Tips on flying a helicopter?

[nodunit 397]

I tried a flight simulator (Microsoft Flight Simulator, maybe?) in the 1980s, and nothing since. I was really, really bad at it. :)

I tried Wing Commander: Privateer in the early 1990s, too. That's "flight related," I guess, but a spaceship. I was also hopelessly inept at that, so I didn't play long. I really couldn't play the game, as I recall.

So, no, I'm not familiar with the instruments, and my eye-hand coordination stinks. I didn't grow up with video games, and it shows. But no problem. I haven't had time to practice in the Editor yet, but if that doesn't help, it's not the end of the world. Not everyone can be a pilot, right? :)

Thanks.

Ah well then it sounds like you just need some time with it, as DarkJediHawkeye said, you need to get used to the controls a bit first.

To start with basics, this image shows how the controls effect the aircraft http://www.rc-airplane-world.com/image-files/helicopter-directional-control.gif

Standard controls are Mouse forward/Back influences pitch (or W and S), Q and Z influence collective. X and C influence Yaw and twisting the mouse will roll it (suggest locking your wist and only twisting your hand)

Speed is (for Arma 3's case) maintained based on the pitch of the nose (how far up or down the nose is pointed).

The lower the nose the more speed you will take BUT the faster you will move towards the ground as well, to maintain a relatively slow speed try to keep the body of the aircraft level.

It is also important to always remember that Yaw (pedals) will only really function at low speeds, if you yaw at high speed the aircraft will turn and then immediately turn back.

Instruments can be a must for knowing what your aircraft is doing, so for the Blufor helicopter http://gamesareevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/TKOH_screenshot_04.jpg

you only need to worry about the 5 on the left and 1 on the right. Starting left to right;

Air speed http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/graphics/10-02905.jpg : this tells you how the fast the aircraft is moving

Horizon/Attitude http://img-ipad.lisisoft.com/img/1/6/1666-1-aircraft-horizon.jpg : Blue represents the sky and brown is the ground, only the inner circle will move for A3.

Use this to determine your orientation from the ground, if the white line on the inner and outter circle match then the aircraft is level.

The horizon also doubles as a bank indicator, when you roll the aircraft you will see it tilt sideways to indicate where the aircrafts belly is angled in relation to the ground.

Altimeter http://www.m0a.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/MidContinent_altimeter_mb.jpg : Tells you how high in the air the aircraft is, the large hand will move first to represent 10's and then the large will represent 100's

Bottom left row starting left to right.

RPM: at the moment this just indicates if the helicopter is on or off in A3.

Heading (or Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI) http://aviation.watergeek.eu/images/f-4b/f-4-hsi.jpg : Consists of two parts, a yellow arrow and a compass.

The yellow arrow is static so use it as a reference to where the helicopter is pointing in relation to direction. The compass on the outside will rotate if you roll or yaw.

Vertical Speed http://media.chiefaircraft.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/265x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/c/a/ca_33-3.jpg : Displays the rate of climb or descent.

With default controls this will only move when you use the collective, if however you change Collective to Analogue Collective in Options-Controls-Helicopter controls then you will see it move based on pitch as well.

Finally the only instrument to worry about on the right is the one at the very bottom, which is the clock, large hand is hour and the thin one is minutes.

These instruments are also available in the KA-60 albiet some digital with most of the analogue instruments on the CPG side. http://feedback.arma3.com/print_bug_page.php?bug_id=3630

The large screen in front of you will display attitude and heading and follows the same rules. Starting from the far upper right and going left are;

Horizon (sphere, in this case black is the ground)

Clock

Bur?

Vertical Speed

Eastern style Horizon that measures pitch angle and the bank angle is represented by a red plane rather than a ground and air setup.

The next row is once again from right to left;

RPM

Heading

Air speed

You also have a standby compass located in the upper center of the cockpit frame for each helo (seen as a big sphere on the KA-60 pic) for quick reference of direction.

Edited April 1, 2013 by NodUnit

[Zak757 1]

Just grab a cheap joystick from an electronics store, you don't need a fancy one for ARMA if you want to fly. You can get a decent one for under 40$.

[cc_kronus 9]

I joined ARMA coming from a background of air simulators. I found the aircraft in Arma2 -compared with proper flight simulators - quite unrealistically easy to fly, therefore, I did not bother to implement the rudder pedals and hotas thrust control and went only with the main joystick and track IR. It goes like a dream.

This said, I found that they have done a very good job in the right direction improving the handle of helicopters in ARMA3, although it is still a far cry from a proper flying simulator (instruments and options are way too limited). The response now is more vivid and it is more real-like. Helicopters in general are a "nervous" thing to fly and require a good deal of anticipation: you need to plan ahead the reaction of the aircraft to the inputs from the joystick to compensate adequately for a nice flight. Trying just to react to the helicopter answer after the joystick input will only have you overcompensating and bouncing all arround.

My advice: if you have one, use a joystick with 4 axes ( pitch, bank, rudder and thrust ), otherwise stick to your mouse. Also, if you have one or if you haven't, get a track IR, it is a must for most vehicles, land and airborne. And then, practice, practice and practice. you'll crash a zillion times, but one day you realize you will be able to make flying approaches on confined spaces without need of the autohover (which by the way, make your aircraft blob still in the air like a big target asking to be shot down ) and make decent autorotations with a dead engine.

but again, the secret word here is practice, practice and more practice.

[littlebigbird 1]

The most common error I've seen so far is overcorrection on the controls. Start noting your airspeed and keep in mind that you're probably moving alot faster than it looks like. Reduce your airspeed and take time to set up approaches. Don't be the hotshot that kills his passengers while trying to pull a stunt landing.

Flying takes practice, but it's a load of fun once you get the hang of it. Cheers.

[whisper 0]

Thanks for the... varied replies. :)

I find these helicopters quite easy to crash, myself, and the controls are not at all intuitive for me. But I'm not very good with this kind of thing, anyway. (By which I mean that I'm really bad at this stuff!)

I will try different helicopters in the Editor, though. I'm sure that practice will help, eventually. And if worse comes to worst, I can just stick with infantry missions. Thanks again for the tips!

Imho, it's ALL ALL because the default control scheme MAKES flying artificially harder.

Rebind correctly your keys, and you'll see the choppers are super easy to fly :

Mouse to control the Cyclic == mouse up down for nose up / down, mouse left/right for roll left/right

A and D for pedal left/right

W and S for collective up and down

REMOVE any binding non related to the above (like the weird "turn left/right" thing)

And that's it. With these flying is a piece of cake

I made a ticket just for this, it's too bad bad default controls give a false perception of the in-game choppers :

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=5683

We are all waiting for a better flight model which should come from Take On Helicopter (a BI helicopter simulation), which would arguably make flying harder.

[EDcase 87]

I find the flight model in A3 worse than A2.

In A3 you do not lose any speed in a tight turn. That's just wrong.

KEY to flying in ARMA (and most flight sims) = SMALL MOVEMENTS with the controls. Mouse or joystick, you need to make very small adjustments.

(I was amazed how sensitive the cyclic is when flying a real helicopter)

It helps a lot to know the basics of how helicopters fly so if you really want to learn then watch a few vids to get a basic understanding. (Hovering has been described as balancing a ball-bearing on a plate while standing on a ship)

Edited April 2, 2013 by EDcase

[pathetic_berserker 4]

Imho, it's ALL ALL because the default control scheme MAKES flying artificially harder.

Rebind correctly your keys, and you'll see the choppers are super easy to fly :

Mouse to control the Cyclic == mouse up down for nose up / down, mouse left/right for roll left/right

A and D for pedal left/right

W and S for collective up and down

REMOVE any binding non related to the above (like the weird "turn left/right" thing)

And that's it. With these flying is a piece of cake

I made a ticket just for this, it's too bad bad default controls give a false perception of the in-game choppers :

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=5683........

Yep, makes a lot of sense.

Though you could take it one step further in terms of laziness. As rudder effectiveness is related to speed I bind mouse left/right to Turn left/right. Turn uses a mix of rudder and roll depending on speed so when very slow or hovering its becomes fine rudder control. That leaves A&D for roll when you need to move sideways from hover.

PS I get your objection to 'Turn' in the ticket, and spliting and mixing collective and cyclic is terribly bad form, but for noobs on keyboard and mouse this is probably the easiest wayto fly.

Edited April 2, 2013 by Pathetic_Berserker

[SPARTdAN 10]

EDIT, what whisper said:

Imho, it's ALL ALL because the default control scheme MAKES flying artificially harder.

Rebind correctly your keys, and you'll see the choppers are super easy to fly :

Mouse to control the Cyclic == mouse up down for nose up / down, mouse left/right for roll left/right

A and D for pedal left/right

W and S for collective up and down

REMOVE any binding non related to the above (like the weird "turn left/right" thing)

And that's it. With these flying is a piece of cake

I made a ticket just for this, it's too bad bad default controls give a false perception of the in-game choppers :

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=5683

We are all waiting for a better flight model which should come from Take On Helicopter (a BI helicopter simulation), which would arguably make flying harder.

[whisper 0]

Yep, makes a lot of sense.

Though you could take it one step further in terms of laziness. As rudder effectiveness is related to speed I bind mouse left/right to Turn left/right. Turn uses a mix of rudder and roll depending on speed so when very slow or hovering its becomes fine rudder control. That leaves A&D for roll when you need to move sideways from hover.

PS I get your objection to 'Turn' in the ticket, and spliting and mixing collective and cyclic is terribly bad form, but for noobs on keyboard and mouse this is probably the easiest wayto fly.

See tickets notes :)

I'm pretty sure the "Turn" concept is in fact hindering newcomers capability to fly compared to natural real chopper controls bound to their KB/Mouse setup. Maybe that's the topic I should have put in the ticket in the first hand. It's in fact probably my main concern

[Sarlac 1]

I've got a ps3 controller hooked up for driving and flying. Works for me...

[whisper 0]

I find the flight model in A3 worse than A2.

In A3 you do not lose any speed in a tight turn. That's just wrong.

KEY to flying in ARMA (and most flight sims) = SMALL MOVEMENTS with the controls. Mouse or joystick, you need to make very small adjustments.

(I was amazed how sensitive the cyclic is when flying a real helicopter)

It helps a lot to know the basics of how helicopters fly so if you really want to learn then watch a few vids to get a basic understanding. (Hovering has been described as balancing a ball-bearing on a plate while standing on a ship)

BTW, just a point, ArmA3 Flight Model certainly doesn't require to know that much of real chopper behavior, because the current FM is ultra simplistic. Hovering is done by simply finding your non moving speed and attitude, and that's it. None of the A3 controls has any effect on one of the other control like a real chopper has, for example (IRL, Collective has an effect on nose direction, forcing usage of Rudders, which in turn have an effect on the the Attitude, forcing usage of Cyclic, which in turns changes vertical force of the main rotor, changing altitude, forcing correction on the Collective, etc... making hovering a perpetual juggling between all controls. You don't see that AT ALL in A3 flight model)

At least, having default control like IRL controls would make people understand better how it may work IRL and prepare them for the upcoming more realistic FM

[Gorbachev 1]

I've got a ps3 controller hooked up for driving and flying. Works for me...

Doing the same thing here. However I notice I'm unable to strafe as seen in shacktac videos where he tries out his rudder pedals. How would a person set the controls (with those sometimes very cryptic names) to allow this?

[machineabuse 11]

You should be able to "strafe" if the helicopter is in the correct flight profile. The thing to remember is that at high velocities antitorque (is what you call "rudder" on a helo) becomes unresponsive due to the airflow around the body of the aircraft. You will find that antitorque becomes responsive as soon as you begin pitching the nose up which gives you that banking (strafing) motion you are looking for. You can also yaw the cyclic (WASD/Joystick) in that direction to let the rotors pull you into the bank.

Just remember because of airflow at certain speed your helicopter is always going to want to establish the most aerodynamically stable flight profile and that isn't moving sideways.

[Jex 1]

Learning to fly is very daunting at first but it isn't impossible to learn. You are a human being with a brain capable of learning and understanding concepts. What we all seem to forget is that we can't learn everything at once and often try to do too much.

When you learned to drive a car you didn't instantly know everything, like using indicators, gears, mirrors - the same goes for everything else. The more complexity there is to something, the more repetition you need to perfect it.

Now driving a car is second nature, but it wasn't like that when you started. Exactly the same principle works for learning to fly. You need to make small steps and repeat them a lot.

For example; you should start with simply learning to hover the bird. Lift off, hover, land. Do that 100 times and you should be pretty good at it - boring, yes but you'll learn it. Once you have that basic out the way you could try flying very slowly in your hover up and down the airfield, making tiny movements to see how the chopper responds.

Small lessons for small gains. Do not expect to learn to do this in 10 minutes, it could take you hours or weeks of practice as your brain learns a ton of new inputs.

it's the input of new information that is the problem here - too much information coming in from different sources which is overloading the brain. The more you do it though, the more the brain learns and becomes used to it until, just like when you're driving a car, it becomes second nature.

[whisper 0]

The current chopper FM makes all this learning not needed.

Flying in current A3 alpha is super easy

[doveman 7]

Learning to fly is very daunting at first but it isn't impossible to learn. You are a human being with a brain capable of learning and understanding concepts. What we all seem to forget is that we can't learn everything at once and often try to do too much.

When you learned to drive a car you didn't instantly know everything, like using indicators, gears, mirrors - the same goes for everything else. The more complexity there is to something, the more repetition you need to perfect it.

Yes but lots of people need many lessons and sometimes several attempts at passing the test. Imagine how much longer (if at all) it would've taken them if they'd had no teacher to show them what to do and point out what they were doing wrong but simply had to get in the car by themselves and try and work it out, never sure if what they're doing is wrong or if they just need more practice to get the hang of it. Then add to that a totally uncalibrated/tuned car, so that when they speak to their friends and they say "oh, that's easy you just do x" and when they try x in their car it doesn't work because the controls are over/undersensitive and that's what a lot of players are up against with their controllers (not necessarily that there's anything wrong with the controller, just that Arma has many settings that need to be set right).

I had another go learning to fly in A2 yesterday and found my Xbox360 controller worked best, just using L/R triggers mapped to Z/Q for collective (mapping triggers to analogue collective didn't work well for me, because as soon as I released the right trigger, the collective dropped down to 0 sending me plummeting to the ground) and the left stick for the cyclic, with L/R on the D-pad for the pedals. I also tested with my Thrustmaster Hotas X joystick but the analogue collective in Arma2 seems pretty bad and using the throttle it's very sluggish to respond compared to using the Xbox360 triggers mapped to Z/Q (the Hotas X is great for DCS BS2 though). I'll test again sometime with a couple of it's buttons mapped to Z/Q instead of using the throttle and see if the stick itself is actually better to fly with than the Xbox360 stick. I also tested using mouse and keyboard and found I had a bit more control over collective tapping Z/Q compared to using the Xbox360 controller triggers mapped to those but even increasing the mouse DPI from 2000 (which I use for infantry) to 3200 I found it awkward moving the mouse enough to make large/sharp turns and the controller is much better for me.

[Jex 1]

Yes but lots of people need many lessons and sometimes several attempts at passing the test. Imagine how much longer (if at all) it would've taken them if they'd had no teacher to show them what to do and point out what they were doing wrong but simply had to get in the car by themselves and try and work it out, never sure if what they're doing is wrong or if they just need more practice to get the hang of it. Then add to that a totally uncalibrated/tuned car, so that when they speak to their friends and they say "oh, that's easy you just do x" and when they try x in their car it doesn't work because the controls are over/undersensitive and that's what a lot of players are up against with their controllers (not necessarily that there's anything wrong with the controller, just that Arma has many settings that need to be set right).

I had another go learning to fly in A2 yesterday and found my Xbox360 controller worked best, just using L/R triggers mapped to Z/Q for collective (mapping triggers to analogue collective didn't work well for me, because as soon as I released the right trigger, the collective dropped down to 0 sending me plummeting to the ground) and the left stick for the cyclic, with L/R on the D-pad for the pedals. I also tested with my Thrustmaster Hotas X joystick but the analogue collective in Arma2 seems pretty bad and using the throttle it's very sluggish to respond compared to using the Xbox360 triggers mapped to Z/Q (the Hotas X is great for DCS BS2 though). I'll test again sometime with a couple of it's buttons mapped to Z/Q instead of using the throttle and see if the stick itself is actually better to fly with than the Xbox360 stick. I also tested using mouse and keyboard and found I had a bit more control over collective tapping Z/Q compared to using the Xbox360 controller triggers mapped to those but even increasing the mouse DPI from 2000 (which I use for infantry) to 3200 I found it awkward moving the mouse enough to make large/sharp turns and the controller is much better for me.

I never said it was easy, nor that you didn't need a teacher - I pointed out you should do small things first and do them over and over and then build yourself up and then explained how we learn things to point out that trying to learn everything at once isn't the way to do it because of the overload of info - that keeping things simple was the best way.

I didn't once mention controllers, your reply seems to indicate that I have done or that in some way my post was not helpful so i'm a little confused why you said what you said lol. If you can think of another way to help someone when your only medium is a forum then please let us know. I can't help out with your controllers - you don't even need any to fly with anyway as the mouse and keyboard is fine - I use a joystick but I can tell you now that lifting off and landing again is easy, you press up, then you press down. Once your done that 30 times now try bringing the aircraft to a hover just above the ground and keep it in the same spot - practice that for an hour or 2 - simple things which will build up your base skills for the bigger things you will want to do later.

There's no point offering advice on how to do things, people need to work that out for themselves but easy lessons that will yield good results are easy to point out but aren't obvious to begin with.

[doveman 7]

I didn't once mention controllers, your reply seems to indicate that I have done or that in some way my post was not helpful so i'm a little confused why you said what you said lol

Sorry for any confusion, my points about controllers weren't in reply to your post.

[aseliot 2]

On the contrary, they are quite easy to fly. They just require a little familiarity.

Meh then i will probably never fly in a heli in this game, in bf3 i also had problems with it (and thought it was too hard) at first but then i learned that and it is indeed actually pretty easy, but this... is a whole other level... After all my tries i just give up. No heli's for me if they are like i just cannot get the hang of it sometimes i try to go forward and it suddenly just launches the nose towards the ground and i am like "how the fuck, did i do that?" and then i am either too late to get it up again or just make it lol.

[Harzach 2517]

Buy a joystick with throttle, you will find it much easier, all the best pilots use them.

Definitely not true. See: Dslyecxi. If you're going to add any controllers, I'd say a decent set of rudder pedals is of far higher priority than a stick/throttle.

TrackIR is a great benefit whether you are on the ground or in the air, so +1 on that.

I think it has been mentioned already, but rebinding a few keys is pretty much necessary for effective helo pilotage. I find this to be effective:

Collective - W/S

Anti-torque/rudder - A/D (or even better, rudder pedals)

Cyclic - Mouse

Good luck!

[Lucasmnunesk 2]

The main problem in learning to fly on a Heli is beacause there are many options, and they would overwhelm you, but try the options you can before making investments, lots of really good players fly better on keyboar/mouse than with joysticks, and others do the other way around. ATM i don't have a joystick and don't plan to buy one and i do pretty well on M+KB but i still have lot to learn.

[Sneakson 1]

Can ANYONE just go straight up to a freaking landing pad and go from 200 to 0 and make a landing? Or does everyone spin around like an idiot for a minute or two before landing? I'd got AT-d down so bad if it were multiplayer.

Showcase: Helicopters is so damn anal because 1) you have a chopper with no downward visibility and 2) you have to land at Mike which is cluttered with tall poles you can't hit, buildings and sloped ground that makes you tip over.

If they were like "Hey man you can land wherever you want man no problem" it would be ok but daaamn Mike is tight!

I just learned that leaning left and right eliminates sideways momentum and auto-hover does wonders for landing once you're in the right spot.

[Phillup11 1]

Its pretty much keep the helicopter balanced. Best way is to practice hovering without using auto hover and get accustomed to the physics and controls. Just takes time and practice. :)

[machineabuse 11]

The problem with people learning to fly helos is that they try to start from the hardest part of flying a helo which is hovering. The first thing you need to do learn in helos (in ArmA) is how to maintain a forward flight profile and the relationship between collective and cyclic angle.

As for Airstation Mike I agree that landing there in a Kasatka is more advanced than is suitable for a novice.

Also +1 on not using auto hover!

[marcai 1]

. I'm currently attempting to master the art of flying the Little Bird for attack runs and find myself having to make ludicrous (and somewhat suicidal) manouveres in order to bring my guns to bear on the enemy. Either this, or remain stationary to gain my bearings and attempt to spot my opponent, only to be blasted from the cockpit. Whilst I am trying to use my joystick (I feel that not having used it for a decade, it deserves at least one outing), I've even splashed out and bought TrackIR in the hope it would increase my performance. Instead I'm simply finding it harder to get the damned crosshairs over a foe with slightly off-center camera combined awkwardly with the joystick movement being in too large increments of movement.

I don't know if it's my unfamiliarity with TrackIR, the fact I'm using a joystick, the mountainous nature of Stratis, the flight model or all of the above mixed together. I've racked up a good 100 hours just trying to fly around now. Whilst the flying part is pretty easy, I'm finding it most difficult to do the aforementioned engagements (especially when the foe is ast the bottom of a valley) or failing at the landing flourish and overshooting my landing mark (I'm trying my hardest to stay in 1st person for this). Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated.