chopper collective?

[Inkslinger 1]

Done a search and couldn't find it anywhere,

What happened to the Collective in the choppers? Shouldn't they be able to hold altitude and follow the terrain as they did in OFP?

[Correction 0]

I'm not sure what the official word is on this but I assumed it was in like with the trippy plane throttle. My fingers are still crossed for a fix, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

[max power 21]

The helicopter controls in arma are more realistic than they were in ofp, so you have to control your own altitude now.

[Inkslinger 1]

More realistic? If they wanted realistic then when in foward flight at a decent airspeed then slightly pulling black on the stick would result in the chopper gaining altitude. as it is now its seems to be hard to gain any altitude while moving forward.

I wouldnt be worried about the terrain following if it wasnt so difficult to gain altitude. modern choppers as I said when in forward flight fly and react like a fixed wing aircraft, gaining and losing altitude with the use of the cyclic control. ie. raising and lowering the nose.

Edit: in OFP they did do just that, if you tilted the nose down and didnt watch you would fly straight into the ground, and when you tilted it up you would gain altitude.

[Shadow_Spyder 0]

More realistic? If they wanted realistic then when in foward flight at a decent airspeed then slightly pulling black on the stick would result in the chopper gaining altitude. as it is now its seems to be hard to gain any altitude while moving forward.

I wouldnt be worried about the terrain following if it wasnt so difficult to gain altitude. modern choppers as I said when in forward flight fly and react like a fixed wing aircraft, gaining and losing altitude with the use of the cyclic control. ie. raising and lowering the nose.

Edit: in OFP they did do just that, if you tilted the nose down and didnt watch you would fly straight into the ground, and when you tilted it up you would gain altitude.

Not sure which ArmA choppers ur flying.... but for me, when I point the chopper nose down, I will gain speed, but lose altitude, if I pull back on the stick, I will lose speed and gain altitude....

[Inkslinger 1]

Yes they do go up and down slightly, However it doesn't seem no where near the maneuverability that they should have. Ive spent the majority of my 36 yrs. next to Quantico marine base and have spent many an hour watching the Cobra's running maneuvers.

One of the most affective and widely used maneuvers that any attack chopper has is to pop up over a hill at high speeds and take out unaware enemy, a maneuver that is almost impossible in Arma because they simply wont come up that fast. more times than any you just crash landing gear first into the hillside.

[max power 21]

More realistic? If they wanted realistic then when in foward flight at a decent airspeed then slightly pulling black on the stick would result in the chopper gaining altitude. as it is now its seems to be hard to gain any altitude while moving forward.

I wouldnt be worried about the terrain following if it wasnt so difficult to gain altitude. modern choppers as I said when in forward flight fly and react like a fixed wing aircraft, gaining and losing altitude with the use of the cyclic control. ie. raising and lowering the nose.

Edit: in OFP they did do just that, if you tilted the nose down and didnt watch you would fly straight into the ground, and when you tilted it up you would gain altitude.

I said more realistic not 'totally realistic'. Thanks for the tirade, though. I don't know what to tell you, man. The flight model is what it is. It's not OFP. I enjoy flying the helicopters, and for the record, I notice the helicopters gaining a great deal of altitude when you're raising the nose at high speed, even with the collective control buried.

[LeftSkidLow 1]

More realistic? If they wanted realistic then when in foward flight at a decent airspeed then slightly pulling black on the stick would result in the chopper gaining altitude. as it is now its seems to be hard to gain any altitude while moving forward.

I wouldnt be worried about the terrain following if it wasnt so difficult to gain altitude. modern choppers as I said when in forward flight fly and react like a fixed wing aircraft, gaining and losing altitude with the use of the cyclic control. ie. raising and lowering the nose.

Edit: in OFP they did do just that, if you tilted the nose down and didnt watch you would fly straight into the ground, and when you tilted it up you would gain altitude.

I said more realistic not 'totally realistic'. Thanks for the tirade, though. I don't know what to tell you, man. The flight model is what it is. It's not OFP. I enjoy flying the helicopters, and for the record, I notice the helicopters gaining a great deal of altitude when you're raising the nose at high speed, even with the collective control buried.

I'm with Plaintiff, if I had a dime for every time they told me know a lot about helicopters because they used to see them all the time, or they rode in the back in the military everday, they talked to a pilot for 10 min, played MSFS, have an airplane PPL, I can go on and on. They are more realistic in ArmA... GET OVER IT!

If it makes you feel better I can make a video of an ag turn in arma and trade off airspeed for altitude, heres a tip: don't overcontrol.

[umbr44 0]

You could of course just hit the 'q' button a little more often, I regularly fly below 20 in a UH-60 and below 10 (terain permitting :houses, trees) in anything smaller.

I have no problem getting over the hills when flying at low altitude and high speed, if anything it's annoying when I stop quickly because I gain about 20 from pulling the nose up too sharp.

[Inkslinger 1]

Ok back to the original comment, most if not all modern military and some civilian helicopters have terrain following and terrain avoidance radar. Which is what this was about. didn't mean to ruffle any feathers.

And I don't have a problem turning the choppers, actually I love what they did with that, but Ive seen the cobra's flying at high speeds and extremely low altitude come up to and climb a 30%grade without changing the altitude more than a few meters. and without loosing very much airspeed.

Again I'm not sure of the capabilities of the blackhawks but the cobra at high speed flies almost identical to a fixed wing aircraft.

Sure they do gain and lose altitude but the AH1-z has a climb rate of 1900ft. p/m

On another note I finally did find that this subject has already been brought to the attention of BIS in one of the feedback threads, (don't know why the search function didnt find that one).

Edit: Sorry had to bring this up. this would also greatly decrease the amount of AI. terrain collisions, Which Ive seen a great deal of since I started playing.

[max power 21]

On the topic of gaining a lot of altitude during quick deceleration, you could always try a really hard turn, that way you will gain lateral acceleration rather than vertical.

[Correction 0]

I'm no helicopter pilot, but as I understand it's the pitch of the rotors that make the plane go up and down. It just doesn't make sense to me that we should have to hold down the "throttle up" key to keep from running into the ground. The throttle in a real helicopter only goes up so far - they don't have to HOLD it up.

It just seems like somewhere in the calculations, some thrust is continuously leaking out.

[MehMan 0]

No no, you don't lose speed magically in ArmA. I'm pretty sure of it, because you can control the throttle, there are just no direct indicators for it. You only lose speed in sharp turns and pitching up sharply. At least from my expirence. You don't have to hold it always. Just like in planes, you don't have to hold it down. There's an "autothrottle" in planes, so the speed is nearly constant on where you set it, the plane will keep that speed. The problem is however that there is no throttle location indication which is a bit of a problem.

[max power 21]

The throttle in arma is a vertical acceleration control. Therefore, at 50% or neutral throttle, the aircraft stays at some altitude above sealevel, and further away from the neutral means increasing vertical accelleration in the corresponding direction. At speed, you can get much more responsive climb and dive behaviour by controlling the pitch of the helicopter.

If you have the throttle bound to an analogue source, like a hotas, you get much finer control.

[Correction 0]

I guess I'm just a bad helicopter pilot, then... I'll stick with fixed-wing craft. They look cooler, anyway. I just wish some good fighter aircraft addons would start showing up!