How do you all like flying the Bell 47 with a yoke?

[Fielder 3,681]

I don't have a yoke right now, seems it would be hard to use that for a helicopter controller. But I have a Warthog HOTAS. And then, after buying the Bell 47, it controlled pretty easy once I played around with the control assignments.

Two throttles and a stick and a rudder. 

The rudder controls the tail rotor and works a lot like the yaw control rudder on a plane. It tends to point the nose left and right in a stationary hover and to prevent a slip or skid while turning in a forward motion copter flight. Very much like a plane indeed. And easy for a plane sim pilot to feel natural with.

The large throttle is the Collective. The blades being pointed straight upwards instead of forward like on a plane, throttling up will tend to raise the copter straight up. Throttle back will drop the copter straight down. I don't have much trouble with that.

Neither the pedals nor Collective was hard at all for me to understand, or operate.

--

The Cyclic was the problem. That is usually assigned to the flightstick when using a HOTAS. It points the blades of the main overhead prop (rotor) forward, backward, left, or right. 

Left or Right cyclic is a lot like left or right aileron on a plane. And  therefore was very easy for me to understand, use. To turn the copter in forward flight I just move the stick and pedals together almost exactly like a plane.

The issue for me in controlling the helicopter was the Cyclic forward and backward. In the middle of the axis, at neutral, the copter will be level to the ground and have no tendency to move the craft forward or backward (after all the craft's main blades are pointing upward, not forward). It is therefore fairly stable, and not likely to spin out of control. But when I tried to move Cyclic left or right I also accidently nudged it forward or back a tad, and now it wasn't stable, and likely to dance a jig and gyrate all over the place.

So, to prevent that, I assigned forward and backward Cyclic to the little HOTAS throttle lever, instead of on the stick. And left Cyclic left right on the stick.

This forward / backward Cyclic tilts the copter nose downward to increase forward motion and increase forward speed or tilt the nose upward to sort of increase backwards motion and lose forward speed. 

The reason that an airplane sim pilot like me got in a copter and it spun out of control was that I was accidently slightly moving the cyclic forward or backward when I only was trying to move it side to side. And so I assigned the small throttle lever to control that forward/backward cyclic, and only that. As long as I am not touching it, the copter is unlikely going to go crazy on me. So I can control the Bell 47 and watch the scenery, just not as easily as with the drone.

 

 

 

[jcomm 5,939]

The "problem" with using such a "loaded" stick lke the Warthog to simulate the cyclic of an helo turns it al much more difficult, not so close to the real  thing where there are practically no forces o that particular control.

Some friends with stiffer sticks ( 🙂 ) who moved 100% to helis, removed the springs and made them free, which is not great either unless the sim has some trick to memmorize the last position the stick was in, and virtually keep it there until you hold it again...

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

An FFB stick calibrate for helicopters would do it but FFB is not natively supported by MSFS (by their comments, they seem to assume FFB is some sort of gimmick a bit like XBox controller rumble and hence pointless).

There are of course after market FFB mods for MSFS -  but I am not aware of any current FFB mods that support a cyclic.  Winding back the centring force in XPForce might get close - never tried it.

Edited June 12, 2022 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[Simicro 247]

Regarding Force Feedback.

There is a vote ongoing for FF support: click here

Russel Dirks, the developer of FS Force for FSX/P3D said one year ago that he would not develop for MSFS. I don't have info if he has (or not) changed his mind since: click here

I tried some of these alternatives but was not satisfied compared to FS Force so I gave up at this time:

• XP Force: click here
• AirForce Player: click here
• simFFB: click here

 

[Fielder 3,681]

There usually are some heli sim controllers on ebay, often homemade, and old, and usually expensive.

[Fielder 3,681]

Is my first day flying helicopter in a flight simulator. Can land it every time on those white squares on any runway. But then those are large targets and I'm flying the easiest of the 3 modes. Until I split off the cyclic onto two controllers, I couldn't maneuver that close to a target. 

[jimcarrel 688]

The reason for your success by splitting the cyclic is because MSFS 2020 does not support helicopter physics yet. Congrats for figuring out how to control it in MSFS 2020. Until Asobo supports "rotor" physics, you will have to rely on strange controller setups or depend on the publishers who have developed external programs to simulate the flight model. When Asobo does support rotor physics, you will have to learn how to fly the rotors all over again. DCS is your answer for Choppers at the moment.  

[Stoopy 1,571]

1 hour ago, jimcarrel said:

The reason for your success by splitting the cyclic is because MSFS 2020 does not support helicopter physics yet. Congrats for figuring out how to control it in MSFS 2020. Until Asobo supports "rotor" physics, you will have to rely on strange controller setups or depend on the publishers who have developed external programs to simulate the flight model. When Asobo does support rotor physics, you will have to learn how to fly the rotors all over again. DCS is your answer for Choppers at the moment.  

I thought the whole point of the Bell 47 was that it includes it's own physics modelling that runs as a separate app connected to MSFS.  Same for the other batch of helos such as the R44, H125 etc. that use the AirLandFS application and thus bypass the internal flight modelling.  As such the Bell 47 flies a great deal like a normal (simulated) heli and to me compares favorably to the DCS Huey, for instance, although of course the '47 is smaller, more nimble (and fun!) . as expected.   Been flying 'em all just fine with my trusty old CH Products gear...

[The Moose 1,177]

7 minutes ago, Stoopy said:

I thought the whole point of the Bell 47 was that it includes it's own physics modelling that runs as a separate app connected to MSFS

Nope.  The app is only for authentication (and settings).  You can turn it off as soon as your in the heli.

... which makes it even more remarkable how good the flight model is

Edited June 12, 2022 by The Moose

[Bobsk8 12,750]

In my copter days I took a Thrustmaster T 16000M and modief the springs to reduce the tension, and that was my cyclic.  Worked great, some remove springs altogether but then you can only use it for copters. 

[MauBen 82]

2 hours ago, jimcarrel said:

The reason for your success by splitting the cyclic is because MSFS 2020 does not support helicopter physics yet. Congrats for figuring out how to control it in MSFS 2020. Until Asobo supports "rotor" physics, you will have to rely on strange controller setups or depend on the publishers who have developed external programs to simulate the flight model. When Asobo does support rotor physics, you will have to learn how to fly the rotors all over again. DCS is your answer for Choppers at the moment.  

I can’t say that I agree with DCS being the only choice. DCS is great but the scenery does not even come close to MSFS if you want to do some sightseeing. Both the Bell 47 and the R44 are great helicopters and react closely to the way helicopters behave. I have several videos on YouTube that show how great they work. Here are a couple if you are interested.

https://youtu.be/mSaQ6JEPNu0

https://youtu.be/i61u-NMPxLo