ground, before I actually started flying around.  

Good instructor technique - master one thing at a time then put it all together.

5 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

Friend of mine was a Helicopter CFII.. He told me that when he would start a student on handling the controls, he would let them start with the Pedals, and let them get used to that, then he would move to the collective, spend some time with the that one. Finally he would go to the Cyclic. Then he would let them do two controls at a time. The last thing was letting them do all three at once, and then he would see them flying all over the sky, while trying to hover. I remember when I learned to fly RC Copters, which I eventually became pretty good at. I spent weeks, doing nothing but hovering close to the ground, before I actually started flying around.  

I too fly RC helicopters. I was once told, its like trying to balance a ball bearing on top of an upside down bowl. 

3 hours ago, dobee51 said:

On the Bell Helicopter simple mode, if you map your joystick per the instructions, all you need to do is move both throttles to full and push forward on the stick when it starts to lift off.  

I didn't have to map anything using the xbox controller. It worked even with the default controls.

There’s no trick to flying helicopters. The trick is not crashing them.

15 hours ago, dogmanbird said:

still worth learning the basic motor skills, I reckon. We'll all then adapt/fine tune those skills to the improved physics later 🙂 

the problem I see at the moment, is there are so few MSFS flyers with genuine real life heli skills and extensive experience (participating on the various forums), who can provide genuine feedback. I'd imagine it would take some "throwing around" of a real heli to really judge it - like a crop sprayer or cattle muster pilot

 

 

Just play DCS then!

 

Superb Combat Helos and they have extremely accurate working weapons and systems...

9 hours ago, Kilo60 said:

 

Just play DCS then!

 

Superb Combat Helos and they have extremely accurate working weapons and systems...

DCS is superb at what it does but it's laser focussed on the goal of creating study level aircraft and systems and much less about letting you fly anywhere you want.

There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with what DCS does but it's a different class of flight sim to MSFS.