To preface, I fly RC helicopter and have my UAV license in Canada and US. So I have a good amount of experience with helicopters. From the flying in Sim I’ve done so far I need to push the cyclic 50-80% forward to maintain hover. If I don’t, I’ll flip over backwards. Cruise requires full forward to maintain any significant speed. I’ve tried with wind at 0 kts. Maybe I’m missing something, any ideas?
Any other controllers on your PC that may have conflicting axis assigned?
I use Trustmaster T1600 for cyclic. Sometimes I experience the same thing when I notice the trim setting is not near 0%. Suggest you check that; hope it helps.
More or less I have the problem, mostly swinging forward and backwards. All assistance of and modern flight Profil.
When I use the old elevator axis it’s getting better, not perfect but Significantly calmer.
Cyclic usage during hover is depending on the helicopter and the mass/payload dristribution it has. The Huey for instance normally requires a bit of backwards and left cyclic (if I remember it correctly) during initial hover but definitelly not a 80%, just a bit. The typical situation in a hover on a helicopter without assists (like a piston one for instance) is that you are tuning cyclic and pedals almost permanently and just touch collective a bit to keep altitude constant. In game you can use rotor trim controls to accomodate to the given situation you have. That is also use during hover even on assisted helicopters to perform small corrections in position during a hoist operation with autohover for instance.
To move forward you need a combination of collective and cyclic as the plane of the rotor will not be horizontal in that situation but piched down as you move so you still need a bit of climb to compensate the dive that the non horizontal plane would produce. Typically a 70% collective would be ok without going overtorque in most cases (this also depends on the helicopter). Cyclic shouldn´t be fully forward as that would most like end in a dive a max speed. Normally both need to be adjusted to fly levered for each given speed at any moment, usless you are using an assisted altitude hold for instance. You normally need to pay more attention to the climb indicator rather than to the speed one.
Only in the special case of moving sideways you don´t need to touch collective nor cyclic so much as normally that´s done at low speeds. You need to use cyclic a bit only and pedals to keep heading constant.
I have used the choppers in game just a bit only but I would say they are working fine regarding this. One trick that is important (this is how I fly at least) is to pay attention to climb indicator because the rest of the chopper movements can be monitored visually quite good and fast. Once you are airborne the ground effect adds some lift so you can reduce collective a bit. Monitor that instrument and play with the chopper inertia to avoid having to perform correctins every second, and specially corrections to your own corrections. Anyway you will be expected to perform a lot of corrections, specially during hover as the usage of any control surfaces most of the times requires a compensation as it produces several forces in different directions on the chopper, but also to keep constant altitude during regular flying. Once you have some speed you can focus on cyclic usage (at that point it will behave more like an aircraft) and just use collective to fine tune altitude and pedals to keep constant heading if required. Normal flying is more relaxed but hover and taxi is a challenge most of the times.
Cheers
I have a full dedicated set of controls I use for helicopters…cyclic and collective…and use my Ruddo pedals for torque control…set up to easily remove for fixed wing flying. The secret of flying helicopters in msfs is SMALL CORRECTIONS! Move the stick slightly and give it a half of a second to see if its doing what you want before adding more. I have been flying the Hype H145 from the beginning and a dedicated cyclic helps tremendously! I don’t know what happened to rotorsimpilot on YouTube, but he had great lessons.
Again…trying not to over correct is the way to go…and unless you have a autopilot like the H145 has with GTC-H…keep moving enough to stay out of your own rotor wash! Land with some forward motion. Watch a real helicopter land if you can..99%of the time they fly into the landing instead of hovering.
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I also have nice helicoptor controls, Virpil collective and Brunner force feedback stick and rudders and have flown the available helicopters extensively before the official ones came out.
To me it seems like I do have to provide a lot of forward stick pressure in the Cabri or a lot of forward trim is required to ease the amount of pressure I have to provide for level flight, without doing that it just climbs and noses up constantly. Then if I land I need to back out all that nose down trim or my next take off won’t go well.
That´s it. If you overcorrect prior to inertia has been normalized you can end on a never ending oscillation just created by yourself. I use Warthog and even with it´s shorter axis size just small corrections are still required. (I use a 0% sensitivity profile in game with 1% deadzone) but I removed my centering spring years ago as it allows better handling both in airplanes and helicopters. I have been flying choopers in simulators for years, so maybe I’m just used to them. I didn´t find big issues in MSFS so far but I just flew them a bit only as I said.
Cheers
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To me it seems like I do have to provide a lot of forward stick pressure in the Cabri or a lot of forward trim is required to ease the amount of pressure I have to provide for level flight, without doing that it just climbs and noses up constantly. Then if I land I need to back out all that nose down trim or my next take off won’t go well.
This is how the real ones fly. The trim systems exist to ease that pilot workload in cruise flight. You have to hold a lot of forward stick pressure to maintain cruise.
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Once I trim it out, I don’t have any undo stick pressures to contend with. 
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There´s a trim reset control you can map to restore the applied rotor trim.
Cheers
yup…I didn’t map that yet. I usually fly the H145, and have my HOTAS fully mapped for that. I plan on re-reading this thread and mapping the reset. Thx for the reminder. 
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I don’t want speculate but compare RC heli with possible gyro (I expect it right?) with real heli as 407 is, is impossible. Air pressure with different weight of RC and real one is simply not comparable if we talk about controls of both helis.
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Turn off helicopter assistances.
Great observation…most every RC Heli or UAV has a gyro to assist flight…some fixed wing as well…I’ve flown RC for over 45 years and both Heli or UAV gyros are the only reason consistent flight is possible…IRL your butt/body is your Gyro…it precedes the movement of your inputs for flight way before your hand/eyes processes the same info..That’s why glider pilots are considered among the best powered airplane pilots…they learn to fly by the seat of their pants…Heli’s are never hands off so to speak..My best friend fly’s Heli’s IRL so as not to get bored with flight…much more challenging compared to fixed wing. and landing most anywhere tops his desires..I like filling his empty copilot seat even though I have no ppl…Oh and when he lets me hold the Heli stick…all my RC skills vanish…Just my O
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Just take a look to the stick movements in this Bell 47 video. This will give you an idea about the amount of corrections which are needed, even during regular flying, but cyclic movements are still small. It’s an old school bird so there are no assists.
Cheers
Hello,
yes, this video is already here somewhere on Forum. From my look, the control of heli’s cyclic is same as my joystick what I have here. Look to movements about how much in distance is cyclic moved compared to some defined center position, it’s same as I move my joystick. Typical hint, do longer pipe to your joystick and you’ll see. All depends then to max distance allowed for movement and also to sensitivity set. This video is fine but is developed without to see proper control of pedals and collective, what is shame. I understand that he want to be on video because it’s his flight and can test control of this bird. Next to think, it’s not turbine bird but only normal engine powered and typical old Bell gyro is also included for better handling. I must say that this 47 is one of my favorite after OH6A.
Next what is also noticible in video, quite strong wind. In this case I expect more intervention to cyclic in this case to compensate. I also expect in this case more still intervention to cyclic because of wind, this is clear with his attempt to land or hover near ground, simply impossible if you have only cyclic at hands and other pilot do other controls for you, no possible without to have all 3 primary controls at hands.
Next one gyro problematic discussed here already somewhere. More people compare also Huey as typical example (from DCS) but also forgot that Huey as typical Bell early type is fitted with gyro also, same as 206 types.
Maybe I can say better as Bell typical stabilizer on main rotor. Some problematic about Bell/Hiller??? systems are on web, very good described.
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Hello,
yes, this is simply same what I said already with my real sim Mi-171 experience. I had big trouble to lift off for first time because didn’t have good enough habit with pedals compensation but after that I had very comfortable flight with also landing. On other side Mi-171 is another type of heli, with power and also with its weight and inertia
Really, only real heli pilots and some others with real sim and long time experience with helis can have better look at this problematic, how close is heli simulated here.
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I’ve also noticed that quite a lot of forward cyclic is required, much more than I would expect. And the antitorque (foot) pedals if used to centre the ball, would require the Bell to not fly straight or coordinated at all. Using enough pedal to centre the ball (at any speed), seemed to require a 5 degree bank angle or more to fly straight.
If I ignored the ball and flew it properly, it flew as expected, except for the excessive forward collective required.
Has anyone else noticed this?
don’t fly the ball on a helicopter… in cruise, you ignore it completely, unless you’re flying formation… just lining up during take off and landing, and obviously hovering…
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