From: frechett@rintintin.Colorado.EDU (Ian Frechette) Date: 1998/01/04 Message-ID: <68p2lb$bkr@peabody.colorado.edu> Newsgroups: rec.aviation.simulators [More Headers] In article XXX someone wrote: >How do you get the darn thing to fly in FS98? While in multi-player I watched someone else desperately trying to fly the helicopter and he asked for some tips, so this is what I mailed to him. Note, I use the term throttle instead of collective a lot because I find that watching the absolute position of the throttle to be very useful. Also, all this advice assumes that you do not have rudder pedals. If you do, all of this advice can still apply but it should also be possible to hover. - Switch to the virt cockpit view normal 1X zoom level - Bring up the mini-controls. It offers a better view of joystick trim and most importantly throttle (collective) position. - Unless your joystick throttle has VERY precise control, use the keyboard throttle keys F1-F4 to control the throttle when you fly. - Trim the joystick a little forward so that position shows as being halfway between the center of the cross and the first dot down on the vertical axis in the mini-controls. - ALWAYS be moving forward. less than 10 knots is basically a hover.. greater than 15 knots is generally safe. - If things are happening too fast, slow the simulation rate to 1/2. I discovered this while talking to you the other night. It gives you lots of time to react. - All control inputs should be small quick movements - anticipate anticipate.. In the helicopter you can't react to things after they happen. Visualize what it's about to do, and correct for that. Remember that it is suspended by its main rotor so it swings underneath it like a pendulum. Taking off: Two approaches.. Approach #1: Increase throttle to about 70-75%. The helicopter will lift off fairly slowly and if you do nothing at all will pitch up (nose up) a little. The problem is, you won't be able to tell the difference visually between pitching up and simply gaining altitude. Pitching up, however will cause the helicopter to start sliding backwards. The vertical stabilizer on the tail boom acts as a big weather vane and the helicopter will quickly try to switch directions, which will feel to you like you're sliding sideways, at which point the helicopter will lean over and crash into the ground moving sideways at a good clip. (All the while indicating 0 knots airspeed) Ok.. So how to avoid all that. As you lift off, apply a little forward pressure and watch to make sure that the horizon is at or above the exact center of the screen. Push it forward until the horizon is just a little above center. The helicopter should start to move forward. As soon as it does, immediately (even before) stabilize your pitch so that the horizon remains JUST above the center of the screen. This is the most important moment of the takeoff. If you continue to pitch forward, you will fly right into the ground. Within a few seconds however, you should have 10-15 knots forward speed, and the helicopter will be climbing faster. It actually takes a lot less power to fly forward than it does to hover so this is why you'll start to climb fairly quickly. While flying around do NOT pull back on the stick to climb. Push forward to speed up, pull back to slow down apply more throttle (collective) to go up.. less to go down. Watch your airspeed closely. If it drops below about 15 knots the helicopter will get real squirly. Because you're not running the rudder pedals at all, you're relying on the weather vane effect to keep the helicopter pointed in the direction you want, which requires plenty of forward speed. Takeoff approach #2: Full power. This one can get you going very quickly but here's the catch. When the helicopter is moving very slow (or stopped) and full power is applied, it reacts very quickly to all control inputs. This means if you push forward on the stick a little, it'll pitch forward a lot. So the takeoff works like this. Apply full power, push a TINY bit forward on the stick. It should pitch forward fairly quickly and accelerate like a bat out of hell. Watch the horizon. When it gets to about 2/3rds up the screen, pull back on the stick to stabilize your pitch. Do whatever it takes. If that means pulling all the way back on the stick to keep it from pitching any further forward, do so, but be prepared to center the stick again once you're flying. (If you can see nothing but ground.. you're dead.. slew and give it about 1000 feet of elevation and then try recovering from there) You'll notice that as speed picks up the helicopter reacts to all your control inputs slower. This means that at say 80 knots, at full power you can push the stick all the way forward and the helicopter will simply accelerate to 120 knots, level flight. At 30 knots if you do that, the helicopter will pitch forward toward the ground and accelerate VERY fast up to 120 knots until you crash. BTW.. with the joystick trimmed the way I suggested you should be able to fly straight and level at 65% throttle at about 40-60 knots with hands off the stick. Emergency procedures: If you find that you've accidentally gone into a hover, and the helicopter starts to slide sideways, or turn end for end, react as follows. Apply full throttle and push the stick forward as far as it'll go until you have pitched far enough forward to start picking up speed, then even it out just like the full power takeoff. If you're sliding backwards and starting to spin around, or sideways, push forward and into the spin. So if you're sliding or spinning to the left, push forward and to the left, Doing that will lessen the time it takes to bring the copter into a nose down attitude. Once it indicates forward airspeed (always shows 0 knots for backwards or sideways) straighten the stick, or roll opposite and then center to stabilize. Landing: I'll qualify that. Landing without rudder pedals. Because you can't hover without workable rudder pedals you can't just fly up, stop and descend vertically to the ground. What you have to do is fly an approach like an airplane. This is how I do it, decrease airspeed to 30 knots, decrease throttle to 30%. This should put you in a fairly slow but steep decent. Maintain 30 knots all the way down by controlling the cyclic only. When you get to within about one rotor's diameter of the ground you'll start to experience ground effect. Your decent will slow. Increase throttle just a bit to maybe 45% and try to maintain both your 30 knot airspeed and altitude, which should be about 20 feet now. Now very gently ease back on the cyclic or just let it remain completely level. Your airspeed should drop. When it drops below about 10 knots, you'll find that the helicopter will start to descend on it's own. (Remember.. more power to hover than to fly forward) Let it drop without pulling back on the cyclic. Try to get it to touch down with less than 5 knots of forward airspeed. If it starts to swing back and forth or slip sideways, abort. You can't land it sideways. Once you're down on the ground, continue to fly the helicopter because it'll be very light on the skids. Once you're sure it's stabilized, drop power to 0, and it should settle. Be very careful not to pull back on the cyclic before you touch down. Watch the horizon, you want it in the middle of the screen. It's real easy to come in too fast, try to slow by pulling back and end up landing with the tail rotor touching the ground, which is actually a crash. Once you do start being able to land, practice flying a long slow approach down to the fuel square and try to settle within it. A nice consistent glide-path all the way down is the key here. Anyway, that's it for now. Good luck. Oh BTW, I've never been at the controls of a real helicopter and I've only been flying this one for about 3 weeks, so it's not like I started with any sort of advantage. Anyone can fly the thing with some practice. I landed it the first day. ian