Question about Helicopter usage in sim

[blanston12]

Hello Flyers.

I have seen lots of posts recently about Helicopters, but I for one have never gotten into them, mainly because I have always had so much trouble flying them in sim, mostly landing. So I was wondering if my experience is typical of others or how much am I in the minority, so I have devised this simple poll to find out.

[docjohnson]

Its a completely different paradigm, some of the instruments are the same, but it takes practice just to stay in a hover...and a lot more practice to get the helo on the ground without a hard landing or worse. I can get a helo on the ground pretty well, but that is experience gained by staying with it in the sim until you get it. Its akin to in fixed-wing doing 10 to 20 or more touch and goes doing different instrument procedures and visual patterns each time.

[MrZippy]

How do we count the MV-22?

[WarHorse47]

Flying helos "out of the box" is challenging, but very satisfying when done. Practice, practice, practice.



It gets to be real fun when trying to land on a moving vessel.

[blanston12]

How do we count the MV-22?

Good question, fly's like a fixed wing, lands like a helicopter, so for my experience I would say the later.

[PRB]

I like flying the upside-down weed wackers. They are difficult to control in the hover, and difficult to land, and that's why they are fun. But I do fly mostly fly the "conventional" jobs.

[Brian_Gladden]

I struggled with Helo's for a long time. Then I bought the Virtavia Pave Low and it all clicked. It's so stable you can get the basics down and then you can move onto the more "squirly" helicopters as your skills increase.

[Stefano Zibell]

Hehe if you think 'copters are hard here try the Huey in DCS.

[falcon409]

Not bragging, but I've never had any problem flying Helo's. They take a bit of getting used to for sure but my very favorite one is Piglets "little Bird". Tree-top level through the Southeast Asian valleys and rice paddies. . .gives you a real appreciation for the Scouts who flew them.

[fliger747]

A couple of suggestions: Get a very sensitive joystick such as one of the hall effect models and also a good set of pedals. Usually whatever you use as a throttle will be used as a collective, this needs to be sensitive and accurate as well.

Surprisingly all the effort put forth in the sim was very valuable when I began flying real helicopters. In some ways the real ones are a bit easier as one has the instant input of dynamic (seat of pants) senses. I even found that the type of shoe soles were important (no lugs).

Lots of fun! T

[mgchrist5]

Generally I'd say I'm about 90% fixed wing, if not more. With fixed wing I keep all my FSX sliders to the full right. With helicopters I slide them all full left. It might be cheating, but that's the only way I've ever been able to keep a modicum of control on rotorcraft in FS...at least during landing/takeoff. And this is coming from someone who's a real life (very rusty) PPL. I've never flown a rotorcraft in RL, but if they're even half as difficult as they're portrayed in FS, then my hats off to some of the most steely-eyed men & women on planet Earth.

[wombat666]

If you can tap dance, juggle and chew gum at the same time you can fly helicopters.

[PhantomTweak]

If you can tap dance, juggle and chew gum at the same time you can fly helicopters.

If you can do all that, while standing on a beach ball, balancing a stick with a spinning plate on it, on top of a basket ball in your hands, THEN, and only then, can you fly a helicopter in the real world, let alone the sim world.

Having said all that, the MS sims, like FS9 or FSX, are notoriously bad at simulating helicopters. They just don't handle the physics correctly.
BUT: Add the program HTR (Helicopter Total Realism) to change things, and LO! NOW the sim handles the physics, and control inputs/outputs, correctly.

It was written by an actual Aeronautical Engineer, who had specialized in helicopters. He had the assistance of a number of real world helicopter pilots, both civil and military, as well as a couple of superb simulator helicopter designers, like Jordan Moore.

Great program. Improves the helicopters to something approaching realistic. I can't stress it's importance if you really want to see what it's like to fly a helicopter.

The biggest complaints I've heard from some real-world military helicopter pilots I know, is that there's no "seat of the pants" feel, which apparently is a great deal of the pilot's input from the helicopter. Instruments are fine, but it's the butt that really tells the tale. Obviously, the sim doesn't handle that at all, but, as to the rest, HTR plus FSX is actually a pretty good combo.

I sure enjoy it. I'm looking to either find an config, or work up my own, for the MV-22, to see how it handles having HTR running. More to come on that project...

Pat☺

[Ganter]

Hello Flyers.

I have seen lots of posts recently about Helicopters, but I for one have never gotten into them, mainly because I have always had so much trouble flying them in sim, mostly landing. So I was wondering if my experience is typical of others or how much am I in the minority, so I have devised this simple poll to find out.

I fly helos a lot in the sim.
It takes a lot of practice.

The best hint I've had so far is to cancel your Null zones for your controllers and stick your realism sliders to half way. That makes inputs simultaneous and you'll massively improve your skills in the hover, T/O and Landings.

[roger-wilco-66]

I tried HTR with P3D and loaded the Huey profile, but it made the helicopter (Milviz Huey) very unresponsive, even with the autotrim functions off. Then I tried Piglets Loach (a little masterpiece!!) and it was almost unflyble with HTR - over responsive. I fly with pedals and a Saitek throttle acting as collective. Normally I have a good command over helos.

See




Did anyone do better with HTR?


Cheers,
Mark

[jagl04]

Helicopters are great for naval ops, it is challenging to land on a small moving deck and you can use a lot of ships. I use helicopters to recognize and enjoy a variety of landscapes in FSX world. It is just practice, practice and a good adjustment of controls. And it is diffciult to make rescue ops with airplanes.




Of course, airlpanes are much better for other duties

[java2srv]

I started using a USB Xbox Game Controller on a laptop when I travelled and didn't have joystick and pedals. Using the Game Controller with the Hovercontrol 412 and FSUIPC is what got me started enjoying flying helicopters.

Possibly the different control inputs, like triggers for rudders and 'X' and 'A' for collective instead of throttle, made learning helicopters easier since the control coordination was new and completely different from what I'd learned for airplanes.

Using the Game Controller is still how I fly helicopters, developing the flight skills was and is a new challenge, and like others have said it's fun for exploring and enjoying the scenery too.

[IanP]

I'm odd, because while I spend pretty much all of my sim time testing WW2 airfields (and there ain't much testing going on at the moment. ) then I tend to use helicopters to do it - particularly either the default Bellicopter because it's so stable, or the Milviz MD500, because it allows me to change direction/altitude very quickly when I spot something I want or need to look at.

So I spend a lot of time in helos, developing for a pure fixed wing environment... I'm sure there's some irony there somewhere.

Ian P.

[mal998]

Part of the problem with flying helicopters in the sim is control sensitivity is way too high. For those who would like to fly helicopters but are frustrated by the difficulty doing so there are a few things you can do to turn down the sensitivity and increase control. First, go to controller settings and turn the aileron, elevator and rudder sliders to minimum while increasing the null settings to 50%. You can play with these settings until you like the control response. Secondly you can open the aircraft.cfg and locate the the following header.

[Helicopter]
low_realism_stability_scale= x, x, x,

The three numbers can be adjusted to increase stability in each realm.

The original settings for the old AlphaSim KA-27 Helix were as follows:

[Helicopter]
low_realism_stability_scale=.65, .70, 1.20 //Pitch , Bank, Yaw Scalars on Stability in Low Realism Settings

I have increased the stability of each parameter to 1.50 I think it helped to make the aircraft more stable and easier to fly. Again, you can play with the numbers until you get the desired result.

It is certainly not a perfect solution but it might help to make your favorite helicopter more flyable so you can get it out of the hanger and into the wild blue yonder.

[Victory103]

RW helo guy(R22,B206,UH60) and honesty as it’s been stated over the years, without some external software like HTR, FS rotary flight is far from perfect. Very true regarding the POV, controls, and seat of the pants feel missing from your PC sim. After a 4 hour flight in a R22, I went home to FSX and could never really get my controls set to replicate that feeling and responsiveness. Coming from the Black Hawk where power reserves are literally through the roof compared to a very fragile machine with each input I had to think about every maneuver and the power required. I also have DCS and the Huey, as stated the VRS is overdone, the UH-1 is relatively easy to fly (can’t confirm yet).

That said, helos in FS can be fun and challenging for those looking for something different than setting autopilot on and cruising the flight levels. Sling loads/ hoisting can be just as sweaty palm inducing as real world. Landing on the back of a moving ship at night with wx should break up any boredom. Brown-out landings aren’t there yet, but more work on .fx files to fix that. The Hovercontrol main page on sim set up is a good start (probably needs an update) covering the differences in your stock fixed wing settings.

[PhantomTweak]

Remember, HTR configs and settings are sensitive to each system's differences. What works perfectly for system X won't work worth a darn for system Y. The trick is to read the documentation that comes with HTR. It contains a PDF on HOW-TO make your own .cfg file from scratch, and another containing each and every .cfg file entry, what they do to/for the helicopter and control input/outputs, and how to adjust them for your plane on your system.

Also, Jordan Moore, a superb and very educated helicopter developer, wrote two article on how to tweak the aircraft and .air file to make the MSFS limitations and errors at least controllable. I've found them excellent. Part 1 is here: http://www.hovercontrol.com/artman/p...ticle_67.shtml , and part 2 is here: http://www.hovercontrol.com/artman/p...ticle_88.shtml .
They are fascinating, and I strongly recommend reading them, at the very least.

Make sure you have the correct version of HTR for your sim. FSX:SE, and the latest FSUIPC for it, requires V6.2, and FSX (I think P3D as well), with the latest FSUIPC needs V6.1. You may need to google them. I don't recall Fred putting up a link on Hovercontrol, but hey, I may be wrong. AND he may have updated again. I haven't had a chance to check up on it in a couple months.

Bear in mind, there's a huge difference between "easy to fly", and how a helicopter really flies. If you have everything just right, they will be flyable, but not a one of them is easy.

Setting the realism sliders down off max right makes a big difference, and most devs set up the .air file entries for such a setting. Anywhere down off max makes a big change in the aircraft.cfg and .air file's settings utilization. Like the low_realism_stability_scale= setting mentioned previously. It's only applied if the realism sliders (and I don't recall just which one) are down off max. If you set them to 99%, it's applied, 100%, it's not. See? I leave mine at about 80-90%.
And Null zones should be 0, or very very close there-to, with the sensitivity maxxed out, or close to it. This is for a hall-effect type controller. No "dead spot" like the potentiometer type controllers have. No matter how old they get. They either work, or not.
I haven't used a potentiometer type in a long time, so I can't recall just what they need, but I know you have to have a wide enough Null zone setting to accommodate the "dead spot" all pots have. An it changes with use. It may get larger, smaller, whatever. Usually larger, though.

Try Jordan's adjustments first, as well, and work from there. THEN step into HTR's world. It's an amazing bit of software. When properly utilized and set up.

Pat☺

[awstub]

Usually, I fly them while checking scenery placement.

Helos can be frustrating. I think it's because of the lack of depth perception you experience (unless you have a VR rig).

[Dangerous Beans]

Usually, I fly them while checking scenery placement.

Helos can be frustrating. I think it's because of the lack of depth perception you experience (unless you have a VR rig).

I fly exclusively in VR these days and it makes a huge difference in Helos and I enjoy flying them now whereas before as awstub says they where just frustrating.

[LouP]

Did anyone do better with HTR?


Cheers,
Mark

I've had some luck with it. Some helis do better than others. The Cera 412 and 212 work very nicely with it, then again they seem to work well anyway. But, I found some helis just would not respond to control inputs with htr for some reason.

Also, flying in VR has made the helis so much more fun. You just seem to be able to anticipate things so much better in VR. I only need a seat that moves properly now for that seat of the pants feeling lol.


LouP

[Alan_A]

About five years ago I spent a solid year-plus flying nothing but helos - mostly the Dodosim Bell 206 in FSX. Used custom helo controls. Found I was able to get pretty good at it, but not more than that - didn't get to real proficiency, and in the end I was happy to get back to fixed wing. But I learned a lot and still draw on some of it - I think I was able to handle single-seat warbirds well after managing helo torque, and get good landings in a whole range of aircraft, thanks to my helo approaches and touchdowns. I don't think I'd want to go back to rotary wing but I'm glad I hung out with it for a while.