Hoping this week. Cowan’s 206 came to Xbox about 3-4 weeks after the PC launch.
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I cant fly this thing in a straight line, I just cant. If I try to follow a road for example, I am always veering off to the right, If I put in some left pedal, Its like I am flying in a crab like position is this normal?
After applying the fixes from CpMoustache above to get rid of the constant left bank need and trimming for level flight I can more or less keep it straight unless the winds are high.
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I’ve noticed there are some silver plate things on the rear of the skids of the MD500 that weren’t there before. Any idea what they are for and how to get rid of them?
They are likely an option in the weight menu. You can add accessories and other attachments via the weight menu.
Also, check out this thread there are a lot of MD500 pilots on this one that can help out.
They’re toward the bottom of the list in the W&B menu and can be removed. I think they’re called bear paws.
Thanks, but I figured it out.
I didn’t know what they were, and because when I looked under W&B I saw “Bear paws,” which I hadn’t heard of, I figured they had to be it. Wonder why they are on as default? I don’t often look at aircraft from outside, but I think I heard them once when I dragged the skids on landing.
My reading indicates they help landings on soft or hilly terrain. I thought maybe they were training wheels to prevent rotor strikes.
Thanks this has helped no end!!
Crabbing in a helicopter is ok - flying in a bank just to stay in a straight line is not. There are some fixes to get it flying straight up the thread, or you can roll your own by increasing the effectiveness of the v-stab ( and I just added bank to the main rotor, because I’m pretty sure it’s off anyway ).
Thanks, Would you mind sharing your settings please?
vstab_incidence = -10
static_bank_angle = 4
elevator_trim_effectiveness = 0.02
Second line is in the main rotor section.
The other series of fixes starts in this post - Cowan Simulation MD 500 E helicopter - #84 by CpMoustache
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From an aerodynamic perspective:
Looking from in front of the helicopter, crabbing should introduce more drag since air is hitting the side of the helicopter as well.
On the other hand, if the fuselage is in a bank, the drag profile looking from the front is the same as flying with no bank.
I rather bank to save fuel. But at the cost of passenger comfort.
Edit: After reading up a bit, it looks like the pilot needs to level the helicopter to 0 degrees bank and then use the pedals to keep the ball in the center. Use Pedal Trim to trim the yaw axis to not change the heading which should correspond to the ball in the center on the turn and slip gauge.
If the pedal trim existed in the sim, I am sure one will be able to fly in a straight line without crabbing or banking.
Was just wondering why you said crabbing is better than banking (if you had to because of missing or wrongly modeled features)
It’s mostly because helicopters are slow & you’re rarely flying directly into wind, if you are or there’s no wind then it’s not ideal ( although feeding more power to the tail rotor to keep straight isn’t 100% ideal either ). I have very limited real helicopter time ( and I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a MD500 ), but pilots I’ve spoken to generally just said “don’t worry too much”. If you look at some footage from real 500Es there’s little to no pedal deflection in level flight at speed ( other than as a component of a turn ), and while it’s really hard to tell from the footage I’ve looked at there doesn’t appear to be any tendancy to fly with one skid down. I’m pretty sure Cowan mentioned it has a skid lower at slow speed but not at cruise.
Main rotors are a pain, there’s so many effects going on… dyssimmetry of lift, the effects of changing blade angle during a revolution, gyroscopic precession, phase lag, blades flapping, more… I can rarely picture it all at once.
I have very weak springs in my pedals, and with the default FM I can’t fly straight without a little bank even at full deflection. Adding bank to the rotor is a big hack that I’m not happy with, but it is also not complicated 
Going to try more experiments with the rotor direction to see if there’s anything in the idea upthread.
Edit: reversing everything just reversed all effects, even the problems. I just reset the rotor bank to 0 ( so slow speed behaviour should be as intented ) & I’m trying to tune everything with the vstab. Also ( as was mentioned already ) the ball is talking rubbish.
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The developer is active over at the Helisimmer forums https://forums.helisimmer.com/c/cowan-simulation/63
I’ve never flown an actual 500 either, but I am a private rotorcraft pilot with time in R22s, R44s & R66s.
The left skid low behavior is correct in a hover and slow speed until the vertical stabilizer becomes effective and you can bring the pedals back to neutral.
The heli does not bank left in a cruise, but there is control force pressure on the cyclic from dyssemmetry of lift. The helicopter wants to pitch up and roll to the left, but you hold the cyclic against those forces (or trim it out if you have the option).
I find that the 1.01 version flies pretty well. It cruises slightly left skid low with neutral or slight right pedal. The turn coordinator needs work, the developer has acknowledged that the code with the native heli flight model is not behaving.
I’m looking forward to the next update and where helicopters are headed in MSFS.
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I have no idea why my ( original ) won’t cruise like that, then - I’m very sure there’s no assists ( what sort of assist would turn right constantly anyway ) and I’m not talking about flying with a slightly lower skid ala hover, it needs a definitely noticeable angle of bank. I’ve got rid of nearly all of it with some fairly drastic surgery to the vstab, takes off and hovers with one skid low properly, slow speed needs proper pedal input, cruises about level in almost a straight line with some left cyclic trim needed as expected ( and of course the wrong way! ), but of course now there’s a load more induced drag… which I’ll live with I think. It is somewhat like there’s something weightless but draggy stuck on the end of a boom out the right side of the helicopter.
Edit: actually that made me think - what if it’s just the rotor drag being all wrong. Unfortunately as I started to fiddle with it ( I don’t have any data whatsoever on that rotor ) just to see, my PC crashed hard, so that’s the end of that for now. It might be worth someone having a poke around.
Define slightly left skid down. I have to put a very significant left bank in (about 10 degrees) to keep it flying straight in cruise. What is the cruise speed you use for testing?
side_drag_force_cf = 0.8
vstab_incidence = -9
vstab_lift_coef = 6
Thanks! This works well for me too. Just did a short flight, but no adverse effects compared to my last hop in the 500. 5 stars!
If I get some free time I want to play with those same values in the 206 and see if I can get that to fly straight without a constant bank as well.
If you or anyone is interested, you can open the helicopter’s flight_model.cfg and the very top section includes the Weight & Balance default settings, which you can modify & save. If you don’t want the Bear Paws to be put on the heli by default, change the first value in the line from 10 to zero like mine is. I basically took off all the default accessories.
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Great, thank you. I don’t get “under the hood” on things much anymore. Just glad there are those who do.
thanks again.