I can't rotate the helicopters it's when moving?

[ShrubMiK 0]

<Gisen said> "No, it is not a helicopter simulator. A simulator is "A device, computer program or system used during software verification, which behaves or operates like a given system when provided with a set of controlled inputs" - Arma helicopters behave NOTHING like real helicopters when provided with similar inputs. Don't know what you think a simulator is, but you're misinformed."

Waaak! Waak! Waak!

In case you were wondering, that my friend is the sound the Semantics Meta-argument klaxon going off.

I really do find people who insist on arguing over the precise meanings of words rather than what the person making the statement was obviously trying to say rather irritating.

Even more so when doing this involves looking it up in the dictionary and carefully choosing the *one* of *many* definitions which suits you.

And quite amusing when the carefully selected definition actually shoots you in the foot somewhat. How many PC "flight sims" are used for "software verification". Whoops. Clearly it's not as clear cut as you try to make out.

[max power 21]

I'm not sure that he's saying that other pieces of consumer software are not pure simulators or have aspects of pure simulation. I think he's just saying that this particular software can't be used as a simulation for helicopters. Just because talking about definitions irritates you does not mean it is not a valid way to argue. There has been a long standing argument based on the simulation blurb on the box. People see that and when they are disappointed in some aspect of the game they kick at the word simulation in a vain attempt to add substance to their argument. I think that establishing a dividing line between 'simulator' and 'simulation game' is quite relevant and even necessary in some cases.

[Gisen 0]

Yes.

I was just pointing out that he doesn't have the first clue about what the word simulator actually means and how that applies to Arma. Arma isn't a (vehicle) simulator because it doesn't even ATTEMPT to come close to real life vehicle values, despite making the infantry stuff fairly sim-ish.

You want to talk about petty, why don't you start on people arguing against increasing the enjoyment of the game for other people, even though the basic flight model - that they like - would still be available.

[Gimpster 0]

Another common misconception is that a more complex flight model would be more diffacult to fly. The reality is that it might take a little longer to get the hang of but in the end its just like every other thing you learn to do in your life and once you grasp the concepts it becomes just as natural as anything else you do.

I once thought that heli's were harder to fly then planes. While its true that they are more complex haveing spent much of my sim time on heli's rather then planes I now find heli's much more natural to fly then I do planes.

Now I really need to dive in to ArmA and try and understand how the flight physics opperate and see if or how they can be altered to bring us closer to how they really opperate, but I am a programing inept no dought and will likely not discover much if anything.

[PsYcH0_Ch!cKeN 0]

I'll play devil's advocate here and say that I would actually like to see the FM made harder. The first few pages of this thread were quite funny and I was relieved when a couple of helicopter pilots finally stepped in and set the record straight. Just because everyone wants to be a top gun or an ace chopper pilot doesn't mean that they should be. By making it harder to fly helicopters (BF1942: Desert Combat springs to mind), a class of pilots would naturally emerge and people would learn quicksmart that they should let the practiced pilots do the flying instead of turning their entire aerial arsenal into scrap.

As it is, I can't believe how many people insist on taking the controls, only to fly directly into enemy fire and then hover there at just the wrong height to eject, plow into the ground for no good reason, slam into the side of a mountain, hit trees and powerlines, etc, etc. I'm building up a huge mental database of people I won't get in a helicopter with and that's with the current basic FM. Clearly it's not difficult enough to discourage these morons, so it needs to get tougher.

[Gisen 0]

I agree that a game world without the players you describe would be great, but I think those problems are more about the players being idiots than not being good pilots. No matter how good a pilot someone is, if they don't have the sense not to fly slowly 200m up over an enemy infested area then the flightmodel isn't going to help

I'd certainly like the flightmodel made more accurate, but I appreciate that others might not so thats why I think having the server option to use a simple flight model or a high fidelity one would be good for everyone.

[frederf 0]

I'll play devil's advocate here and say that I would actually like to see the FM made harder. The first few pages of this thread were quite funny and I was relieved when a couple of helicopter pilots finally stepped in and set the record straight. Just because everyone wants to be a top gun or an ace chopper pilot doesn't mean that they should be. By making it harder to fly helicopters (BF1942: Desert Combat springs to mind), a class of pilots would naturally emerge and people would learn quicksmart that they should let the practiced pilots do the flying instead of turning their entire aerial arsenal into scrap.

As it is, I can't believe how many people insist on taking the controls, only to fly directly into enemy fire and then hover there at just the wrong height to eject, plow into the ground for no good reason, slam into the side of a mountain, hit trees and powerlines, etc, etc. I'm building up a huge mental database of people I won't get in a helicopter with and that's with the current basic FM. Clearly it's not difficult enough to discourage these morons, so it needs to get tougher.

I love you.

[Hunin 0]

I don't want to discredit anyone; but one of them was nowhere near a real helicopter pilot...

And about the "true" collective; none of the helos in ArmA have this old setup in reality.

So having RPMs and blades seperated would be less real then the thing right now.

[Gimpster 0]

I never claimed to be a "real Heli pilot", I am how ever a novice RC heli pilot and have a fair understanding of the mechanics and how they opperate.  I would also argue that while the heli flight model in all of the BF series games was more diffacult it was at least as far from realistic as the one employed in ArmA.

And you are wrong about throttle/collective bit. They are very much seperate inputs on the same flight control stick. On a full scale heli just like on my RC one the throttle controls the head speed and the collective control blade pitch. While both play a part and throttle is by no means static at all times it is not directly connected to pitch control. In an RC those inputs are mixed by the computer as I only have a single axis to use for both controls.

If anyone cares to know, modern heli's have 3 basic flight controls opperating 5 functions:

Throttle/Collective Stick

Cyclic Stick

Rudder Peddles

The Trottle/Collective stick has two axis's of motion, the throttle (Engine Speed) is a twist grip on the stick and AFAIK most heli's are designed to opperate as a fixed throttle setting during normal opperation situations.  This setting is some times refered to as Military Power in or the save imposed limit on engine outbut.  Above that is what refered to as Emergency power for when you need a little more out of the aircraft just as high altitude and high stress manuvering.  The second control on this stick is a verticle motion, much like the parking brake in the center console on some cars.  Pulling this up increases the overall blade pitch of the rotor head and thus affecting the general lift produced by the rotor blades.  This allows control of verticle climb and fall along the axis of the main shaft.  This stick is generaly mounted to the left of the pilot.

The Cylic stick controls both Pitch (Forward and Back Movement) and Roll (Left and Right Movement) input.  Moving the cylic stick induces a pitch varience in the rotor head which alters the lift the rotor blades produce.  Pushing the stick forward causes the rotors to decrease in pitch at the front of their arc and increase in pitch as the back which causes the heli to rotate forward thus inducing forward movement of the heli.  Moving the cylic in the other directions has a similar effect.

The rudder peddles affect the blade pitch of the tail rotor in helis that have a tail rotor or in the case of coaxial heli's like the KA-50 induce a speed varience between the rotor heads to induce rotation about the main shaft axis.  In a tail rotor heli the tail rotor is used to both facilitate pilot induced yaw and allow for the equalization of the rotational torque produced by the main rotor assembly.  The Chinook is a special case as the rotors are offset.  I am not positive but I believe in it's case the rudder peddles induce opposing pitch variances in the fore and aft rotor assemblies casuing them to slip in opposite directions which facilitates yaw control.

Lift is generated by the rotor blades spinning through the air much the same way an airplane wing generates lift moving through the air.  As such during directional flight helis will fly somewhat like an airplane, the Blackhawk even enploye's large tail stabilizers with functioning rudder and elevator surfaces to maximize this effect.  The reason the rudder function looses its ability to effect yaw control as speeds climb is based on their design.  They have a tail often with vertical and horizontal stabilizers which cause the heli to act like a weather vein.  This forces the heli to point in to the wind which in directional flight is the direction of motion.  The higher the speed of the wind is (vehicle speed) the greater the lift generated by the tail rotor needs to be to overcome the weather vein effect.    

Coaxial heli's like the KA-50 suffer less in this reguard as their tail surfaces are generaly smaller and the speed diferential of the rotor assemblies is more capable of countering this then a tail rotor setup.

The lift generation of a rotor assembly is a factor of head speed, pitch range, rotor disc size and number of blades.  Higher head speed, dics size, pitch range and number of blades results in the ability to generate more lift.  Reduce any of these and the lift generation drops perportionaly.  There is a point though which additional pitch range becomes ineffective and the added drag reduces the head speed thus offsetting the gained lift from increased pitch.

Lift is also generated by the rotor assembly moving through the air in directional flight or in wind.  Entering direction flight will induce translational lift as will hovering in wind.  The net effect is that less pitch is needed to maintail lift.  So pushing forward on the cylic to pitch the heli forward will cause the heli to slip forward and loose altitude but when you pull the cylic back and bring the heli back level you will start gaining altitude without ever having to alter the collective.

Hovering near the ground also has the benifit of allowing the downwash of the heli act as a cushion of air in addition to the lift from the rotor head which is known as being in ground effect.  The one disadventage to this is the air is more unstable when hovering in ground effect and the heli will want to squirm more.

There are two deadly side effects of the physics heli's use to fly which I do not think are modeled in ArmA.  Blade stall and decending through your own downwash.

If you increase your speed in directional flight there can come a time when it is possable to stall the retreating blade and cause it to lose lift on one side of the heli.  When this happens the heli will roll in the direction of the stalled blade.  This is a bad thing, imagine loosing one of your wings on an airplane for just long enough to lose control and start to tumble towards the ground.

If you decend too quickly you may find yourself moving downword faster then the downwash of air.  You are still producing lift but in falling air so you fall with it, so in essence you loose lift perportionate to the speed at which the air is falling.  Its like stalling an aircraft.

Does any of this really matter though?  Well some does as parts of this are modeled.  In ArmA the Cylic input has a similar effect as in a real heli by causing pitch and roll change.  Translational lift is modeled as well but I do not know how accurately.  The collective control is modeled like a generic gain/lose lift control and always returns to netural unlike the cylic on a real heli.  Weather veining is modeled but it feels like it only works at high speeds.  The rudder control which was the reason for this thread in the first place is not modeled as a perportional thrust control as it is in reality but the effectiveness is based on a max effect speed identicle for each heli and not unique by model as it should be.

Now if there are any further questions I will be happy to answer them or if I do not know will look up the answer for you if I can find it.

Sorry for the long post.

[Hunin 0]

1. I wasn't refering to you above.

2. I think it was pretty clear that my comment was about the time s when the pilot had to adjust RPM and blade angle manulay all the time and for every adjustment before the interface was able to automaticaly increase and decrease RPM with pilot input on the collective.

This is not the case for the choppers in ArmA ( not shure about the Mi 17), wich are military machines with an M/MI far superior to civil helicopters.

3. To simulate a heli throttle is impossible.

Because it meant to simulate blade angle seperatly aswell.

There is no piece of software that can simulate these aerodynamics wich we on our PCs can get our hands on.

Maybe BS.

EDIT

PS

How do you see the collective always returning to neutral?

Don't tell me you use a keyboard to fly.

[Gimpster 0]

If you were not refering to me then I am sorry I took it that way Hunin.

So what you are saying about heli throttle/collective input is that in a modern heli once the pilot spools up the engine and the rotor assemply reatches its correct effective that heli's avonics take over throttle control and adjust the engine's power to maintain rotor head RPM and overcome the drag from changing blade pitch? If that is the case then I was not aware they had become that complex yet, interesting.

I have simulation software on my PC right now that does accuractly simulate heli physics. Realflight 2 & 3.5 as well as FS1, Pheonix and several others simulation packages offer very complex simulation of flight physics. They are RC Flight simulation software and designed to be a training tool for RC pilots. Engine RPM and blade pitch is modeled just fine in Realflight. So is variable wind, turbalance, gound effect, thermals and just about any other thing that can effect flight, so it is very possible for accurate simulation of heli physics to work on a modern PC.

I have flown the planes & heli's in ArmA using the keyboard/mouse, my realflight controler and my Saitek X45 Hotas. The throttle on the the heli's is the same as on any other vehicle, by which I mean additive and subtractive. On ground vehicles it may be perportional but I have not checked. On my two controlers that aircraft throttle seem to work the same on Heli and Plane. One button for increaseing thrust and one for decreasing, when assigned to an axis it acts the same as when assigned to a button, not as a direct perportional input like the cylic and rudder. -100% to -10% is decrease, -10% to +10% is no change and +10 to +100% is increase. This is exactly how it works when assigned to a button.

It should be a perportional control like the cylic and rudder. Where input axis position directly corasponds to a % of output. In the case of a heli the curve should look like thisbased on how my RC heli works when in a normal (Non-3D Flight Configuration):

Control Input ---------- Responce Output

-100% Stick ---------- -3 Pitch or -30% Thrust

0% Stick (Centered) ---- 0 Pitch or 0% Thrust

+100% Stick ---------- +10 Pitch or +100% Thrust

The negitive pitch is needed to allow for autorotation in the case of an engine failure in addition to a one way bearing in the transmission assembly to allow the head assembly to freely rotate if the engine RPM drops. Moving the blade pitch in to the negitive allows it to maintain head speed as it falls through the air. When you approach the ground the pitch is moved back positive and you trade head assembly RPM for lift to make a safe landing but without the engine driving the blades the drag from increased pitch rappidly slows the blades and your avalable lift.

[Hunin 0]

Absolutely no offense taken mate - and none intended in any of my previous posts.

About the throttle thing - I have no idea wether it is common on all modern helicopters or not.

My background is a pure military one ( in case of the helicopters a friend who serves with the Heeresflieger of the German Federated Army) - and I know that a big part of combat helicopters since the Apache, maybe before -should be easy to find out- have the "connected" collective ( no idea what the english expression is).

Reason is pretty obvious: pilots of combat vehicles in general have a extremely high "brainload".

So any device taking part of this load of is the most precious thing.

The Typhoon for example is always praised first for it's men/machine interface, even before the exellent flight characteristics.

On the other side you really can't afford to loose any kind of possible lift in a combat helicopter - so a preset RPMs might have been seen as a substraction from neccesarry performence.

Same reason why the UH Tiger ( for example ) is build with huge tolerances for overreaving - makes it able to make these last couple of height meters that can be vital in an engagement.

Oh btw: Thankx alot for the comments on simulators - I will see if I can get my hands on one of those.

But anyway - I was talking about real blade simulation - a thing that a game that has to deal with so many different things other then FM ( like ArmA) is impossible on current hardwares.

I think I gotta be more precise in my posts in the future.

EDIT

I see what you meant on the ingame colllective now.

I took that you only have two ways on the collective: -100% and + 100% - wich was the case in the first 1 or 2 versions of this game ...

EDIT 2

Maybe a thing you'd like to try is editing the joystick input in your arma.cfg ( my documents\ArmA folder).

Not shure if the collective is editable, but with the 45 you won't need it anyway I guess.

Btw - have you tried these new Saitek simpeds?

My CH peddals broke about 2 years ago and I may try them ...mixed feelings because they are their first peddals.

[Gimpster 0]

After some more testing the collective in ArmA does appear to be perspotional when assigned to an axis, though it still feels nothing like my RC heli or my simulator.

The way you describe the throttle/collective mixing sounds exactly like what my computerised radio does for my RC heli. I can setup the mixing curves and then use a single input to control both functions. I am still suprised that the technology avalable for my RC heli is more advanced that what seems to be deployed in a real heli. They still lack gyro stabalization for rudder and cylic control.

[LeftSkidLow 1]

So what you are saying about heli throttle/collective input is that in a modern heli once the pilot spools up the engine and the rotor assemply reatches its correct effective that heli's avonics take over throttle control and adjust the engine's power to maintain rotor head RPM and overcome the drag from changing blade pitch? If that is the case then I was not aware they had become that complex yet, interesting.

All turbine helicopters, modern or going back as far as 60's work that way and avionics doesn't have anything to do with it. Its just a governor that senses rotor RPM and adjusts the throttle to keep a constant RPM.

Not really important to know, except a separate throttle would be pointless in ArmA. The problem is the collective as already said, seems take inputs that are either 0% or 100%, there doesn't seem to be much of an in between if at all. The other problem, since we are dealing with collectives and not throttles is the delayed reaction after collective input. I'm so used to it I don't even care anymore but yes, it is incorrect.

[Hunin 0]

That aint true.

The collective IS proportional if you fly with a decent stick and tweak the input curves.

In that sense, ArmA works about the same way as all other commercial flight sims on the PC market.

[subs17 9]

Ok the real problem here is that the UH60 is Fly by wire flight controls. So its FM is totally different to the Cobra or littlebird. I think that the UH60 requires much less tail rotor input IRL than the other helicopters because of this. Now if you compare the Little birds and Cobras FM to FSX you'll find FSX is closer to the real deal in that tail rotor input is required according to increase in revs by the main rotor. Even during highspeed flight such helicopters still require input from the tail rotor where as FBW probably doesn't as it would automatically adjust that for you.

[Hunin 0]

I'm 90 % shure that the Viper has FBW in reality now.

No idea about the Little Birds.

[subs17 9]

The F-16 has always had FBW .

[max power 21]

The F-16 has always had FBW .

Viper is the Bell Helicopters trade name for the Ah-1z

http://www.bellhelicopter.com/en/aircraft/military/bellAH-1Z.cfm

[subs17 9]

Viper is also the F-16s nickname hence the confusion. I've always considered the AH1 to be the Cobra and the 1Z the supercobra.

[max power 21]

The AH-1 W is the Super Cobra. I'm aware that they are, for some reason, calling the Fighting Falcon the Viper now. I guess Falcon isn't cool enough for the USAF now or something. I guess they watch too much Battlestar Galactica. I'm sure the Ah-1z will be adopted as the Viper but will be referred to as the Zulu Cobra, much like the Super Cobra is called the Whiskey Cobra by the USMC.

[Hunin 0]

To my knowledge it's the other way around.

The AH-1Z is still handled as a Supercobra at Bell, but the Marines nicknamed the variant Viper - as happened with the F-16.

Only the pilots call it Viper, official nick is still Fighting Falcon.

Oh, funny sidemark:

The crews actualy did call it Viper because of Battlestar Galactica - cause it was this incredible high tech monster back then.

At least that's what legend says.

[Gimpster 0]

SUBS17 brings up a good point that I ahe been wondering about for a long time. The technology has existed for a long time not to use a gyro to sense movment and then use that data to calculate the correct inputs to arrest unwanted movemnt. Why is that still not a mainstream feature of heli's with reguard to main rotor torque compensasion via the tail rotor?

[max power 21]

SUBS17 brings up a good point that I ahe been wondering about for a long time. The technology has existed for a long time not to use a gyro to sense movment and then use that data to calculate the correct inputs to arrest unwanted movemnt. Why is that still not a mainstream feature of heli's with reguard to main rotor torque compensasion via the tail rotor?

It's not standard on all helicopters due to cost + the persistence of older airframes adequately doing the job.

They have more sophisticated systems than that! Many modern helicopters monitor themselves by a system of gyros and an array radar transmitters that look at the ground around the helicopter to let the computer read what kind of attitude / position / rate of change the helicopter is undergoing over all axes in real time.

[Baff1 0]

I'll play devil's advocate here and say that I would actually like to see the FM made harder. The first few pages of this thread were quite funny and I was relieved when a couple of helicopter pilots finally stepped in and set the record straight. Just because everyone wants to be a top gun or an ace chopper pilot doesn't mean that they should be. By making it harder to fly helicopters (BF1942: Desert Combat springs to mind), a class of pilots would naturally emerge and people would learn quicksmart that they should let the practiced pilots do the flying instead of turning their entire aerial arsenal into scrap.

As it is, I can't believe how many people insist on taking the controls, only to fly directly into enemy fire and then hover there at just the wrong height to eject, plow into the ground for no good reason, slam into the side of a mountain, hit trees and powerlines, etc, etc. I'm building up a huge mental database of people I won't get in a helicopter with and that's with the current basic FM. Clearly it's not difficult enough to discourage these morons, so it needs to get tougher.

You want an exclusive game, in which people are detered from enjoying it.

You want the game to discourage people from enjoying it's features.

To better preserve those features for the few you consider worthy to use them.

I want the opposite.

I want to play games with servers full of people enjoying themselves.

Playing out the roles of their fantasies.

The people I play games with aren't all "leet".

The don't practise night and day to fly helicopters in video games.

They have lives.

I want to play with them.

Not the highest ranking Clan, not the best little pilot on the internet. Just my friends.

I don't see why anyone would actively want people to not enjoy flying the helicopters.

To discourage people who bought a game to fly helicopters in, from doing so.

Attitudes like this are one big advert for avoiding PvP servers. They have piss poor communities.

As for the people who take controls and then crash or fly into enemy guns, it might help you to remember that we are all born stupid.

Each and every one of us.

Without the oportunity to learn, the leet pilot's you are looking for, will never emerge. T

he harder you make it for them to learn, the longer it will take to train one and the fewer of them you will find online to play with.