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Peter,

As a 13,000 hour helicopter ATP/CP and FI, I find the same thing about flying helicopter sims compared to the real thing. You have to treat it like what it is, a computer. Even the full motion Cat D stuff we fly as part of our annual re currency has its issues.

Try this.....with nil wind set, the throttle at flight idle (full open), raise the collective SLOWLY bit by bit scanning every few seconds at the Torque gauge. My Bell 206 in my Flyit sim will commence to lift at 60%. Leave the collective at your commencing to lift TQ plus another 5% and don't touch it. Depending on your setup, if it is a physical lever apply the friction so as to hold the collective so it does not 'fall'.

DO NOT look close in, you'll fly backwards. The changes you will see first outside not on the instrument panel. Look into the distance and with cyclic correct any attitude change you see with very small inputs and by a set amount and watch to see the effect. If it is too much remove half of what you just did and see how that goes. Fly by trending not rushing to fix it. By scanning I mean whilst looking outside decide what instrument you want to read. then come inside with your gaze and "take a snapshot" of the instrument then immediately go back outside to your references and analyse what you saw on the instrument. Decide what change you need to make and using this scanning technique make the change. Instruments have a latency so don't expect to see a result instantaneously.

But give yourself a break, hovering is not the first sequence we teach newbies, its about the 4th before we even start. In the beginning start with the helicopter airborne and get use to the cyclic first, by setting the collective to say 70% (cruise setting) and keep the helicopter in balance with the pedals by scanning "the ball". Remember the saying "step on the ball" to fix the balance because if out of balance you are side slipping along with not getting a correct airspeed reading as the pitot is cocked off line to the relative airflow. Any change to any one of the controls in a helicopter has a secondary effect on the other two. For example if you raise the collective to climb, the nose will come up and to the right, and the ball will move left (so step on the ball with some left pedal - torque effect). The opposite happens when you lower the collective.

Be patient, its not easy but it will come. When you are ready to have a go at hovering, choose an area where there are no obstacles, hover around 100 feet agl and make small changes and wait to see the effect. Until you get proficient at hovering, when landing, do a run on landing around 10 to 15 knots. This will keep you close to above Translation Lift speed where below TL speed more power (collective) is required to replace the lift lost by the reduction of airflow into the rotor as a consequence of the helicopter's forward motion.

No one that I've ever met learnt to fly a helicopter in an hour.

Cheers

Geoff

Edited January 2, 20233 yr by Tech
omission

I like it - the FI Bell 206 -  overall, but Autorotations surely feel weird ? It falls like a stone no matter how fast I lower the collective and gain fwd IAS in order to try to keep the RRPM within range 😕

@Tech

Thanks a lot for this instructive guidance.

Great reading Geoff. Very informative.

@Tech Nice post - thanks for your insight. I shall remember your words next time the DCS Huey and Mi-8  take me for a flight.

9 hours ago, Tech said:

As a 13,000 hour helicopter ATP/CP and FI, I find the same thing about flying helicopter sims compared to the real thing. You have to treat it like what it is, a computer. Even the full motion Cat D stuff we fly as part of our annual re currency has its issues.

Hello Geoff,

what a great post, thanks for taking the time to write it. For the first time, I understand why I struggled so much with helicopters without VR. I am not a total newbie to helicopters in the sim. I have tried them again and again in FSX, P3D and XP-11, but with a few exceptions I never was able to land them. However, now with VR in MSFS, I am doing fairly well with landing. Not always spot on, but it is relatively rare that I crash. I can handle the FlyInside Bell 206 with settings somewhere between medium and realistic even when the frame rates drop into the 20s (By the way, the frame rates get better with each update they release). Without VR, I am doing exactly what you describe: look down, hover, fly backwards and crash 🙂

Since I am having a blast with VR and helicopters, I want to get deeper into it. I published a scenery package with heliports just yesterday, and I have further plans down the road, in particular around emergency helicopter operations. My problem is that I have no idea how helicopters are formally operated. Do they follow VFR procedures or special operations? How is an emergency helicopter deployed? What are the restrictions on landing space? If you have any link regarding all of this, that would be fantastic.

Cheers,

Peter

Tech, great post. I've copied it to a text file on my desktop and will have it open on my other monitor when I do some heli-practise

Thanks all for your comments. I hope I haven't hijacked this thread and if the moderators wish to move it I understand.

cagarini

Sounds you might be doing your autos from a zero airspeed start. That's ok if you are doing engine failure in the hover but not how we teach autos. At zero airspeed you have a high power setting to drive the rotor whose blades are at a high angle of attack, so if you shut the throttle the drag on the blades is high thus a rapid fall in RRPM. All entries into practice autos is done at altitude whilst at cruise speed, by first lowering the collective then closing the throttle (don't shut the engine off). We do engine failures in the hover from around a skid height of 20', close the throttle, let the aircraft begin descent then use all the collective to cushion the landing. Practice these with a bit of head wind will make it easier. Low level low speed engine failures from about 100' are a different technique again. Remember, you are not in autorotation until you have established an upward airflow into the rotor by means of the helicopter's descent, as its this airflow that keeps the rotor turning to produce lift.

Try this.....

Dial in 10 to 15 kts of wind.  We never risk the helicopter doing practice autos in nil wind. If you have a Radio Altimeter (Radalt) fitted set the bug to 100'. The art of pulling off a good auto is to enter it correctly by always maintaining the correct balance (pedals to centre the ball), adopting the Autorotative Descent Speed of 50 to 60 kts (I initially use 60 Kts). This speed range is important as less than 50 kts or greater than 60 kts will increase the rate of descent markedly thus reduce your range to reach a landing site.  The 206's Best Rate of Climb Speed (BROC) and Minimum Rate of Descent Speed (MROD) is 52 kts indicated. This is the airspeed where there is the highest power margin available thus the lowest collective setting thus the lower blade angle of attack along with drag. All a bit tecky I know.

Turn into wind and with the collective maintain the RRPM within the limits of 90 to 107% RRPM not the N₂ needle which may not be together with the rotor needle during this procedure. The higher the RRPM the more energy you will have for the landing. At 500' agl slowly open the throttle to flight idle (fully open) remembering to correct the balance every time you alter any of the controls. At 100' agl do a gently flare of say 10^o nose up to slow the rate of descent without causing the helicopter to 'balloon' ie climb. At low level (a judgment call this one) raise the collective a little to further reduce the rate of descent then with the cyclic lower the nose to level the skid and use the collective to cushion the run on landing.

That's how power recovery auto is done in the real world, but we're in a sim who only has the fixed math values of the .cfg and .air files to set how our helicopter flys and reacts. Coupled with a 2D image on the screen, our eyes are missing their true depth of field function we use in the real world. Thus the rate of closure in a sim is not presented accurately to us. Attempting to pull off a successful engine off auto in a sim is so none representative of a real auto IMO. So don't be disappointed if you can't do nice autos in a sim, mine are still very ordinary as I instinctively fly as I would the real aircraft.

Peter

I can only answer for ops here in Oz. Most single engine helicopters are only VFR whilst the multi-engine ones usually rated for IFR. Predominately IFR rotary are procedurally handled the same as for fixed wing using the same approach procedures both precision and non precision. There are some rotary specific approaches such as to helipads and helidecks too. Rotary in VFR conditions can make use of special low vis rules that allows us to scoot along at 700' agl, vis of 800m and at a speed for obstacle avoidance simply because we can land most anywhere and don't need runways as fixed wing do. The pilot is responsible to ensure the landing area is "safe for landing" and have the permission of the owner of the land. Local by-laws sometimes restrict helicopter ops too.

Sorry, very long winded again!!

Geoff

Edited January 3, 20233 yr by Tech
spelling

@Tech,

thanks for the reply and suggestions!

I actually am starting from even 100 knot IAS at times, never less than 60 knot IAS.

I twist the throttle all the way "down" and kill the engine and at the same time I immediately lower the collective and pitch down a bit.

@Tech

What are you thoughts about Cowan 206?

V2.06 out!  

* 9 new liveries
* Greatly improved contact points, light-on-skids behavior
* Improved interior plastic textures
* Adds Heli Manager setting for untinted windscreen
* Engine door mesh now semi-transparent
* Adds illuminated landing light-bulb to exterior
* Collective Sensitivity adjustable through Heli Manager
* Corrected yaw behavior in Easy/Medium modes
* Twist throttle adjustable via mouse-wheel
* Corrects twist-throttle label directions
* Improved door-pocket textures
* Battery switch now correctly disables panel lighting
* Corrects HSI visual glitch
* Adjusts headset scale
* Attitude indicator mesh corrections

 

Ground physics are fantastic now.  

One thing is for sure, they certainly are active - at least 4 updates since release, each one making it even better !