R22: hurt ego

    Still trying to get this thing under control. Is it normal that I have to apply the cyclic and rudder ALL the time? It's getting extremely tiresome after while... I am constantly moving my feet around in order to fly slightly straight. I also often have no clue if I am flying straight or not: I tend to change my (real world) position all the time in order to make of for the odd movements I make on screen. All in all it's pretty uncomfortable. And frustrating. Seems I am not a chopper guy. ;)

    It feels as if all the rudder control I have is within a few centimers or so: I have to make extremely small movements and really hit the 1 cm wide hot spot to NOT turn and obviously this spot moves around with the collective setting, making it impossible to do right for longer than a few seconds. And I am also still flying sideways to the right (or even back) as soon as I lift off. Every single time. Always. A hover on the spot seems completely impossible.

    I really wonder why everyone else is having such a great time. :|8o

    Edited once, last by J van E (December 4, 2018 at 7:05 PM).

    The cyclic does need lots of regular tiny inputs but once you get up to speed, the weather vane effect means you won't need the anti torque/rudder quite so much, but the wind strength and direction can also affect it. The yaw string is a good indicator that the helicopter is happy, if that is straight up the middle it is balanced and smooth.

    i5-12600K/MSI RTX 3080/Win11/64Gb RAM/Asus Xonar DX+ Beyer DT990 pro headphones/LG 34" UM65 @2560x1080/Quest Pro/TM Warthog+VKB MkIV Rudder pedals

    @JvE: Remove the dust from your rift and try to overcome the problems with it and you will love it. I never flew helicopters in other sims but this is a complete new level of flight simming. I cannot immagine that it would work for me on a screen.

    Teaser

    Regards,

    Thomas

    i7-14700KF @ 5.6 GHz, Geforce RTX 4090, 32MB RAM, 1TB SSD M.2, 1TB SSD M.2, 2TB SSD M.2, 32" Monitor 4K, Pimax Crystal

    • Official Post

    You can use your elevator and aileron trim to counter that backwards flying during hover. In my setup I know I need 5 clicks left trim and one click aft to have neutral controls for stationary hover.

    Pedals are constantly moving though, I've been lucky with my rudder pedals, they have a nice sweet spot right where I need it for hovering.

    You might be able to trick the calibration and when asked to neutralize the controls, just hold in a little opposite deflection.

    If you look at your assigned axes in the controls menu and they look very well centered then you know you have a good calibration. If you put light pressure on your controls and they instantly jump then you should increase your deadzone to have a better experience.

    Thanks for the tip, all. I am sure I'll be giving it another go in to time. ;)

    Quote from TomB

    Remove the dust from your rift and try to overcome the problems with it and you will love it.

    I can imagine how it will help with a heli but my problems are more than just not liking the resolution of the Rift: it doesn't play well with my physical well being. ;)

    I forgot how many minor pedal adjustments you make when flying until I flew today and consciously thought about it. I get how a non pilot would think it is tiresome. I compare it to driving a car on the highway, you don't think where the car has to be, you just do it. Same with flying a helicopter, you think it and it happens.=O:P

    Edited once, last by CaptChaos (December 4, 2018 at 10:25 PM).

    Quote from CaptChaos

    I forgot how many minor pedal adjustments you make when flying until I flew today and consciously thought about it. I get how a non pilot would think it is tiresome. I compare it to driving a car on the highway, you don't think where the car has to be, you just do it. Same with flying a helicopter, you think it and it happens.=O:P

    Definitely! It is sure not like a plane where you can trim it hands off, and it will pretty much stay there. Hats off to real whirly bird pilots!

    Quote from Jet-Pack

    Try limiting yourself to a 2mm stick deflection for any corrections, then you should be good :)

    Helicopters are known to react to mental inputs. If you are thinking of correcting then the helicopter already reacts.

    You are so right. I have had a couple of opportunities at the controls of a Jet Ranger and that is absolutely the case: sensitivity is nerve-wracking!

    Mike

    P3D 3.4/XP 10,11/AFS2/DCS/Flyinside FS - Win 10 Home 64 - ASRock Z270 Extreme 4, Intel i7 7700k 4.5GHz, 32Gb 3,200 G.Skill Trident RAM, Gigabyte AORUS 1080Ti Extreme 11Gb, Samsung 960 Pro 512Gb M.2 NVMe + 2Tb WD Gold, NZXT Kraken X62 Oculus Rift.

    Quote from CaptChaos

    I forgot how many minor pedal adjustments you make when flying until I flew today and consciously thought about it. I get how a non pilot would think it is tiresome. I compare it to driving a car on the highway, you don't think where the car has to be, you just do it. Same with flying a helicopter, you think it and it happens.=O:P

    Thanks for that! Good to know I am simply experiencing beginners problems.

    ftp2leta posted a video in the screenshot topic and I was VERY HAPPY to see he is having the exact same problem as I have (although I am not entirely sure if he experiences it as a problem ;) ). This tells me my controllers are all right (which I already presumed).

    For education purposes I'll repost his video here and I would ask you all to look at (for instance) 1:25. There you see exactly what is happening to me all the time: a sideways motion after lift off. Now I know how to fight the turning (with my pedals, even though this is still hard) but how do I have to fight this sideways motion? Pull the cyclic left...? If I do that I take off at an odd angle... (I am often flying at odd angles anyway though...)

    Again, thanks for ftp2leta for this video!

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    Just hold slight left cyclic. There is no centre position on a cyclic. That’s why it’s hard to use a joystick with a spring because you always have to fight that unnatural tension. The tail rotor is creating thrust which wants to move the helicopter to the right. You counteract this with cyclic. You will notice a lot of American helicopters hover with the left skid low whereas European models hover with the right skid low. This is because the main rotors spin in the opposite direction on most European models and require right pedal to counteract torque.

    Yes, you have to use the cyclic,

    while using the left rudder to avoid turning, the whole heli is blown sideways to the right from the tail rotor.

    Win11-x64 | ASUS B650E-E | Ryzen 7 7800X3D | G.Skill 32 GB DDR6-6000 | 8TB SSD Samsung 990 Pro
    AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX 16GB | LG Ultragear+ 144Hz | TM T.16000M | CH Pro Pedals | CH Flight Sim Yoke | Oculus Rift

    Quote from RiftFlyer

    There is no centre position on a cyclic. That’s why it’s hard to use a joystick with a spring because you always have to fight that unnatural tension.

    Aaaaaaaah, now that's interesting! Never knew this! So if I would make flying a heli in AFS2 a hobby of mine I should get a joystick without a centre position...?! And it's also normal to take off/hover with (in this case) the left skid low? I had the idea you would have to move up and hover as straight as possible, so both skids horizontal. (That's how remember it from video's and movies...) I get the idea I've been trying to do things that simply are impossible...? ;)

    Quote from J van E

    Aaaaaaaah, now that's interesting! Never knew this! So if I would make flying a heli in AFS2 a hobby of mine I should get a joystick without a centre position...?! And it's also normal to take off/hover with (in this case) the left skid low? I had the idea you would have to move up and hover as straight as possible, so both skids horizontal. (That's how remember it from video's and movies...) I get the idea I've been trying to do things that simply are impossible...? ;)

    There are no cheap joysticks without a centering spring. You can buy a dedicated cyclic but they are expensive. I use one from Komodo Simulations. The easiest option is to remove the spring in your existing joystick or, depending on the model, you could use cable ties to compress it so it does not interfere with the stick.

    To hover, the helicopter needs to adopt an attitude that balances the forces acting on it. They can be external forces such as wind or thrust forces from the helicopter itself (including the tail). That does not always equate to a horizontal attitude.

    Having similar problems here, the only difference is that I totally expected it. That video looks pretty well controlled compared with my efforts. I'm using VR, but certainly wouldn't recommend learning to fly the R22 in VR to anyone with a weak stomach; I'm having to get my VR legs all over again.

    Quote from J van E

    Aaaaaaaah, now that's interesting! Never knew this! So if I would make flying a heli in AFS2 a hobby of mine I should get a joystick without a centre position...?! And it's also normal to take off/hover with (in this case) the left skid low? I had the idea you would have to move up and hover as straight as possible, so both skids horizontal. (That's how remember it from video's and movies...) I get the idea I've been trying to do things that simply are impossible...? ;)

    I'm currently making my own proper long handle collective. Should only cost about £40:

    I'll provide "how to" diagrams in a couple of weeks:

    • Piece of aluminium tube 22mm diameter
    • Mountain bike grip
    • Boat bimini fitting (clamps round tube and makes it lever)
    • Potentiometer (variable resistor)
    • Pair of gears
    • Bits of wood & some nuts and bolts
    • Leo Bodnar BU0836A - 3 wires to the potentiometer and then USB straight into your PC, immediately detected by AFS2

    v1 doesn't include throttle and governor on/off button but they are easy to add for my v2. That Leo Bodnar has input for 8 potentiometers and 32 buttons so the next thing to add is a nice long handle sensitive cyclic, which isn't much more complex than this.

    Hi

    A helicopter hovering one skid low has nothing to do with the direction of the rotor blades.

    A helicopter hangs from the centre of the main rotor hub, (this is not CofG which is a lot lower), unless the tail rotor is raised to this level the helicopter has a cross coupling effect where the tail rotor thrust is below the level of the main rotor hub, this causes the helicopter to effectively lean in the opposite direction, Hence when the helicopter is lifted into the hover it requires a constant cyclic correction to counter act this cross coupling. Some helicopters do offset the mainrotor gearbox to counteract this lean automatically but it's not common

    A helicopter that has it's CofG behind the main rotor axis tend to hover tail down, many larger helicopters suffer from this ( more engines etc and not a lot of forward structure). The Blackhawk seems to be very prone which is why the tail rotor is also canted over to one side to provide extra upward thrust at the tail.

    Steve

    Quote from larrylynx

    Hi

    A helicopter hovering one skid low has nothing to do with the direction of the rotor blades.

    “The direction the rotor spins makes a difference. In a system the turns clockwise when viewed from above, the tail rotor thrust causes the helicopter to drift to the left. Tilting the main rotor disc to the right to counter this causes the right skid to hang low. A counterclockwise turning system will cause a right drift and a left tilt making the helicopter hover left skid low.”

    https://blog.aopa.org/aopa/2011/09/23/translating-tendency/

    My reference to rotor direction was to illustrate the difference in the direction of drift. Not to suggest it was the cause. I think I’ll leave the dynamics to the expert on this forum. I seem to be corrected every time I post on the subject lol.

    • Official Post

    The tail rotor creates a significant side force (it uses roughly 10% of the engine power during hover) and this side force has to be counteracted with a sideways tilted rotor plane. Depending on the position of the tail rotor and the cg this can happen automatically or not.

    There are also helicopters without tail rotors, and helicopters like the X3 that have two rotors on the side, one pushing air forward the other pushing it rearwards, there you don't have any negative effects of the tail rotor.

    Depending on the geometry of the rotor system (some rc helicopters have sideways tilted rotors) and the skid geometry, the skids may or may not be at an angle.