Advanced Helicopter FDM Feedback

[spanishsurfer 58]

BIS, new command needs to go on your WIKI for forcing rotolib server side: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/server.cfg

forceRotorLibSimulation: 0 - options, 1 - forced on, 2 - forced off) - overrides description.ext

[spanishsurfer 58]

I've had some time to fly around with AFM and it feels much more true to life. My 1 complaint is with VRS. It behaves as it should MOST of the time. I've been messing with it A LOT and have found that entry into and recovery from VRS feels OK. My one issue comes from instances where I went into VRS where I shouldnt have. My rate of descent (ROD) was 50-100 fps @ 20m altitude (ALT) and every now and then the CHINOOK (or whatever its called) will go into VRS (ROD pegs, heli shakes, and EXPLOSION). From what I know about VRS, you shouldn't see it if your ROD is under 300 fps which I was clearly under, I even had a forward speed of 10-15km/h which should have prevent VRS in that situation...To me, VRS feels like it comes on a little too soon in terms of ROD.

[spanishsurfer 58]

More feedback...why does the Blackfoot like to roll over on it's side so much? Seems like every time I land if I'm not ULTRA careful on the landing it just rolls right on over, anyone else? If it's all me I'd appreciate advice, I'm using analogue collective and coming down smooth....

*edit : also it doesn't seem to auto...Every time I take damage the nose dips down and I go face first into the dirt....doesn't matter what I do.

Edited December 12, 2014 by SpanishSurfer

[quickvenge 10]

More feedback...why does the Blackfoot like to roll over on it's side so much? Seems like every time I land if I'm not ULTRA careful on the landing it just rolls right on over, anyone else? If it's all me I'd appreciate advice, I'm using analogue collective and coming down smooth....

*edit : also it doesn't seem to auto...Every time I take damage the nose dips down and I go face first into the dirt....doesn't matter what I do.

I haven't flown the Blackfoot in awhile, but I just tried it and have no issues landing it. Are you trying to do a rolling landing? I also didn't have issues auto-rotating, but this was done with engine off. Maybe your main rotor was getting shot off.

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

Don't forget the AH-99 also has a very narrow footprint with it's landing gear so may be more prone to roll-over if any lateral movement occurs when landing.

[MODE4 10]

Advanced Helicopter FDM Feedback

Flight Experience - behavior and handling of helicopters

GUI- layout customization, lucidity, informativeness etc.

Controls - schemes usability, customization, controllers issues and related

I actually joined the forums to comment on this Advance Helicopter Flight Model. A little background on my experience, Playing in ARMA I , II , and III + VBS 2 and About 7 years and 2,000 hrs flying UH-60s for the U.S. Army. So now my review of the new advanced flight model.

Flight Experience in the new build.

AH-9 - Flew about 2 hours, an hour in the pattern and an hour in the mountains of stratis. Flight controls at a hover, Cyclic was very good, tail rotor responsiveness and pedals felt very realistic and I appreciated the vibration that the new flight model adds to the helicopter. The collective / Toque needs work. I feel like the inputs to the collective is extremely delayed. Taking off was good, I feel that Effective Transnational Lift takes a little to long to take effect, should be about 10-24 knots (also too lazy to do that conversion since the gauge is in KPH :( ). Cruise flight was ok, lots of issues with turn and slip i.e. trim and turn coordination. I had a hard time keeping the aircraft in trim in turns and maintaining altitude in turns. Landing the helicopter is not so solid, My rudemetery VSI gauge that was given to me has no number display so I'm looking at a bar sliding up and down to determine my TQ setting for landing, I have no idea what my OGE or IGE hover power is. I had an issue with the fact that if I came to an OGE hover while landing and reduced the collective slightly the damn aircraft settled with power.

ISSUE 1: Now I know you guys recently added vortex ring state to the flight model but I really think that it is exaggerated. I felt that the AH-9 and the 60 flew similar which pissed me off.

ISSUE 2: There was entirely way too much vibration in the Ghosthawk which should have some form of active vibration dampening.

ISSUE 3: The aircraft roll too easy on the ground and as we all know, once it goes over, it explodes.

ISSUE 4: Aircraft rotor droops if I pull too much power, I like that, but I need to know how much TQ I'm pulling. What is my Max TQ?

ISSUE 5: When trying to decelerate the helicopter, aircraft climbs even with a reduction in TQ.

GUI- layout customization, lucidity, informativeness etc.

ISSUE 6:Units for airspeed and altitude are incorrect . Aircraft airspeed gauges are in KNOTS, nautical miles per hour NOT KPH. Altitude is in Feet, either Barro, gps or radar altitude its always in feet, non meters.

ISSUE 7:There is no Torque gauge, If I had a torque gauge I could set my hover torque for landing. The information in the GUI is good, but it would be better with the popper units and the addition of a TQ gauge.

Controls - schemes usability, customization, controllers issues and related

I only used a keyboard for flying, ill get a joystick and try it out.

ISSUE 8: The collective, it's slow to respond, I have no idea my TQ setting and I have no idea where it's position is, unless im looking at it my cockpit.

Overall I really liked the new model, Thank you for adding it. I found it much harder to fly in Arma then I do to fly in real life. I feel as though you guys modeled the aircraft after the input you received from your ad visors that fly very light single engine aircraft in the traffic pattern only. Please take into consideration that the more advanced multi-engine air-frames like the 60 and the 47 / 46 have a lot more power and a lot more systems to reduce pilot workload. If the aircraft are going to be harder and more realistic to fly. give pilots more avionics to help them complete their mission like FLIR and terrain following radar and Auto pilot. After all, it is the future.

[EricJ 724]

I'll agree with the above. No I"ve never piloted real helos but some of the flight dynamics need a shit ton of revising and can only support the previous. When manageable it is fun to fly but overall it needs to be tweaked better.

[EricJ 724]

I took a short spin with 1.38 and it seems to be much better now, didn't roll over and quite honestly thought I was on Standard FM. If not... well it seems much better anyway.

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

I took a short spin with 1.38 and it seems to be much better now, didn't roll over and quite honestly thought I was on Standard FM. If not... well it seems much better anyway.

I don't recall seeing any changes to the AFM in the patch notes?

[St. Jimmy 272]

Hmmm maybe PhysX library change made the difference?

[Jerkzilla 1]

Finally decided to play around with this properly and get my head tracking setup to work with Arma 3. This is very nice, zipping around, between trees with the Mh-9 feels awesome, more so than the Huey in DCS.

One thing though, that input lag. I don't know if this is actually input lag, I don't get it when on foot or with any control other than joystick, but there is a small, constant delay between cyclic input of any magnitude and the helicopter's reaction. Initially, I thought this is a simplified way of simulating the aircraft's momentum, except that I can move the stick all the way to the side and back to center very fast and the helicopter will still react after the stick movement is complete. My grasp of physics may be tenuous, but I'm pretty sure this is impossible.

It's the one problem I have with the FM, because it makes neutralizing oscillations unreasonably difficult.

[EricJ 724]

I don't recall seeing any changes to the AFM in the patch notes?

Maybe as the Ghost Hawk doesn't roll around like a motherfucker when you land anymore. Still the collective is a PITA but overall I don't mind flying on Advanced as much now.

[EricJ 724]

Still going fine though again the collective needs some less sensitivity even with joystick adjustment, but still going good.

[ruPal 143]

One thing though, that input lag. I don't know if this is actually input lag, I don't get it when on foot or with any control other than joystick, but there is a small, constant delay between cyclic input of any magnitude and the helicopter's reaction. Initially, I thought this is a simplified way of simulating the aircraft's momentum, except that I can move the stick all the way to the side and back to center very fast and the helicopter will still react after the stick movement is complete. My grasp of physics may be tenuous, but I'm pretty sure this is impossible.

It's the one problem I have with the FM, because it makes neutralizing oscillations unreasonably difficult.

So true! They just implement input lag instead of any kind of inertion. It is very sad.

[blackpixxel 53]

Finally decided to play around with this properly and get my head tracking setup to work with Arma 3. This is very nice, zipping around, between trees with the Mh-9 feels awesome, more so than the Huey in DCS.

One thing though, that input lag. I don't know if this is actually input lag, I don't get it when on foot or with any control other than joystick, but there is a small, constant delay between cyclic input of any magnitude and the helicopter's reaction. Initially, I thought this is a simplified way of simulating the aircraft's momentum, except that I can move the stick all the way to the side and back to center very fast and the helicopter will still react after the stick movement is complete. My grasp of physics may be tenuous, but I'm pretty sure this is impossible.

It's the one problem I have with the FM, because it makes neutralizing oscillations unreasonably difficult.

Yep, I can confirm that and it does affect EVERY joystick command for me, not only helicopters. I can bind the joystics to RWS of MRAPS and I still have this delay. Here is a video which I made months ago to proof it:

The interresting thing is that it is something that is scaled with the simulationtime. If you use 'setacctime 0.1', then the input-lag will get slowed down as well and it takes 10 times the time for the virtual joystick to move when I move my one (Saitek X52 pro, do you maybe have the same one?). If you accelerate the time by 2 or 4, the input-lag is accelerated as well and not noticeable anymore. So the problem is definetly not the hardware, but the game itself does some weird things.

But: When I sit in the cockpit of the modded F18 (http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=22594) there is NO input lag at all. So it is something that Bohemia should be able to fix, because it looks like a problem in their config or vehicle setup.

This definetly has to go, because I cannot hover a helicopter with 0.5 sec delay, I get these annoying oscillations as well. In DCS I can do it, because there the helicopter will react without input lag to my commands. It is time for Bohemia to fix this problem.

[feldmaus 10]

The Trim Function doesn't work like in real. I compared my flight-style with videos(showing choppers landing/starting during heavy weather) on Internet where the weather/wind was rough and the pilots could handle it really easy. You(Bohemia Developers) should decrease the force of the wind and ground effects which are affecting the choppers.

Since i bought ARMA 3 i am flying/training every second day after work with AFM+AutoTrim(deactivated) and i can't handle the start and landing like in real. I have round abouts 200-300 flight hours with different choppers. I am using joystick/pedals/throttle(Logitech G940).

regards

Edited February 13, 2015 by feldmaus

[Sterlingarcherz101 15]

Since i bought ARMA 3 i am flying/training every second day after work with AFM+AutoTrim(deactivated)

regards

Only every second day bra? You need to dump your gf\bf, quit your job and practice harder. Then and only then will you truly be satisfied.

[the_demongod 31]

...and the pilots could handle it really easy.

Because they have thousands of hours flying helicopters in real life which have much more precise controls than your joystick does.

I doubt you even have 2000 hours in arma, and they probably have that just flying alone. Just to put it into perspective.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Because they have thousands of hours flying helicopters in real life which have much more precise controls than your joystick does.

I doubt you even have 2000 hours in arma, and they probably have that just flying alone. Just to put it into perspective.

Real pilots would have far more than 2000 hours. If they're capable of flying in bad weather, that's something that takes serious skill. Someone with 2000 hours would likely be lucky to make it back on land in one piece.

[gatordev 214]

Real pilots would have far more than 2000 hours. If they're capable of flying in bad weather, that's something that takes serious skill. Someone with 2000 hours would likely be lucky to make it back on land in one piece.

Uh, no. Your average Air Force, Marine, and Navy fleet pilot probably has ~1500 hours or less with many having significantly under 1000. Army guys may have a higher average because their Warrants skew the numbers. I've done continuous flying tours for the last 15 years, and while I've slowed down the last couple of years, I'm only just over 3000, and that's with an instructor tour, which makes it very easy to rack up the hours. A lot of guys do non-flying tours, so their numbers are going to be lower.

Edited February 15, 2015 by gatordev

[b00ce 160]

Real pilots would have far more than 2000 hours. If they're capable of flying in bad weather, that's something that takes serious skill. Someone with 2000 hours would likely be lucky to make it back on land in one piece.

Most of my pilots have under 1000 hours (Even ones who have been deployed), which is nothing to sneeze at either. Bad weather is subjective though, high winds (Assuming they're under 45 knots for startup and shutdown) aren't as big of a problem as you might think, unless you're trying to do swoopty crap like hoists and fastrope and stuff. Winds actually help helicopters fly (As long as you're flying into them) believe it or don't. As long as your vision isn't obstructed (heavy rain, clouds, fog etc.) you're golden.

[ruPal 143]

1. It doesn't matter how many flight hours you have in reality cause flight model in Arma 3 is pretty different.

2. Arma 3 has less settings for joystick setup.

That is why your real helicopter flight skills not useful in arma 3.

[Sterlingarcherz101 15]

Most of my pilots have under 1000 hours (Even ones who have been deployed), which is nothing to sneeze at either. Bad weather is subjective though, high winds (Assuming they're under 45 knots for startup and shutdown) aren't as big of a problem as you might think, unless you're trying to do swoopty crap like hoists and fastrope and stuff. Winds actually help helicopters fly (As long as you're flying into them) believe it or don't. As long as your vision isn't obstructed (heavy rain, clouds, fog etc.) you're golden.

What are you and gaterdevs view on AFM as it is in game.

[gatordev 214]

What are you and gaterdevs view on AFM as it is in game.

I really need to break out my joystick again and see how the model is now that it's much more mature. There were some nice additions while it was in the Dev Build, but overall, I felt that it was overdone in a lot of areas and I kind of gave up right about when VRS was being introduced. With VRS not really something that's normally encountered, it seemed like it was just one more thing to make it harder, which isn't necessarily the same thing as "realistic."

I tend to only get about an hour of playing A3 every few days right now, so my testing time has been limited, but I'll hook the joystick back up soon and give it a go, especially with additions like RHS helicopters, so we can fly existing models and not made up ones.

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

I really need to break out my joystick again and see how the model is now that it's much more mature. There were some nice additions while it was in the Dev Build, but overall, I felt that it was overdone in a lot of areas and I kind of gave up right about when VRS was being introduced. With VRS not really something that's normally encountered, it seemed like it was just one more thing to make it harder, which isn't necessarily the same thing as "realistic."

I tend to only get about an hour of playing A3 every few days right now, so my testing time has been limited, but I'll hook the joystick back up soon and give it a go, especially with additions like RHS helicopters, so we can fly existing models and not made up ones.

I believe the RHS helicopters just utilise the vanilla Arma 3 advanced flight models based on similarities in airframe design. For example the Mi-17 flies identically to the CH-49 Mohawk.