Tips on flying a helicopter?

[Harzach 2517]

Marcai -

A deadzone in your TIR profile will help a lot - what profile are you using now? Also, having easy access to your TIR mute/center keys is a must.

[marcai 1]

Profile is currently set to "Default". I'm honestly not 100% on it's use as of yet and seem to find myself zoomed in when I turn my head to the furthest angles. I've centred it a couple of times, and only just noticed the pause key. Would you recommend centring mid-game rather than just beforehand? I'm failing to see a Deadzone option on the TIR profile editing screen, too, but that could just be an unfamiliarity with the set-up procedures- I only got it a day ago!

PS, I'll try not to clog up the thread with TrackIR help for myself, as it's more a newbie-to-TrackIR issue than an Arma 3 one

[Guest]

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

Turn concept?

Skickat från min Galaxy Nexus via Tapatalk 2

[machineabuse 11]

Deadzone is a function of the curve graph, there is no standalone setting for it. It's also completely preferential; I use the default curve with TrackIR and acclimation took me about 3 weeks. I did try a slightly larger deadzone and found I did not like it.

Centering is very useful. I center every so often because my seating position tends to shift across a session.

Aerial gunnery in the AH-9 at current is very much nerfed from what it was in ArmA 2 by my feel.

Edited April 5, 2013 by Machineabuse

[spanishsurfer 58]

I read a couple posts saying the flight mechanics in Arma 3 are not conducive to good flying. I made this video just for you nay sayers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKjw2E03jTQ

My advice, buy a joystick...you'll never beat us with a mouse and keyboard combination.

:cool:

[Guest]

I read a couple posts saying the flight mechanics in Arma 3 are not conducive to good flying. I made this video just for you nay sayers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKjw2E03jTQ

My advice, buy a joystick...you'll never beat us with a mouse and keyboard combination.

:cool:

Which joystick should i get?

[machineabuse 11]

There's nothing in the video you can't do with a mouse and keyboard. Just saying.

That isn't to say you aren't flying well in the video, but more that's more due to the fact you are a good pilot rather than the fact you have a joystick :)

Edited April 5, 2013 by Machineabuse
disclaimer

[pathetic_berserker 4]

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

Actually after thinking about this some more you may be right. I 've been dabbling with flight sims for so long I don't think I can objectively look at it from a newcomers point of view. Like I said I usually fly with rudder pedals and stick so I suppose my keyboard and mouse set up is the ultra lazy way for when I can't be bothered, and the turn option doesn't really bother me because I know what its doing.

[Harzach 2517]

I read a couple posts saying the flight mechanics in Arma 3 are not conducive to good flying. I made this video just for you nay sayers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKjw2E03jTQ

My advice, buy a joystick...you'll never beat us with a mouse and keyboard combination.

:cool:

My advice, gear means diddly-squat. And no offense, but I agree with Machineabuse - at best, your video is a display of general competency.

[whisper 0]

Turn concept?

Skickat från min Galaxy Nexus via Tapatalk 2

Yes.

That's what I'm trying to explain in the ticket, but I guess I fail

Normally, in a real chopper, you have 3 controls (4 in fact, but modern machines deal with the 4th automatically) :

* Rudder, aka pedals. You push the left or the right pedal with your feet, and it will turn the nose of the chopper left or right, keeping it horizontal

* Collective. A lever, often on the left of the pilot seat, that you can push up or down, and which will control the altitude of the chopper. Pull it, and the chopper goes up, push it, and the chopper goes down

* Cyclic. A stick, in front of pilot. It controls the attitude of the chopper. Pushing/pulling it makes the nose of the chopper go down/up, pushing the collective lft / right will make the chopper bank left / right

That's it.

By default, when you are using mouse and keyboard in ArmA3, the left and right movement of the mouse is bound to "Turn Left" and "Turn Right", which does NOT do what a cyclic does IRL. It is a mix of Clyclic + Rudder (ie, it artificially tries to turn the nose of the chopper on top of making it bank), and the level of rudder applied is inversely proportional to forward speed, while the level of true cyclic (ie bank) applied is propoertional to forward speed. It's rather unintuitive, and prevent some maneuvers to be made both while static and at speed, greatly reducing precision of flight

I uploaded a quick&dirty vid showing effects of default mouse + keyboard controls :

I have another one with modified controls that I need to upload to show the differences

Edited April 5, 2013 by whisper

[machineabuse 11]

The mixing for mouse is intentional and IMO pretty ingenious. At low speeds you want more granular control over the antitorque (You call it "rudder") while at high speeds pitching with the collective becomes more important. Is it 1-1 simulation to how a helo controls? Nope.

Does it need to be? I personally don't think so but I have found it a good compromise since the mouse is the closest thing we have to an analogue control for those of us who don't (yet) own HOTAS and/or pedals for two helo controls that are inherently analogue in input.

As an option why not though I say.

[whisper 0]

The mixing for mouse is intentional and IMO pretty ingenious. At low speeds you want more granular control over the antitorque (You call it "rudder") while at high speeds pitching with the collective becomes more important. Is it 1-1 simulation to how a helo controls? Nope.

Does it need to be? I personally don't think so but I have found it a good compromise since the mouse is the closest thing we have to an analogue control for those of us who don't (yet) own HOTAS and/or pedals for two helo controls that are inherently analogue in input.

As an option why not though I say.

Yes, why not, though I find it horrible and cutting down your control on the bird ;)

My problem is having this as the default setup leading to people thinking flying is hard.

@work atm, can't comment the other video correctly, it's coming up asap

[fraczek 4]

How do you find flying the Ka-60 in A3? At least from my very few attempts, it seems to me that it flies more like a plane than a chopper? I know it's a medium bird and should not be as agile as the the LB, but even so when pushing cyclic left and aft to bank and roll into a hard turn, almost as much as would probably overstress the blades in ToH flight model, the Ka-60 almost doesn't change forward direction. Is that ok? I am no flightsimmer, all my helicopter experience has been just as a passenger :) so it might be correct for all I know. I just find it different from the medium birds in A2.

[machineabuse 11]

KA-60 seems to fly pretty well for what it is. Somewhere between the ArmA 2 UH-1 and MH-60. Easier than the KA-60 in ArmA 2.

[spanishsurfer 58]

You can def be good with a mouse and keyboard but you're at a disadvantage with it. 1. You don't have an analogue option 2. You have to pick up the mouse and bring it to center constantly to maintain a turn.

[deepfried 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.

You've just got to manage your speed on the approach, you should start killing your speed about 1-1.5km out, come in with the nose up and the collective down (so you don't gain height) until you've bleed off enough speed then level off, approach the final 100m at 50kmh, then tip the nose up slightly as you come in and gently release the collective to neutral. It helps a LOT though if you have analogue collective control, and its 10x easier in 3rd person.

[Saliiim 10]

I'm no expert with helicopters, but once you get reasonably good at flying landing without autohover is so much faster than faffing about putting it on, then waiting for the chopper to level out.

Flying exclusively with the keyboard is fine until you get low to the ground, where large inputs will put you into a tree or a building.

---------- Post added at 13:08 ---------- Previous post was at 13:05 ----------

I prefer the Mouse to a joystick, if I had trackIR the mouse would be the perfect control scheme for me.

[ebarstad 18]

The tips for rebinding the controls *really* helped me. Thanks for the great advice, everyone.

[Yairweinberg 1]

Make a straight line into them and fire rockets it will take out but for the most part its something you need to learn on your own

[Sarlac 1]

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?

I would be happy to share my controller setup but I don't particularly want to type it all out. I'm sarlac on steam too so if you add me I can walk you through it and help with learning to fly too. Send me a steam message about this and we can get to it.

[mobile_medic 43]

Hello, all. Just picked up Arma 3 Alpha today.

Was trying to map my mouse for some of the heli controls, but I seem to be having an issue where my mouse always functions as free look and will not perform any of the heli controls that I mapped to it.

Can someone clue me in to what I am doing wrong?

Thanks.

[nodunit 397]

Is "enable freelook" on in your game options?

[mobile_medic 43]

Is "enable freelook" on in your game options?

Thank you. I figured it had to be some overlooked setting :)

[Jex 1]

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

NP :) I was a little confused though lol

---------- Post added at 16:17 ---------- Previous post was at 16:11 ----------

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.

No you CAN do it.

What you need to do is start off with simpler objectives. Learn to just lift off and land over and over, then try hovering.

The thing with arma choppers is they are very sensitive. You need to look at your artificial horizon to see where your nose is pointing. In arma it's very hard to stay still because the slightest dip either left, right, down or up will make your chopper move in that direction.

By just lifting off the ground and making tiny inputs, you should learn how to control it but make sure they are tiny input. Large movements will end up in a crash.

Don't give up! Chopper flying is lots of fun when you get the hang of it. Learning to fly is hard for a beginner and it can take hours of work but once you learn it, every other game you play the skill will transfer across. It's like riding a bike.

[mobile_medic 43]

.....

Edited April 12, 2013 by Mobile_Medic