optional alternative flight model

[evil koala 6]

In addition to murderous's comments, the flight model doesnt seem to allow the aircraft to cyclic climb.. You can demonstrate this by cruising straight and level, and without touching the collective, pull back on the cyclic.. The aircraft will pitch up, climb slightly, then continue to pitch without moving in the direction the nose is pointed (up) even with a large amount of speed left. This makes climbing over mountains rediculous. You have to almost stop and climb over them.

This also is what caused murderous to crash into the side of a hill, as it does the same thing when trying to point the nose horizontally.

[murderous 0]

Exxxactly.  The actual 'root' of the flight model failure I encountered was there's no aft cyclic aerodynamic effect.  You can put the input in, the nose will cosmetically appear to go up a bit but there is no response via flight path.  This is the case in a cyclic climb (fuselage level, pull back w/out reducing collective, aircraft should RAPIDLY climb while bleeding airspeed)  or a standard turn where you bank the aircraft 50 degrees or so, pull aft cyclic, and again...nose appears to move, flight path remains the same. It appears that the current model models aft cyclic more like a giant air brake.

[4 IN 1 0]

hum good points there, as i always think there is still something missing in the FM

[b1sh0p 0]

I had OFP since release, but I didn't play it that much. When I did play, I played mostly infantry, and hardly touched anything with wings or rotors.

Since getting ArmA however, I've fallen in love with the choppers. With just a little practice offline (30 minutes to an hour) I went online and people were complimenting me on my piloting skills.

I can't say if I like the old model better, because like I said I didn't touch choppers in OFP. But I must say, those who say it's impossible to fly them in ArmA are just lazy, and haven't put any time into practicing with them. I learned quickly in just one very short practice session, and I'm only getting better since then. The flight model is NOT that difficult to master. Personally I think they should have made it even more realistic than they did. (Anyone else find it kind of funny that when your tail rotor fails, you can still fly in a straight line as long as you keep your speed up? Tail rotor failure should send you into a spin, regardless of your speed.)

[Rune 0]

Those that have been experiencing that terrain following business<in OFP> due to incorrect control setup have been missing out BIG TIME!!

Flying with mouse and keyboard is NOT an incorrect control setup

Quote[/b] ]My point is that the knocking of the OFP FM as being "the old flawed one" is ridiculous and misguided in light of the fact that the ArmA FM is - as I've said - actually virtually identical. All they did by comparison was: make cyclic a little sloppier (a LOT for the MI17), the collective a fair bit softer, build in a faulty yaw/roll coupling (that has been fixed I gather) and bugger the tailrotor authority (soon to be fixed I gather).

I thought the OFP flight model was pretty good actually, but the ArmA one is way better, and you missed a few important differences in my opinion. For instance an OFP helicopter would become radically unstable and flip around chaoticly under some circumstances at high bank angles or backwards/sideways flying causing it to flip inverted at unpredictable times unless you stayed well clear of the limits - basically to fly with a reasonable degree of safety you had to keep the rotor fairly horizontal at all times and only fly  backwards or sideways extremely slowly if at all. Also some real life manuevers where almost impossible to do in OFP(possibly again only when flying with mouse and keyboard) like popping in and out from cover behind a building by sideslipping, in fact the whole hovering experience seems much more responsive now.

And murderous, ANY aircraft rotates about it's center of gravity while flying, always, even in a barrel roll - it's elementary physics likewise you REALLY wouldn't want BIS to double the gravity as a helicopter is slowing down, it would be much more sensible to reduce the lift at minimum collective Dont' get me wrong though, it makes a lot of sense to me what you are saying apart from that...

[RogueRunner 0]

(Anyone else find it kind of funny that when your tail rotor fails, you can still fly in a straight line as long as you keep your speed up? Tail rotor failure should send you into a spin, regardless of your speed.)

Who told you that?

The real world technique would be to reduce the power and keep a forward speed and land with 10 - 20 kts indicated speed. There would be enough weathercock effect to keep everything in kinda a straight line. Needless to say you ain't going anywhere in a hurry if this happens!

ALTHOUGH! this is a game, and a combat simulation at that, not a flight simulator and I find the helicopters fun to drive. There is plenty issues yes, most irritating for me is the lack of pedal authority with forward speed making it very hard to make fine adjustments on a strafing run but yes, I deal with it and work around it!

[Balschoiw 0]

What I hate most when flying with mouse+keyboard is the autocenter function of the mouse that limits mouse+keyboard to "impulse" maneuvering only. Consistent turns are unable to do becasue of autocentre and more than one time this lead me to controlled flight into terrain.

It´s silly, why can´t we have that disabled and glue the steering to the mouse consistent without having to roll,roll,roll the mouse to actually keep the plane turning ? I do not press the the stick in a plane over and over to stay on the same curve, do I ?

Pls get rid of it BIS. It´s annoying...

[max power 21]

And murderous, ANY aircraft rotates about it's center of gravity while flying, always, even in a barrel roll - it's elementary physics likewise you REALLY wouldn't want BIS to double the gravity as a helicopter is slowing down, it would be much more sensible to reduce the lift at minimum collective Dont' get me wrong though, it makes a lot of sense to me what you are saying apart from that...

As the aircraft gains speed, and the aerodynamic forces gain in strength, that centre of pivot creeps towards the aerodynamic centre (those being the rotors on a helicopter), IIRC. He also quoted the 'gravity' part- meaning the net force acting on the aircraft with collective full back should be more in the downwards direction... not that the world should get double the gravity when a helicopter is braking.

[murderous 0]

The real world technique would be to reduce the power and keep a forward speed and land with 10 - 20 kts indicated speed. There would be enough weathercock effect to keep everything in kinda a straight line. Needless to say you ain't going anywhere in a hurry if this happens!

This is a game, but also a self-proclaimed military simulation. So I am offering my expertise to better educate military enthusiasts. For the loss of tail rotor thrust situation you spoke about, 10-20 knots will give youa very nice panaramic view of the world. In a UH-60 and most other aircraft, 80-100+ knots will provide you some yaw control via the tail fin, or cambered fairing. (yes, the weathervain effect.) Any slower and you will yaw uncontrollable (think blackhawk down.) At which point your course of action is to bring your engines offline to eliminate any more production of tourque and use your remaining rotor RPM to cushion your landings.

[murderous 0]

And murderous, ANY aircraft rotates about it's center of gravity while flying, always, even in a barrel roll - it's elementary physics likewise you REALLY wouldn't want BIS to double the gravity as a helicopter is slowing down, it would be much more sensible to reduce the lift at minimum collective Dont' get me wrong though, it makes a lot of sense to me what you are saying apart from that...

Not being argumentative here.  What I was trying to imply was the aircraft can be maneuvered (the point of a barrel roll)which is not just a stick input to the right or left.  A blackhawk (though restricted by army regs) could theoretically roll around its rotor system w/ the correct control inputs and centrifugal force.  Its understood that plain right stick rotates the aircraft around CG.  But if you draw a line in the sky straight ahead of the aircraft starting at the rotor mast, I'd imagine after a few ILLEGAL attempts I could keep the mast on the line throughout the roll.  Which, in turn just rotated the aircraft around the rotor system, with non-standard control input. Again, w/ a normal right or left cyclic displacement, the aircraft rotates around CG.

[Rune 0]

That sounds about right

I objected only because you changed the frame of reference for the barrel roll exclusively.

As the aircraft gains speed, and the aerodynamic forces gain in strength, that centre of pivot creeps towards the aerodynamic centre (those being the rotors on a helicopter), IIRC.

It is about the frame of reference and Newton's second law of motion and the timescales involved, like murderous did above, you can choose a coordinate system to put the center of rotation whereever you like, but for basic rotation to occur about something other than the center of gravity you would need to anchor it like a pendulum at the pivot point...needless to say air doesn't work like that What is happening at higher speeds in relation to the aerodynamic center is more a case of looking at longer timescales, and greater aerodynamic forces in relation to inertial mass, that make the the center of gravity point get lost in the more or less random drifting about that other forces cause...erm...I think  

Quote[/b] ]He also quoted the 'gravity' part- meaning the net force acting on the aircraft with collective full back should be more in the downwards direction... not that the world should get double the gravity when a helicopter is braking.

Haha yeah I know, it would be quite a different game if the gravity changed for everyone whenever a helo was slowing down

[RogueRunner 0]

The real world technique would be to reduce the power and keep a forward speed and land with 10 - 20 kts indicated speed. There would be enough weathercock effect to keep everything in kinda a straight line. Needless to say you ain't going anywhere in a hurry if this happens!

This is a game, but also a self-proclaimed military simulation. So I am offering my expertise to better educate military enthusiasts. For the loss of tail rotor thrust situation you spoke about, 10-20 knots will give youa very nice panaramic view of the world. In a UH-60 and most other aircraft, 80-100+ knots will provide you some yaw control via the tail fin, or cambered fairing. (yes, the weathervain effect.) Any slower and you will yaw uncontrollable (think blackhawk down.) At which point your course of action is to bring your engines offline to eliminate any more production of tourque and use your remaining rotor RPM to cushion your landings.

Well, maybe I should have phrased reduce power better but yes, you dump everything and can use little power to extend the glide. There is one outcome true, you WILL land! The 10 - 20 kts is the last run in landing I was talking about and yes, you need quite some forward speed to remain going somewhat straight.

No one said it was going to be pretty and those I have witnessed thus far resulted in one tail cut off (B206) and one ending on it's side (oryx).

[peterj 0]

1: Tail rotor autority needs to taper off at 40-50 knots and be *almost* gone by 80. At 50kts or greater all you can do is place the aircraft out of trim. (A sideslip...but not past 25 degrees off direction of flight at 50 and decreasing up to 80.)

So you would say the UH-60 in Arma is somewhat accurate when it comes tail rotor authority?

The 206 in flight simulator x is very different, you'll be able to induce a quite large sideslip even at 100 knots, which in turn will slow and upset the aircraft.

The almost complete loss of tail rotor authority for all helicopters in Arma is most noticeable when you try to strafe a target, as you pick up speed you won't be able to adjust your aim using the pedals.

[max power 21]

It is about the frame of reference and Newton's second law of motion and the timescales involved, like murderous did above, you can choose a coordinate system to put the center of rotation whereever you like, but for basic rotation to occur about something other than the center of gravity you would need to anchor it like a pendulum at the pivot point...needless to say air doesn't work like that What is happening at higher speeds in relation to the aerodynamic center is more a case of looking at longer timescales, and greater aerodynamic forces in relation to inertial mass, that make the the center of gravity point get lost in the more or less random drifting about that other forces cause...erm...I think

I'm not quite sure what you mean by timescales. You might have to reexplain yourself for those of us who haven't taken any physics for greater than 10 years.

I was dicussing this earlier on this forum and I was fairly convinced that aircraft always rotate around their centre of gravity too, but I think it was a pilot who pointed out that aerodynamic forces argument. I was quite surprised. It would be nice to find these situations explained in a text book. The only aerodynamic resources I have are fixed-wing based, and I've only flown fixed wing aircraft.

In a barrel roll, the helicopters in ArmA seem to behave like at least some helicopters do in videos in real life... quite messy and floppy on the exit, and they rotate around a very high point on the aircraft. It's a little annoying to have the blackhawk swinging like it's on a pendulum in a hover when you're trying to land in a fairly tight spot, when the aircraft would almost certainly rotate around the CG, but on the whole I find the FM very fun to fly!

Quote[/b] ]

So you would say the UH-60 in Arma is somewhat accurate when it comes tail rotor authority?

If km/h was exchanged for knots!

I kind of like that the helicopters are brutal to fly. A friend of mine and I were playing on a coop map together meant for something like 20 or 30 people. Two role slots were the aircrew for a cobra. He and I nearly finished the mission with just the cobra using lots and lots of masking. It took us only like 4 or so missions to completely depopulate one side of the map and we took no hostile fire what so ever. Those things are super powerful already. I think that BIS should really consider making those helicopters low-grade threats to infantry so that they'll engage hovering attack helicopters in the absense of other hostiles. Being able to detect, maneover and cut apart enemy armour and soft vehicles with ease and then being able to basicly hover over and taunt the troops while you leisurely joke about which one you're going to kill first is too much!

[murderous 0]

Ok just took her around the block to feel it out some more. I still agree with all of my critiques above and have a couple more for the flight model.

1- Tail rotor authority at full speed should move the nose about twice as much left/right than it moves now. But no more!

2- The sound of the helicopter's rotors is that of a 2 bladed hughey.

3- Not a big deal, I kinda like it the way it is...but you CAN land the H-60 A LOT harder than is modeled and fly away as soon as the grunts get out...w/ no broken parts:)

[peterj 0]

If km/h was exchanged for knots!

I kind of like that the helicopters are brutal to fly. A friend of mine and I were playing on a coop map together meant for something like 20 or 30 people. Two role slots were the aircrew for a cobra. He and I nearly finished the mission with just the cobra using lots and lots of masking. It took us only like 4 or so missions to completely depopulate one side of the map and we took no hostile fire what so ever. Those things are super powerful already. I think that BIS should really consider making those helicopters low-grade threats to infantry so that they'll engage hovering attack helicopters in the absense of other hostiles. Being able to detect, maneover and cut apart enemy armour and soft vehicles with ease and then being able to basicly hover over and taunt the troops while you leisurely joke about which one you're going to kill first is too much!

I don't think troops armed with rifles should oppose a threat unless you're really close. Most attack helicopters are designed to withstand small arms fire.

However I'd say there are plenty of other threats, tanks, shilkas, other AA and strelas. I've been shot down several times online by T-72s, while flying the UH-60. It's quite easy to hit a UH-60 flying towards you with the main gun.

[Rune 0]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by timescales.  You might have to reexplain yourself for those of us who haven't taken any physics for greater than 10 years.

Yeah, sorry

Well it is just a guess at how it could seem to move from an aerodynamical point of view, or even when calculating aerodynamic stuff. The 'timescales' thing was about how long you observe something before making a conclusion about how it moves. The center of gravity point I made was, in principle, about very short periods of an object being subjected to torque - in such a case you can ignore all other forces acting on the object and say it rotates about the center of gravity. If on the the other hand you make, say, a long term averaging of a hovering helicopters motion, by 'drawing' a line in 3 dimensions directly along the main rotor axis through the rotor hub at each millisecond over an hour of hovering over a fixed point. you would then be able to average out some point above the rotor hub as a 'center of rotation' by virtue of it being the most frequent point of intersection of those lines...the helicopter would, on average have to tilt 'into' the desired hovering position a little or else it would float away, somewhat like a pendulum. BUT if you instead averaged the interections of the lines only with lines that were recorded 1 millisecond apart, then you could find that to be very near to the center of gravity - it is in that sense I say that timescale can be a factor

[Motys 0]

Quote[/b] ]OFP gamer friendly one?

If you can't fly, just don't fly.

[Beagle 684]

Quote[/b] ]OFP gamer friendly one?

If you can't fly, just don't fly.

Working a way around the FM faults does not make the FM itself better.

[murderous 0]

Just glad this topic keeps getting bumped up...hopefully BIS has noted my input on the subject

[Beagle 684]

...since we do not ask for a second "Jane's Longbow II", just for some improvements to make the FM behave more like that of a helicopter.

[max power 21]

If km/h was exchanged for knots!

I kind of like that the helicopters are brutal to fly. A friend of mine and I were playing on a coop map together meant for something like 20 or 30 people. Two role slots were the aircrew for a cobra. He and I nearly finished the mission with just the cobra using lots and lots of masking. It took us only like 4 or so missions to completely depopulate one side of the map and we took no hostile fire what so ever. Those things are super powerful already. I think that BIS should really consider making those helicopters low-grade threats to infantry so that they'll engage hovering attack helicopters in the absense of other hostiles. Being able to detect, maneover and cut apart enemy armour and soft vehicles with ease and then being able to basicly hover over and taunt the troops while you leisurely joke about which one you're going to kill first is too much!

I don't think troops armed with rifles should oppose a threat unless you're really close. Most attack helicopters are designed to withstand small arms fire.

However I'd say there are plenty of other threats, tanks, shilkas, other AA and strelas. I've been shot down several times online by T-72s, while flying the UH-60. It's quite easy to hit a UH-60 flying towards you with the main gun.

You're confusing the real world with the world of ArmA. In Arma, assault rifles will bring down a cobra.. And there were plenty of AA threats. We killed them all in the course of our 3 or 4 missions... all that were left were some troops ambling about as if they didn't care we were there, and we just chuckles as we hovered 20 meters over them and killed them in different and interesting ways with the 20mm cannon.

actually, relatively few 5.56 bullets are needed to cause a fuel leak that forces the cobra to disengage.

[peterj 0]

If km/h was exchanged for knots!

I kind of like that the helicopters are brutal to fly. A friend of mine and I were playing on a coop map together meant for something like 20 or 30 people. Two role slots were the aircrew for a cobra. He and I nearly finished the mission with just the cobra using lots and lots of masking. It took us only like 4 or so missions to completely depopulate one side of the map and we took no hostile fire what so ever. Those things are super powerful already. I think that BIS should really consider making those helicopters low-grade threats to infantry so that they'll engage hovering attack helicopters in the absense of other hostiles. Being able to detect, maneover and cut apart enemy armour and soft vehicles with ease and then being able to basicly hover over and taunt the troops while you leisurely joke about which one you're going to kill first is too much!

I don't think troops armed with rifles should oppose a threat unless you're really close. Most attack helicopters are designed to withstand small arms fire.

However I'd say there are plenty of other threats, tanks, shilkas, other AA and strelas. I've been shot down several times online by T-72s, while flying the UH-60. It's quite easy to hit a UH-60 flying towards you with the main gun.

You're confusing the real world with the world of ArmA. In Arma, assault rifles will bring down a cobra.. And there were plenty of AA threats. We killed them all in the course of our 3 or 4 missions... all that were left were some troops ambling about as if they didn't care we were there, and we just chuckles as we hovered 20 meters over them and killed them in different and interesting ways with the 20mm cannon.

actually, relatively few 5.56 bullets are needed to cause a fuel leak that forces the cobra to disengage.

No I'm not confusing them, I'm talking about reality which is essentially always the same as how I think Arma should work.

Since small arms fire could down a helicopter in Arma, possibly even at a distance, then unless that is realistic it's better if the ai doesn't engage.

Anyway I passed your point which I agree with, helicopters are very powerful thus they shouldn't be to easy to control.

A challenging flight model also makes it more fun.

[Fiasco 0]

What on earth is wrong with the new one? It more realistic and it's not that hard. 30 minutes practice and you should be fine.

If helicopters being able to roll axialy about the X axis is "more realistic" someone shoot me now.....

[inferno7312 0]

Does BIS say Arma is a filght simulation?

I don't think this game is focus on drive vehical or fly a jet.

If you want more realistic flighting, you should play IL2 or M$ flight-sim not Arma.

 As a transport of man and weapon, the flight model is good enough.