Auto hover?

[Fornax 0]

Is this a feature (some) helicopters have?

Or should I feel like cheating if I use it in-game?

I find it very difficult to hover still without using it.

Especially the forward/backward movement is difficult, as it is hard to get a feel of fwd/back lateral movement on a computer screen imho.

Also I have to use outside-view when sling-loading, as it is impossible to know how far until the sling tightens...especially with the restricted head-movement for TrackIR.

So, almost feel like cheating...

[MD500Enthusiast 10]

it just takes practice to know how to hover, if you're hover near ground you can see if you're moving left or right, forward or backward by looking at the ground texture or nearby objects. just counteract the movement with very small inputs. if you keep using autohover you'll never learn how to hover.

[Faye 10]

actually like the auto-hover .... "cough cough" gives me the uber-noob pilot a chance to land =)

[NeMeSiS 11]

actually like the auto-hover .... "cough cough" gives me the uber-noob pilot a chance to land =)

I cant even do the take off tutorial without it, i am not sure of its me or my old xbox controller, but without it all i can do is flip over as soon as the chopper gets light on its feet, or whatever that is called. :p

[MD500Enthusiast 10]

dynamic rollover. there's this acting force on the helicopter called translating tendency, where it makes the helicopter drift to the right. if you don't use left cyclic to countert hat, the right skid will act as a pivot point on the ground for the helicopter to tip over.

[twisted 128]

hovering is difficult for me. i found my joystick settings were too high. toned them down to 1.2 and it became slightly easier as i wasnt over correcting all the time.

[TAW_RiEvEr 10]

I could never find an auto-hover in FSX and it STILL takes me ages to land there! I love auto-hover :D

[jedra 11]

dynamic rollover. there's this acting force on the helicopter called translating tendency, where it makes the helicopter drift to the right. if you don't use left cyclic to countert hat, the right skid will act as a pivot point on the ground for the helicopter to tip over.

That's useful to know as I was starting to think that there was something wrong with my controls. Why does it always float right (as apposed to left)?

I think that this is my biggest problem, in the 1 in 10 attempts that I can actually get somewhere near the ground safely, I suddenly start drifting right and then I am all over the place.

I am going to have to change my in game profile name to Lurch!

More practice needed - this is hard!

[MD500Enthusiast 10]

translating tendency happens because of the thrust of the tail rotor. the tail rotor is trying to compensate for the torque of the engine running the rotor blades which induces a right yaw and the thrust direction of the tail rotor is usually to the left which pushes the helicopter to the right. this is true for helicopters made in the us, where helicopters made in european region has the opposite effect.

[NeMeSiS 11]

dynamic rollover. there's this acting force on the helicopter called translating tendency, where it makes the helicopter drift to the right. if you don't use left cyclic to countert hat, the right skid will act as a pivot point on the ground for the helicopter to tip over.

I seem to be unable to counter it, maybe my deadzone is too high or my controller too vague(Stable hovering is also a bitch). Ill try it later with keyboard+mouse.

[Fornax 0]

Im getting a bit better now with some practice.

But my question was: does some real life helicopters have an auto-hover feature? Guess the small ones don't have it, but what about rescue choppers etc?

[fboes 10]

Yes, the HH-65 of the US Coastguard seems to have an auto-hover feature.

And from my experience with Black Shark I remember the Kamov KA-50 to have a fairly advanced autopilot.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

There are auto pilots for helicopters, can also be installed in light ones. Some more capable ones will also be able to do transition to hover instead of just altitude hold. But from what I've found out, they don't tend to allow collective input without "fighting the input or disengaging the mode/ap", so my guess is that autohover is probably fine if a decent autopilot is installed, but using it to land would be unrealistic.

[capt_morpheme 10]

Yes many whirlwinds are "autohover" capable.

One for all: the AH 64 "Apache" with an enhanced autopilot with attitude, altitude and position hold in hover.

Military helicopters use this device to fly NOE or to get masked hover behind covering terrain for LOAL launch or for LOBL launch with the "longbow" radar

[MD500Enthusiast 10]

Im getting a bit better now with some practice.

But my question was: does some real life helicopters have an auto-hover feature? Guess the small ones don't have it, but what about rescue choppers etc?

don't worry so much about auto hover, if you use it you won't improve. if rescuing people wasn't such a time sensitive and critical task the pilots would opt not to use this feature. plus hovering with very little forward view on those big helos are a daunting task when you're at 50+ ft and can't detect small movements very well against the ocean waves.

[fboes 10]

I use autohover as last rescue when messing up a landing: I try (and most often succeed) to perform a normal landing; but when I mess it up (e.g. by "chasing the needle" or over-compensating) I just hit autohover to stabilize the beast and try again.