Is the medium helicopter "made of glass"??

[ricnunes 0]

First of all, I want to say that I'm enjoying this game very much specially the career mode and it was definitly a great purchase for me!

But there are a few things (bugs) that are puzzling me and the one that annoys me the most is that the medium helicopter is extremelly fragile where for example if I make a stepper dive with that helicopter the controls become instantly frozzen being impossible to recover from that dive (and crash is inevitable). Another odd thing is that with a few hard manouvers (but without being too violent) the helicopter starts shaking with all sorts of vibrations due to damage - So this means that with just a few somehow hard manouvers (but again not too hard) the medium helicopter becomes instantly damaged (and usually with severe damage) but if you make those same manouvers with the light and heavy helicopter that obviously doesn't happens which means that there's something very "fishy" going on with the medium helicopter.

I hope with this that BIS devs become aware of this annoying bug and that a solution for this comes soon.

Anyway, thanks for this already great game.

[Panther353 10]

Sounds to me like you are exceeding the performance envelope and the game is awarding damages accordingly.

[nightsta1ker 10]

I have noticed this as well in the medium helicopter. I would say that this only happens when the helicopter is being pushed beyond its limits, and so a resulting situation like this should be expected. However, the lack of such results on the other two models is puzzling.

Overall, the differences between all three helicopter models is great. This also, is by design, I am sure, as they wanted each helicopter to have it's own characteristics that set them apart from each other, but some of the differences between them are a bit on the fundamental side, by which I mean to say that there are some fundamental flight characteristics that all helicopters have, with subtle differences between each model. In TOH the difference between each helicopter is fundamentally different and requires that the pilot needs to almost completely re-learn to fly each one.

In my limited experience in real world helicopters, the differences between them is usually divided into two groups: Performance, and responsiveness. Some helicopters are more powerful than others, and so can be used to lift more, or can operate at higher altitudes or in higher temperatures. Also, some are more sensitive or responsive than others. Each model has a different combination of responsiveness and performance, but the fundamental behavior is pretty much the same as all the same physics apply.

Edited November 6, 2011 by nightsta1ker

[franze 196]

I think the medium class has a weakness in max speed and agility; this is probably intentional since it can do some things that the heavy can but the light can't.

I haven't noticed it being extremely weak or easy to break though.

[scarp 10]

The difference usually should boil down to mass...bigger helicopters, more air passing through the rotor, bigger mass of air being directed etc. It is a known fact that; the bigger the slower (in terms of action/reaction).

Normaly that would translate into something a bit slower and also a bit more stable behaviour and reaction to inputs from the pilot......could be me, but I swear to god that the heavy feels alot more twitchy than the light one.

But I put my trust in BIS and that they solve these problems with the next patch.

:)

[-DirTyDeeDs--Ziggy- 0]

I think the medium class has a weakness in max speed and agility; this is probably intentional since it can do some things that the heavy can but the light can't.

I haven't noticed it being extremely weak or easy to break though.

you arent using 100% collective on takeoff, apparently ...

breaks very easily.

[MD500Enthusiast 10]

First of all, I want to say that I'm enjoying this game very much specially the career mode and it was definitly a great purchase for me!

But there are a few things (bugs) that are puzzling me and the one that annoys me the most is that the medium helicopter is extremelly fragile where for example if I make a stepper dive with that helicopter the controls become instantly frozzen being impossible to recover from that dive (and crash is inevitable). Another odd thing is that with a few hard manouvers (but without being too violent) the helicopter starts shaking with all sorts of vibrations due to damage - So this means that with just a few somehow hard manouvers (but again not too hard) the medium helicopter becomes instantly damaged (and usually with severe damage) but if you make those same manouvers with the light and heavy helicopter that obviously doesn't happens which means that there's something very "fishy" going on with the medium helicopter.

I hope with this that BIS devs become aware of this annoying bug and that a solution for this comes soon.

Anyway, thanks for this already great game.

helicopters aren't jet fighters, they weren't built to sustain massive g forces on the rotor system nor can you pull collective from full down to full up in a split second and expect it not to over torque. also there are performance envelopes you have to adhere to in term of power output in different weather situation and your weight configuration will play a part in that as well. think about how many vietnam hueys you have seen doing acrobatic tricks? different rotor systems were designed to accommodate different type of flying. for example in the bo-105 it has a rigid rotor system which is very tough and very flexible and can withstand the stress of acrobatics but the huey has a semi rigid rotor system i believe which is not meant for acrobatic flying. infact in a real helicopter with semi rigid and sometimes even fully articulated rotor system, if you push the nose down with some airspeed really fast you'd get what's called a Low-G condition. where thrust and angle of attack of main rotor is reduced and the certer of gravity of the tail rotor is above the main rotor causing the helicopter to roll right rapidly. a person's instinct is to correct the right rolling with left cyclic but when you do that you cause mast bumping, which basically is your rotor head grinding on your rotor shaft and the that can lead to the rotors coming off the helicopter completely or chop off your tail cone. http://helicopterforum.verticalreference.com/topic/10987-low-g-condition-caught-on-video/ here is a video of what happens to a helicopter in low g condition.

[ricnunes 0]

Look, don't get me wrong but I think don't need a "lecture" of what is a helicopter, I certainly know that "helicopters aren't jet fighters" and so on. I do know that helicopters are suject to various stress damage when pushed to the "limits" but the problem here is that with the medium helicopter the player doesn't need to push it to nearly to any limit in order to get significant "stress damage" in the medium helicopter.

Also regarding the situation that I reported with the dive, I'm not talking about exagagerated dives or dives where the maximum speed is reached or even exceeded, I'm talking about dives that any helicopter can do, being it real life or even in the game (light and heavy helicopters).

For example I find almost impossible doing a mission with the medium helicopter like for example a "maintaning a formation" mission (one of the "remember missions" and a "vet parade mission" for example) without ending up with "stress damage".

I basically "flew" in every "advanced" PC flight sim available in the market like for example Jane's Longbow2, modded EECH, Search and Rescue series, Flight Simulator series, X-Plane series and DCS:Black Shark (and almost every other in the market) and I never saw anything like this (too fragile helicopters).

Just to compare, the light and heavy helicopters aren't nearly as fragile and surelly can take a few hard manouvers without having significant "stress damage" while the medium helicopter can take NONE!

To finalize I just say that if the real Bell 412 helicopter (which is the helicopter where the medium helicopter is based on) was as fragile as the medium helicopter in ToH than we would see Bell 412 helicopter crashing like flies all over the world! I'm just 100% sure that something is way wrong regarding "stress damge" on the medium helicopter and don't get me wrong but there's nothing that can convince me otherwise!

[RUBIX 10]

ricnunes,

I may have a few quick answers to why these are happening, but no real solutions client side. I have been working on some issues pertaining to this, and should have something tangible for BIS to use to help develop the flight model further and correct some of the problems.

The "DIVE" you are experiencing is coming from a incorrect FM representation of Retreating Blade Stall. The only way to correct this at the moment is to fly 10 knts under the Vne (Velocity Never Exceed) mark on the Airspeed Indicator. Any flight near this will cause (in the current FM) a loss of control input (NOTE: Fast control inputs near Vne are likely what initiate the loss of control (in the current FM)).

The "HARD MANEUVERS" issue you are experiencing is coming from a [Reversed Effect] of the actual effect from Higher Positive G maneuvers. In the current FM the Rotor RPM will Drop when Positive G's increase, and thus the engine will over-torque to compensate for the RPM Drop. This is incorrect, as High G's will produce higher RPM's. Again, I am working to help BIS on these issues, please allow some time before you see a fix.

Thanks,

RUBIX

[MD500Enthusiast 10]

As far as the formation mission goes, it is very doable. You are given like 60 seconds to catch up with the other helicopter. The way ai is flying the heavy helo in that mission is very eradict and if you follow it move by move you will surely damage your helo just like I did on my first try. The mission becomes very simple if you apply smooth cyclic and throttle controll, you don't need a lot of collective to catch up with the heavy. If you like I can put up a video demonstrating it.

[xman1 10]

Have to agree - the Medium is uncontrollable or easy to break. Not even fun to fly.

[MD500Enthusiast 10]

I basically "flew" in every "advanced" PC flight sim available in the market like for example Jane's Longbow2, modded EECH, Search and Rescue series, Flight Simulator series, X-Plane series and DCS:Black Shark (and almost every other in the market) and I never saw anything like this (too fragile helicopters).

Just to compare, the light and heavy helicopters aren't nearly as fragile and surelly can take a few hard manouvers without having significant "stress damage" while the medium helicopter can take NONE!

To finalize I just say that if the real Bell 412 helicopter (which is the helicopter where the medium helicopter is based on) was as fragile as the medium helicopter in ToH than we would see Bell 412 helicopter crashing like flies all over the world! I'm just 100% sure that something is way wrong regarding "stress damge" on the medium helicopter and don't get me wrong but there's nothing that can convince me otherwise!

btw, i've played longbow2 and dcs they don't simulate engine stress damage like BiS have done right now. +1 BiS for being the first to implementing stress damage so it's more immersive, no longer can you throw your tube around in full throttle like in bf2 or even arma2.

the md500 is like the ferrari of helicopters, it's small and agile plus it has a fully articulated rotor system. naturally it'll handle better than a huey, it's like comparing a ferrari to an suv. but even a ferrari will break if you don't drive it correctly. if you don't believe me go test out the light helo, put it in full throttle and flying around eradically for awhile and you'll see it too will succomb to over torque and start to shake and rattle on ya.

"don't get me wrong but there's nothing that can convince me otherwise!"

fortunately in the real world pilots usually listen to reason and logic, they seldomly fly their helos the way we do in a simulator/game. fyi there were a ton of hueys that went down during vietnam due to pilot error, and they weren't even doing hard turns.

[franze 196]

Actually I'm starting to wonder if too much power is being pulled for the medium class. I can get it to exceed the VNE in level flight with 50% collective and reserving the extra power for takeoff (and rarely needs it). The heavy class on the other hand needs full collective to get anywhere.

I'm also not seeing damage instantly if TRQ goes into yellow or red - that just indicates to me that I need to back off a bit on the collective.

[ricnunes 0]

ricnunes,

I may have a few quick answers to why these are happening, but no real solutions client side. I have been working on some issues pertaining to this, and should have something tangible for BIS to use to help develop the flight model further and correct some of the problems.

The "DIVE" you are experiencing is coming from a incorrect FM representation of Retreating Blade Stall. The only way to correct this at the moment is to fly 10 knts under the Vne (Velocity Never Exceed) mark on the Airspeed Indicator. Any flight near this will cause (in the current FM) a loss of control input (NOTE: Fast control inputs near Vne are likely what initiate the loss of control (in the current FM)).

The "HARD MANEUVERS" issue you are experiencing is coming from a [Reversed Effect] of the actual effect from Higher Positive G maneuvers. In the current FM the Rotor RPM will Drop when Positive G's increase, and thus the engine will over-torque to compensate for the RPM Drop. This is incorrect, as High G's will produce higher RPM's. Again, I am working to help BIS on these issues, please allow some time before you see a fix.

Thanks,

RUBIX

Well, that makes sence Rubix! Thanks for the reply and I'm glad there's some acknowlegement (from the dev part as well?) that there is a (big) problem regarding stress induced damage on the medium helicopter.

I'll certainly wait for the patch, besides the objective of this thread and my posts was preciselly to give the devs some feedback regarding this issue (in order for a future fix). ;)

---------- Post added at 09:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:23 PM ----------

the md500 is like the ferrari of helicopters, it's small and agile plus it has a fully articulated rotor system. naturally it'll handle better than a huey, it's like comparing a ferrari to an suv. but even a ferrari will break if you don't drive it correctly. if you don't believe me go test out the light helo, put it in full throttle and flying around eradically for awhile and you'll see it too will succomb to over torque and start to shake and rattle on ya.

"don't get me wrong but there's nothing that can convince me otherwise!"

fortunately in the real world pilots usually listen to reason and logic, they seldomly fly their helos the way we do in a simulator/game. fyi there were a ton of hueys that went down during vietnam due to pilot error, and they weren't even doing hard turns.

1- Depends on that you consider a "ferrari" or what you consider a "SUV". But a "SUV" is usually more resistant to "stress" damage than the "ferrari". Being said that I'm sure that the Bell 412 is (specially in normal circumstances) more resistant to stress damage than the MD500 even because the former one is built to lift and handle more weight than the later and like I said (twice) the hard manouvers that I made with the medium helicopter weren't "extremelly" hard and way inside the scope of what a Bell 412 could deal with in real life.

2- The Bell 412 is not your "ordinary Huey"! It has a 4 blade main rotor and thus is considerably more capable than the "standard Huey" (2 bladed) both in lift capability and manouverability/agility.

3- Lets see:

Light helicopter --> Extremelly resistant to "stress damage"

Heavy helicopter --> Extremelly resistant to "stress damage"

Medium helicopter --> Almost NO resistant to "stress damage"

Doesn't need a "rocket cientist" to find out that there's something wrong here.

4- And last point, even if you pull out excessive manouvers one a helicopter which are beyond it's design limits it doesn't mean that you get an instant damage on the helicopter. In fact it's posssible to pull out excessive manouvering on equipment such as helicopters (or airplanes, or submarines, etc...) and don't get any damage due to it. Breaking design limits incresses exponentially the risk of damage but doesn't mean an "automatic damage"!

Just to end my point, I enjoy this sim as much as you do but there's no objective to try to justify an obvious bug within this sim. Actually the faster a bug is assumed and acknowleged the faster the devs will fix it and thus make it better than what already is...

[DarkOddity 10]

I had a similar issue with the medium military helo when practicing for the parade. I tore the engine apart trying to keep in formation with the AI. It would still fly, but with severe damage and when I got the the aerobatics portion.. A crash was imminent.

I have yet to extensively fly the medium helos however, I've primarily focused on Light & Heavies in my Career mode.

[armored_sheep 56]

The speed of damaging transmission when torque exceeds given limits (indicated by TRQ warrning light on simple gauges) is the same for all helicopter classes. The difference is only in those limits. Medium helicopter has the limits the lowest.

[ricnunes 0]

I had a similar issue with the medium military helo when practicing for the parade. I tore the engine apart trying to keep in formation with the AI. It would still fly, but with severe damage and when I got the the aerobatics portion.. A crash was imminent.

I have yet to extensively fly the medium helos however, I've primarily focused on Light & Heavies in my Career mode.

Yes, that also happened to me as well as it happened in a "remember" mission where the objective was to follow ("escort") a heavy transport helicopter (which would go down later on).

---------- Post added at 05:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:16 PM ----------

The speed of damaging transmission when torque exceeds given limits (indicated by TRQ warrning light on simple gauges) is the same for all helicopter classes. The difference is only in those limits. Medium helicopter has the limits the lowest.

Yes, the medium not only has the "lowest limit" but this limit is exaggeratedly TOO LOW :mad:

[Tacklebait 10]

I had a similar issue with the medium military helo when practicing for the parade. I tore the engine apart trying to keep in formation with the AI. It would still fly, but with severe damage and when I got the the aerobatics portion.. A crash was imminent.

I have yet to extensively fly the medium helos however, I've primarily focused on Light & Heavies in my Career mode.

Haha, the exact same thing happened to me!!!

[jedra 11]

Haha, the exact same thing happened to me!!!

Yep, same here - managed to get it home, but it was juddery to say the least! Now my skills have improved somewhat I might give it another go.

[max power 21]

This behaviour in the medium helicopter is interesting and I think may be well researched. I read all of the time about the Ah-1 having both severe and unpredictable overtorque characteristics. The best decription I read was in an air combat maneuver study that stated that while the Ah-1 had comparable instantaneous turn and g-loading capabilities to the AH-64, the Ah-1 pilots were severely hampered by the torque behaviour of the helicopter AND the fact that they can't really fly with their eyes out of the cockpit because of it. They must keep their eyes on the torque meters on the dash or on the HUD. The fact it has a torque meter on the HUD is pretty telling.

Now, the hidden premise in this comparison is that the Bell 412 and 209 have the same lineage and at least some part commonality. There are important differences in the number of blades, size of the blades, number of engines, etc. But, when I first took the medium helicopter for a spin and noticed that it was trying to rip itself apart constantly, I was pleasantly surprised.

Edited November 27, 2011 by Max Power
dyslexic.

[MD500Enthusiast 10]

As i've said before, don't yank your collective up and keep it well below the yellow arc on your torque gauge and you'll be fine. slow is smooth, smooth is fast as the saying goes. it is very delicate but there are ways around it.

[b101_uk 10]

The problem with the medium heli is just it has more than twice the torque it should, it had the wrong RPM’s for the torque given and thus it is like taking a large lorry engine and putting it in a mid size euro car coupled to the car driveline then loading it up with luggage, people and a trailer and pointing it at a steep hill and wandering why the drive line gives out and why it’s so willing to brake the limits of speed. ;)

Next is the problem of how the torque gauge function, unfortunately torque gauge only function correctly in TKoH with single engine vs. torque damage, because someone decided that some elements of “torque over-stress†should be handled cumulatively rather than per engine and because there is the automatic assumption that each engine contributes to 50% of the mast load hence because of both of those problems the proper full mast load is at ~ 50% to ~60% on the gauge and not at 100%

As for the flight characteristics once the excesses how the driveline have been fixed I think it’s the best helicopter in the game and perhaps the closest to capturing the essence of what it’s representing and when fixed it’s a lot harder to get maximum speed.

Once I have done a bit more testing and after I have hinted/spoke to someone at BIS about how the currant multi-engine torque vs. mast torque vs. gauge reading vs. damage is handled, I shall release a file with corrected driveline/engine characteristics. ;)

[max power 21]

I'm not sure that's all true because the twin engined heavy helicopter will never overtorque no matter what you do to it.

[-DirTyDeeDs--Ziggy- 0]

I am sure the Medium heli model issues, as described by b101_uk, will be resolved.

I consider the heavy flight model as WIP and don't use it at all.

Edited November 28, 2011 by [DirTyDeeDs]-Ziggy-

[armored_sheep 56]

The analog torque gauge in medium heli 3D cockpit does not show correct values. It will be improved in patch.