I never flew a heli before but found one that I'll be flying a lot. It's been a learning curve but following instructions in the FSX center I have been able to fly pretty well except landing. I slow and decrease altitude but as soon as the speed drops to zero, the heli starts flying in reverse. I have found no help on this and don't have a clue. Any ideas would be appreciated.
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The Staff of SOH
Landing a helicopter?
- Thread starter rich12545
- Start date
airattackimages
Charter Member
Once you've arrested your forward airspeed you need to bring your nose back down to level. Keep an eye on your artificial horizon. Make small control inputs once established in a hover.
Exactly. . .Rich it's not that the airspeed has decreased. . .it's actually because you're nose high. When you approach your landing spot you decrease power and slowly bring the nose up to slow even more, which is ok except that as the airspeed drops off and the heli begins to settle, it settles in the only direction it can with the nose high attitude. . .backwards. Even as long as I've flown heli's in the sim. . .I still get caught in this every so often. Like Nate says. . . .watch your artificial horizon to be sure you're level and not nose up. Takes practice like anything else, but you'll get it.
Thank you, guys. Something simple that didn't occur to me at all. I will do that in my next flight.
I'm flying a Pyro. It's a single seat turbo that can cruise 0-300 kts, has a ceiling of 25,000 ft, is modified to float and has great vision to the front and sides. It can do all kinds of acrobatics but I like it because it seems like the perfect VFR/bush aircraft which is all I fly. It's available at simmarket for $20.
I'm flying a Pyro. It's a single seat turbo that can cruise 0-300 kts, has a ceiling of 25,000 ft, is modified to float and has great vision to the front and sides. It can do all kinds of acrobatics but I like it because it seems like the perfect VFR/bush aircraft which is all I fly. It's available at simmarket for $20.
I purchased that when it first came out. Purists kinda thumb their noses at this one cause it's "not a real Heli" but that's fine. . .I'm not a real pilot, lol. Mick Posch did an excellent job and it's a blast to fly.
Yep. lol I'm not a real pilot either and I'm certainly not a purist. I also like the built in digital radalt because I have a hard time judging altitude in a 2D environment and it's definitely stol lol. I'm a whole lot better flying it now than when I first started. It took a bit to understand the collective and cyclic are separate but one can affect the other. It's really different from flying an airplane and will take more practice to unlearn what the joystick does for airplanes. And there's no trim so it's constant checking the pitch and speed to make corrections. I think I like that better instead of just sitting back looking.
ChipShop
Charter Member
You could try the Virtavia Sea King, available from http://www.flightsimstore.com/product_info.php?products_id=1962
A Big Bird, but nice to fly, and also very forgiving! Comes in about 20 different colour schemes with the package, dead easy to install too !
ChipShop
A Big Bird, but nice to fly, and also very forgiving! Comes in about 20 different colour schemes with the package, dead easy to install too !
ChipShop
Thanks for the suggestion. It's not that I'm interested in flying helicopters in general, it that I like flying the Pyro specifically because it meets my vfr/bush flying needs. Things like 0-300 cruising speed and a couple of other things that aren't generally found with helis.
Cirrus N210MS
Charter Member
i will post a Video soon to help you learn to fly helicopters i have been flying them for years in flight simulator
In landing regime in a helo, as in a fixed-wing aircraft really, the cyclic (stick/yoke) controls airspeed and the collective (throttle on a fixed-wing) controls altitude. The cyclic controls airspeed by controlling attitude. Don't think of the cyclic as doing much else really, and you'll do better flying it. Push forward to speed up and pull backward to slow down, and use your collective to control your flight path.
A stable approach is best, just as in a fixed-wing. In general, set up a glide path by pulling the cyclic back to slow to about 60kts and adjust collective to keep your descent aimed at the runway. Maintain speed with the cyclic. Don't try to do anything else but maintain speed with the cyclic.
As you get to the point where you would flare in an airplane, pull back cyclic to slow to hover speed and adjust collective not to gain altitude. As you translate to hover lift at about 20 kts, you'll need to add some collective and adjust torque pedals to catch rotation. And push forward on cyclic to keep from "slowing" below 0 kts and starting to fly backwards. Keep pushing and pulling the cyclic to keep your speed at or near 0 kts, and use your collective to maintain height above the ground. Then just hover taxi to the landing spot and settle her down.
As as they say, it's kind of like balancing a basketball on top of another basketball, so lots of little corrections. I find it helps to add in a correction and then immediately take it back halfway.
Good luck. As in all flying, landing is the difficult part. The rest is cake.
A stable approach is best, just as in a fixed-wing. In general, set up a glide path by pulling the cyclic back to slow to about 60kts and adjust collective to keep your descent aimed at the runway. Maintain speed with the cyclic. Don't try to do anything else but maintain speed with the cyclic.
As you get to the point where you would flare in an airplane, pull back cyclic to slow to hover speed and adjust collective not to gain altitude. As you translate to hover lift at about 20 kts, you'll need to add some collective and adjust torque pedals to catch rotation. And push forward on cyclic to keep from "slowing" below 0 kts and starting to fly backwards. Keep pushing and pulling the cyclic to keep your speed at or near 0 kts, and use your collective to maintain height above the ground. Then just hover taxi to the landing spot and settle her down.
As as they say, it's kind of like balancing a basketball on top of another basketball, so lots of little corrections. I find it helps to add in a correction and then immediately take it back halfway.
Good luck. As in all flying, landing is the difficult part. The rest is cake.
Victory103
SOH-CM-2025
Had to look up the model, probably not the best to start off with, but given how far off FS rotary-wing aerodynamics are, it will not matter. Hovercontrol is a good first stop to flying FS helos in general.
Cirrus N210MS
Charter Member
once you have been flying as long as i have in FS you will get it down pretty quick on learning to land and hover etc loads of fun
Great write up!
I'm abyssmally bad at landing helos. I usually fly the Nemeth / Milviz UH-1D and never got that thing to land properly. Let alone hovering. As soon as I go into hover transition, it starts to wobble and becomes instable around the yaw axis. I wish I had a proper collective / throttle control, I (mis-) use the Saitek throttle quadrant for that.
I'll try it again these days, using your explanation above!
Cheers,
Mark
My personal opinion is if you can hover then landing is easy.
The technique that works for me is to not concentrate on the artificial horizon and only glance at the nearby ground.
Focus out in the distance taking in the whole scene rather than a specific point and you tend to see drift easily yet unlike concentrating in close, you are not prone to over control.
I am always tempted to take off by dumping the nose while pulling on the collective and land like I am making a combat assault in Viet Nam
If I make it a point to start and end each flight in a hover then I stay in practice.
That's what works for me anyway.
The technique that works for me is to not concentrate on the artificial horizon and only glance at the nearby ground.
Focus out in the distance taking in the whole scene rather than a specific point and you tend to see drift easily yet unlike concentrating in close, you are not prone to over control.
I am always tempted to take off by dumping the nose while pulling on the collective and land like I am making a combat assault in Viet Nam
If I make it a point to start and end each flight in a hover then I stay in practice.
That's what works for me anyway.
[... said:
ROFL!! Now that sounds familiar!
How do you guys work the collective and the throttle(s) ? I mean physically, controller wise?
Cheers,
Mark