My sim put me in my place today For some odd reason I thought I could fly a heli - realty bit me hard.
Of course i turned off all assists and went straight to the Bell 407, set up some controls, and started her up. No trims mapped and iāve only got collective not throttle & collective so mapped the rotor governor?
Lovely sound effects, great modelling too.
Itās a major feat I feel, I managed a take off after the spin round and round bit, got her up and even managed a bit of reasonable flight, forget about landings LOL.
It was all hands and feet on the task, amazing. I then admitted defeat, went for the little Guimbal trainer and turned on tail rotor assist - first time i have ever used an assist Had a bit more success, much easier to fly but although i was descending very slowly it still crashed - are they oversensitive in the sim??
My admiration of heli pilots has never been higher
Good luck with the helis, @DaveJK9173! Youāre right that theyāre tricky to fly. Iām a fixed wing guy myself and havenāt worked up the courage to try the Guimbal or Bell yet. Maybe someday!
In case you missed it, we were fortunate to have Sergio from helisimmer.com join our Twitch channel for a special livestream about how to fly helicopters the other day. Iāll link the VOD below so you can watch it and hopefully pick up some tips.
Forget everything you know about how a plane flies. You essentially have a beat a helicopter into submission (with small, deliberate moves) to get it to fly.
Iām a fixed wing pilot but I havenāt flown those much since the Bell was released, itās basically all Iāve been flying. Agree that you need to forget what you know about flying an airplane. Itās nothing alike.
Donāt know if you are a ārealā fixed wing pilot, but I knew a pilot who flew both. I had asked him how he managed it, he told me he almost always waited at least 24 hours between fixed/rotary, depending on his flight time in either.
I went for a fly in both yesterday. Iām also a fixed wing guy IRL, but lots of drone time helped maybe.
I managed to takeoff, fly around and land a few times too.
I noticed though, that these helis so far require a fair amount of forward collective, and trim didnāt seem to help (on the 407 at least). To hover, my stick was about 1/3 of its movement forward.
It also seems very easy also to run out of tail rotor.
If youāre using rudder pedals, make a new profile for heliās. Leave it zeroād, except dead zone if it needs that.
Youāll find the 407 will rotate clockwise a lot faster/stronger than counter clockwise. This is normal.
Plan ahead required, if you need to get into a tight area that requires a tight turn/rotation or in strong winds, plan for the ability to rotate clockwise.
tail rotor assist will slow the movement and may limit it too( not sure on the last part)
Some tips Iāve found useful:
. Turn off the helicopter assistances
. Use the provided helicoper control preset, change rudder control to Tail rotor axis (twist axis on a T160000M)
. Set control sensitivity to 0 for all axis (linear)
. Set take off weight to maximum for learning, makes it a little less frisky with some weighty inertia to deal with
. Use a light touch on the controls, small movements.
. Use force trim (already set in the default helicopter control preset) when flying distances.
I donāt recall seeing a heli profile, not saying its not there but canāt remember seeing it, iāll have another look. The basic controls all work so i canāt be far off but i have no trims mapped yet at all, i have the Thrustmaster HOTAS and pedals.
All axes are set linear, no dead zones etc. Iāll be trying again certainly and will try with the added weight too
I did the āflight modelā change and reset thats been mentioned in many places, that seemed to help a bit.
I also assigned rotor trims but i think i have them backwards, also freaked out when i pressed the button i assigned to āreset rotor trimā - it seemed to end up with almost full aft cyclic input?
Maybe iāll just skip the trims for a while.
I did manage 5 flights and 5 landings - only one was a crash, survived all he others Still not landing where i want/expect but at least its a landing. I need to learn how to flare in a 'copter to cushion the last few feet to touchdown.
With a normal joystick instead of a cyclic the assist is almost essential IMO although Iād prefer a half assist setting.
Not the rudder though, my pedals handle that just fine.
I have found that -50% on all the cyclic axes helps a good bit.
More improvements today, been hovering about Stansted airport, making the jets wait for me to get out the way. Still finding holding a static hover very hard and although landings are not crashes anymore they are rarely where i want them
Thanks for the tip.
I agree static hover is really hard ā¦ at least in FSX you could set side on and top down views to help but I guess weāll have to wait in MSFS.
For some odd reason I thought I could fly a heli - realty bit me hard.
Had a bit more success, much easier to fly but although i was descending very slowly it still crashed - are they oversensitive in the sim??
