Autorotation landing

[andersson 285]

As there might be alot of people unaware of the possibility to do an emergency autorotation landing with your chopper, I thought I should give some info about it.

About autorotation.

If your engine stops for some reason (out of fuel or engine damage) you must decrease your throttle to the minimum as fast as you can. If you do it quick enough your rotor do not slow down and your chopper will decend slowly (but steady..). So during that time you need to find a spot you can land on and carefully manouver over there. When you are a couple of meters above the ground you give full throttle so you brake the speed a bit before touchdown.

If you are too slow with your throttle and the rotor slows down (doesnt need much..), you better have enough altitude.. If you are high enough (~1000m, maybe lower?) you can hope the rotor will pick up speed. I have tried to figure out what you can do to speed up the autorotation, but I havent found anything. Sometimes it works and sometimes not...

If you do this right you can get away with very little damage (my best is ~5% damage loss). But often the landing is a bit hard (~50% damage loss), and you should always be ready to jump out incase the chopper is too damaged and explode..

I only play with joystick with throttle so I dont know how this works with mouse/keyboard. I suppose its the same, but I`m not interested to find out as I think flying without joystick is boring..

The only thing I would like to have changed regarding this feature is alittle more time before the rotor slows down. As it is now you need to slam the throttle to min almost simultaneous as the engine stops. Maybe it is realistic, if so I´m happy. Maybe there is some trick, if so please inform me. I have tried this with a trigger that put the fuel to zero (as I cant shut down the engine when using the lates beta-patch).

I suppose you can as a safety measure pull the throttle to min the moment you are taking serious hits/damage, and you are afraid you will get a serious problem with fuel/engine?

Ok, into the editor and practice emergency landings now! Its very exciting to do it above forrest, in the dark or when flying low and fast! In the next MP session with my friend we will take turns as co-pilot shutting down the engine when the pilot least expect it, just to practice this  

[ArmaVidz 0]

Impressive manuever. I think practicing this "incase" is a great idea, but making it a common use in multi without the need to do so (engine failure/damage) might prove "dissappointing" to those in the server.

I'll give it a try, and see if I can pull it off consistently. After all, every takes a little flak now and again  

[max power 21]

Foreward speed also helps as it allows you to flare at then end. I've crashlanded after autorotating a few times... and left a smoking crater more often than that. Altitude and foreward airspeed are your friend.

[bonko the sane 2]

a potencially life saving manouever, i did it a lot in OFP, sometimes to save my passengers and my life but mostly to evade AI radar, engine was off...no red square in contacts, you could almost land on top of them

didnt know they kept this feature in Arma, nice one!

[evil koala 6]

Alright! They fixed it The last time I tried auto's was in 1.02 and they didnt work. I never read anything in the patch notes about it. I just tried one and it does work, although I find it rather odd that you lose rotor rpm from diving and gaining airspeed at flat pitch. That should increase rotor speed, to the point you have to increase collective to prevent rotor overspeed.

But at least its possible now.

[4 IN 1 0]

i tested it since 1.01 and it have always been there, dunno why others said that its not there

edit:in fact i got a little habit that whenever i got hit, i decrease my throttle right after it when i got enought Atl b4 i check if my engine is on or off in menu

[INNOCENT&CLUELESS 0]

Yea, autorotation is there, recognized it by accident since I am the most downed pilot in ArmA I am professional in that.In RL I am not sure if the clutches are also between main gearbox and rotorheat. If not, a hit in that gearbox causing blocking, blocks also the rotor, or is there a kind of freewheeling?

[Maddmatt 1]

It would be nice if pilots in ArmA couldn't eject (since I'm sure most choppers don't have an eject feature), then it would force pilots to use this instead of just bailing out. Maybe passengers should be allowed to paradrop, but they should be killed if they hit the rotor blades. That would stop them from bailing when the chopper is going down

Also autorotation in ArmA should probably be improved, it's pretty difficult as it is. I usually end up in a burning wreck when I try it

[BroK3n 0]

Wait... there's autorotation?

Never heard that was possible in Arma of OFP but whoo hoo!

[andersson 285]

It would be nice if pilots in ArmA couldn't eject (since I'm sure most choppers don't have an eject feature), then it would force pilots to use this instead of just bailing out.

Ofcourse pilots must be able to eject! But parachute or not is another thing  

I think that it would be best that no unit, except fighterpilots, had parachutes as default. I really dislike this auto-parachute that everyone have right now..

It would be best to equip yourself with a parachute ingame if necessary, and ofcourse there is the ability to add parachutes in the editor so you can have all fancy paradrops in a mission.

Quote[/b] ]Also autorotation in ArmA should probably be improved, it's pretty difficult as it is. I usually end up in a burning wreck when I try it

To get an almost 100% survivalrate try this; decrease your throttle BEFORE the engine stops, then you have a nice autorotation. If done right the flare and increased collective just before touchdown can save your chopper from any bigger damage. But you should be able to survive a quite hard landing.

I can do a succesful emergency landing from very low altitudes, the qlue is to be proactiv and decrease the collective in time.

in "real-game" ( ) you must be pro-active, because 1/10th of a second to late you have problems getting the autorotation started. Do like 4 in 1:

Quote[/b] ]edit:in fact i got a little habit that whenever i got hit, i decrease my throttle right after it when i got enought Atl b4 i check if my engine is on or off in menu

[Maddmatt 1]

It would be nice if pilots in ArmA couldn't eject (since I'm sure most choppers don't have an eject feature), then it would force pilots to use this instead of just bailing out.

Ofcourse pilots must be able to eject! But parachute or not is another thing

But real chopper pilots are not able to simply eject, they would get sliced by the rotor blades. Maybe there should be a 'jump out of door' action, where hitting the rotor blades slices you up

Quote[/b] ]

To get an almost 100% survivalrate try this; decrease your throttle BEFORE the engine stops, then you have a nice autorotation. If done right the flare and increased collective just before touchdown can save your chopper from any bigger damage. But you should be able to survive a quite hard landing.

I can do a succesful emergency landing from very low altitudes, the qlue is to be proactiv and decrease the collective in time.

When the chopper is seriously damaged, you cannot usually afford even a slight bit of damage because otherwise you end up in a ball of fire. It will take me some more practice to get that right. Especially since my current joystick is a Logitech one - the top of the range Force 3D Pro from Logitech and it's still pretty crappy.

[andersson 285]

I was playing 5 min ago with my friend. I managed to do a soft landing without taking any damage. I was flying an AH6. But yes, I need to practice...

He hadnt plugged in his joystick and he tried this with mouse and keyboard. We saw flames... Is this possible with mouse/keyboard?

[ArMoGaDoN 0]

I have been playing with this in the editor for some time since I saw auto-rotation mentioned elsewhere. I have a radio trigger on the map that does vehiclename setFuel 0 to emulate engine death.

You cannot raise your rotor speed at all by increasing forward speed and losing altitude, whatever you try to do with the collective/throttle control. So no, realistic autorotation is not possible at the moment in ArmA.

With some luck some degree of controlled landing is possible, but only with luck I think

[5133p39 12]

I was playing 5 min ago with my friend. I managed to do a soft landing without taking any damage. I was flying an AH6. But yes, I need to practice...

He hadnt plugged in his joystick and he tried this with mouse and keyboard. We saw flames... Is this possible with mouse/keyboard?

Yes it is possible even with keyboard only :-)

I didn't think this works in ArmA, so i never tried, until now.

But i think it's way too easy - with a 30 minutes practicing i am now able to perform successful AR landing in any situation with 90% effectiveness.

When your Cobra's engine dies you just do the following (note that this aplies to ArmA, reality is somewhat different):

1. Decrease the "throttle" all to zero.

Normally it's called a "collective", but ArmA flight model is actually using a throttle (RPM) in place of collective control, so in ArmA it is the throttle you must lower to zero to achieve the desired effect (which in reality is to lower the collective "angle of attack" of rotor blades, which helps to maintain rotor RPM).

Remember to lower the throttle even if your engine died - it's used to simulate the collective, and it seems to have this effect (even when your engine died, your collective AOA is still the same, so you must lower it).

2. level the aircraft.

By using pitch (cyclic) controll, level the aircraft.

This should maximalize the amount of air flowing up through the rotor blades, increasing the RPM.

You will start descending relatively repidly, but don't let it to scare you - if you are above 200 meters, you still have anough time to gain speed before the landing.

3. start gliding

Depending on your altitude, you can slowly start gliding toward the place where you want to land while slowly gaining speed.

If your alt is higher than 200 meters and you have plenty of place, there is no need to rush, just watch the speed of your descent (unfortunately in ArmA there is no descent speed indicator - you can only watch how fast your alt is changing, which needs a little practice).

You should balance the glide so that when aproaching the altitude of 100 meters your forward speed should be around 80-100 kmh (although 60 kmh is doable to, more is usually better, and all depends on the descent rate and your current RPM).

You must gaining the speed gently, not by pushing the stick forward to pitch the nose all down to gain speed - then you will start to lose RPM while increasing the speed of your descent).

4. Initiate the "Flare"

At the altitude of 50 meters (or slightly before - depending on your speed, rate of descent, and RPM), you should use the cyclic to turn the nose up, which considerably slows down your descent rate and your forward speed.

It is a good practice to horizontally level the aircraft prior the touchdown.

If your descent is still too fast, you can try to use collective (throttle), but i am not sure whether this does have any effect in this situation in ArmA.

[nephilim 0]

haha how cool never realized this XD

great!

[andersson 285]

If your descent is still too fast, you can try to use collective (throttle), but i am not sure whether this does have any effect in this situation in ArmA.

I´m not sure, but I think that you can use the collective/throttle to brake. I believe that the throttle are combined with collective in arma as I have noticed that effect. That would also explain why the rotor slows down if you do not put the throttle to minimum.

If I brake succesfully the chopper doesnt get damaged (not much anyway), but if I brake to early or to late its a wreck. This is with the same angle and speed before landing.

[max power 21]

Okay.. increasing the collective increases the lift of the rotor but also increases the drag. You can imagine this uses up energy, slowing down the rotor. Decreasing it decreases lift and drag. You can imagine this loads the rotor with energy.

So, what you want to do when autorotating (that is, having the rotor rotate itself), is load the rotor with energy so you can use it later to slow the decent of the aircraft down. What you want to do is load the rotor with as much energy as possible in the initial stages by slamming down the collective and pitching forward to get some airspeed. Then you want to return to neutral pitch as you decend. Finally, when you flair, pull back on the stick and return the collective to neutral. If you're about to smash into the ground, ram the collective up, which will take all of the energy out of the rotors and put it into decellerating the helicopter one final bit.

[4 IN 1 0]

wouldnt it be better to creat a sample mission which teach ppl how to due with it(with help text?)

[max power 21]

Naw, people can create their own sample missions.

[mattxr 9]

Its been there since OFP, i learnt that in my clan long long ago lol. Also BIS had written about it for OFP LONG time ago.

[max power 21]

It's much harder to do in arma tho.

[mattxr 9]

Not when i tested it, Blades About to Stop After Being Dammaged. Press and Hold Z Keep Steady with Joystick 50/50% you will blow or not lol.

Unless there is another way, i think i will read on lol.

Edit: Infact im going to test some more and maybe make a video.

[john_mcclane 0]

It's nice to see a thread about this. I've known about it from OFP for years. While you can't do a completely realistic auto-rotation, it's still great to have the ability to survive an engine failure. And it's fun to practice!

I often end up doing an auto-rotation following a hit that's caused rapid fuel loss. I like to stay in the fight as long as possible, then just before running out of fuel, bug out and find a relatively safe LZ (or RTB), then auto-rotate in.

[Daniel 0]

Aw wow, I never realised I could do that in ArmA! Or OFP.  

Ha, it's pretty fun too.

EDIT: I'm using a keyboard, works fine if I whack and hold the Z key as soon as I get hit. If you're practicing, pressing Q turns the engine back on, but Z only keeps the rotors from slowing down too fast.

[Daniel 0]

YouTube Vid -

It's pretty easy to simulate this. Just stick two AA soldiers down on your flightpath, and fly past them. The first rocket usually disables your tail rotor, which doesnt affect the UH-60 too much. The second almost always knocks out your engine, at which point you attempt to glide your way out putting yourself and your passengers into a crater.  

You can definately tell the difference when you don't press Z / reduce throttle.