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nightsta1ker

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Posts posted by nightsta1ker

  3. Posted

    First, I'd like to introduce myself as a real world helicopter CFI, so that you know what my credentials are.

    The first thing that needs to be said is that unless you have a set of real helicopter controls for your computer (full cyclic, collective and pedals), this game is going to do you no good on your journey to becoming a real helicopter pilot. It is a game. It was created for fun. Not for simulation purposes. The flight dynamics are better than most games (including FSX, although I strongly feel that X-Plane physics and systems have everything else beat hands down), but it is still a game.

    And even in the most realistic simulator, unless you have full motion platform, real controls, and a dome projection for 180 degree FOV, you are not going to be able to experience the sensation you will get in real flight. Hovering is actually quite easy in real life compared to the game. Your inner ear, lower spine, and peripheral vision are all adding huge amounts of data to your brain telling you what is going on. Also, with the systems and dynamics lacking as they are, I would not recommend you use this game to try and get an experience for real helicopter flight or operations. The game is fun, yes. Challenging, yes. Realistic? I would have to say no. The missions, gameplay, characters, interactions with objects... None of it feels very real to me based on my experience as a real pilot. My recommendation is, if you want to enjoy the game for what it is, great. But leave your impressions of the game at home when you go for your first real lesson, you will find out how vastly different the real thing is.

    As far as hovering goes... try not to over control. This is a common mistake for beginners. Use very small movements with your hands. Look out to the horizon , but use your peripheral vision (limited as it is in the game) to look at the corners of the screen to see where you are moving on the ground. Use stick PRESSURE, rather than stick MOVEMENT. If you are drifting left, apply a slight amount of pressure to the right. If it's not enough, keep increasing the pressure until you get the desired result. But if you are using more than an 8th of an inch of movement at a time, you are going to be all over the place.

    Landing is easy, just hover (once you get the hang of it) and lower your collective slightly and let the helicopter settle. Go to a wide open area with no obstacles and practice doing run on landings like an airplane. The skids will slide on the groung (you will do this in a real helicopter too when you start training). Landing with some forward speed is always easier. Once you get the hang of that, start slowing it down. Try landing at lower and lower speeds until you can do it from a hover. Then, when you get the hovering and smooth landing down, you can start practicing putting it on a precise spot. Pick a marker of something on the ground and practice setting it right where you want it. It's challenging, even for me, a real world helicopter pilot with hundreds of hours. This game is a bit tricky, but it's not impossible. As Meercat said, it takes time and practice.

    Good luck!

  4. Posted

    hi guys.....firstly thanx for all the advice just started the using the simulator.......was wondering if there is a way to fly the helicopter like we do in war games.......i would just do it in the games but there the machines are less detailed and thus easy and not so realistic......

    being specific i want to learn two maneuvers a 90 degree tail stand like the jets do and 360 degree side flip........help would be appreciated....

    What do you mean by "360 degree side flip"?

  5. Posted

    Yes, so the pedal input. You will need some left pedal until you get to much higher speeds. I do not think the current build of TOH models the effectiveness of the tail rotor in forward flight quite correctly yet. In most helicopters at cruise speed (whatever that speed happens to be for that model) the pedals are usually pretty close to neutral. This is because as the helicopter is moving forward, the main and tail rotors become more efficient, the more efficient main rotor needs less power, so less torque is produced, and the more effective tail rotor also needs less pitch to counter the exisiting torque. This acts as a double whammy and the pilot needs much less left pedal with forward speed increase. However, you will only notice this as a gradual change as you gain speed. You will need to keep left pedal in AS NECESSARY to keep a straight track. As I said, understanding the theory is only part of the equation. Muscle memory is the rest. Some students (particularly older ones, 30s and up) have a hard time grasping that they need to FLY the helicopter. Make it do what you want it to do. It takes some students DOZENS of hours to get the hang of hovering. Some students learn about it almost instantly. Some have issues transitioning from the hover to forward flight, and back to a hover again. The dynamics of the hover and forward flight are very different, and the in between zone is a bit tricky with lots of fluid changes happening that the pilot must adjust for.

    From the hover: Left pedal to counter torque, slight left cyclic to counter drift. Start pushing the cyclic forward and raising the collective (just a touch) to keep from settling, maintain your heading with pedals as necessary, control your lateral drift with your cyclic. Continue to accelerate by pushing the cyclic forward gently, at around 15-25 knots you will experience a momentary pitch-back sensation, this is the rotorsystem becoming more efficient, you will also notice a pedal wobble, just adjust as necessary to maintain your ground track and push the cyclic forward to counter the "bump" (you may not notice this at all... and then you might... rapid accelerations do not yield such a bump, but slower ones do). As the helicopter passes through 40 knots gently apply aft cyclic and start a cyclic climb. Your rotor system should be efficient enough that you don't need any more collective, in fact, you might need to reduce it! Maintain your heading with pedals as necessary and use your cyclic to control your airspeed and your collective to control your climb and descent rate. Turns are made by banking, keep your pedals where they were before you entered the turn.

    Approach to the hover from forward flight: The goal is to terminate both your forward speed and your descent in a three to five foot hover over your intended spot. A ways out (depending how high you are) lower the collective smoothly so that you have established a 500 Foot per minute rate of descent toward your target spot. Use aft cyclic to slow down smoothly, and at a rate that you will terminate your forward speed over your spot. This is called controlling your rate of closure as Zentaos said. As you approach your spot, try to keep it in one place on your screen. If it is going down, you will overshoot it. If it is going up, you will undershoot it. Use your collective to do this. You must coordinate your descent rate with your speed reduction or you will end up 3-5 feet over your target, and then fly right over it. This takes lots of practice. A tip: On short and final approach (below 40 knots and 300 feet AGL) pick a visual reference point BEYOND your actual intended landing spot, otherwise you will undershoot your spot (the eye tries to keep it in sight when you really need to put it underneath you). As always, you will need to maintain your heading with pedal. As you slow down, your rotors become less efficient, you will notice this quite a bit when you get below 15-25 knots and you will suddenly need ALOT of left pedal. Just go with the flow. Use your cyclic to control your lateral drift in the approach and pedal for heading. Forward cyclic for airspeed and collective for your climb and descent rate.

    Practice, practice, practice.

    And have fun!

  6. Posted

    The collective should only be used for power application, or up an down movement. Cyclic should control your position on the ground in a hover, airspeed in forward flight and rate of closure to the intended landing point. The pedals are used to counter torque, to turn the helicopters nose in a hover, and trim the aircraft in forward flight (by trim I mean keeping the center of gravity straight down, if you are out of trim, you will slip or skid, especially in a turn). Turning the helicopter in forward flight is done by banking, like an airplane. Use our cyclic to maintain desired airspeed and lateral cyclic to control your bank/turn rate. Keep in mind you are generating less lift in a turn so will need a touch of extra collective to stay level and keep from losing airspeed.

  7. Posted

    I like to tell my students to imagine holding a pendulum from their hand. Start it swinging in a circle or in some random fashion and then... here's the tricky part... Stop it from swinging. You would need to OPPOSE the centrifugal force by moving your hand in the same direction so that you are centering the pendulum under the point of suspension. Using the cyclic in a helicopter is kind of like that. They seem a bit unpredictable, and to a degree they can be, they are very sensitive to both outside input (the air around them and it's interaction with other objects, the ground, and the rotor-system) and from pilot input. But once you get a feel for what the helicopter is GOING to do, you can start countering it before it happens. This means that the pilot is constantly making small adjustments. The SMOOTH pilot is constantly making small adjustments milliseconds before they need to be made. Small control inputs are critical. Find your balance point in a hover (the place that's close to where it needs to be for the helicopter to stay centered over one spot). This may not be the center of the stick, as the push from the tail-rotor moves the helicopter to the right. Another thing to remember is that power changes mean a change in all the other controls. Raising the collective means more torque, so you need more left pedal, which means that the tail rotor is putting out more thrust, which means more drift, which means the pilot needs to add left cyclic to counter the right drift. If you reduce collective pitch the opposite happens. Understanding exactly what your controls are doing, and how they relate to each other is important, but more important than that is practice and muscle memory.

    I hope this helps.

  8. Posted

    We love your nature :)

    PS: Some one told me time ago that kids can be put in "hold mode" by sitting them in front of a Play Station, you would only need to feed them, I think they will automatically complete the day/night sleep cycle, however it is not yet clear if they continue growing or not.

    NOTE: This caveat is NOT applicable to wives.

    :D

    It would work great if I did not mind them turning into zombies. I had a childhood outdoors and only since moving to rainy Washington have I become stuck inside and glued to the computer. If I move, you may never hear from me again!

  9. Posted

    I've got my hands in everything rotor-wing. X-plane, FSX, and now TOH. Plus a full time job maintaining Chinooks and moonlighting as a flight instructor. Oh yeah, And I am married with two kids. So I don't have too much time for all this stuff as it is. When I get the free time, I work on my various projects. Most often I barely have enough time just to check all the forums I keep tabs on. And at this point, it's been a while since I just played to have fun. I'm always tweaking something and trying to make it better. Just my nature I guess :D.

  10. Posted

    btw nightstalker, is it possible to configure xml so that whenever we do left pedal turns during a hover we get reduced power so we descend slightly and vice versa for right pedal turns?

    Supposedly TOH models this, and I can see where the code is. Unfortunately changing these parameters seems to significantly screw with other behaviors... It all has to do with the gear ratios which b101_uk spent so much time perfecting. I'm still trying to figure some of this stuff out. There has to be a way...

    In any case, I am busy doing some official Beta tester duties for Nemeth Designs so that will probably keep me occupied for a few weeks.

  11. Posted

    I think you should change the tail rotor to

    about +-3

    <Controls A1UL="0" A1LL="0" B1UL="0" B1LL="0" thetaLL="15" thetaUL="-27" useExtendedCollectiveRange="true"/>

    i.e. replicating take-off/ground efect hover trim, as it is you have to much thrust to the left, also the rotor is on the left so works backwards so the thetaUL (upper level) is a higher negative number while the thetaLL (lower level) is a smaller positive number – opposite to e.g. the medium heli with its tail rotor on the right.

    As centre trim (side thrust balancing torque) would logically be at ~50% to ~60% of the torque load or i.e. sat on the top of ~5ft to 10ft ground effect at ~ 2913lb (~1322kg) TOW, or think of it as maybe how you would leave your trim if you had just got out of your helicopter 5 mins ago and were about to take off agene, it can be just as easy to power/lift into trim as to power/lift out of trim IF you know how you left it trimmed – i.e. to kick a little right in before it goes neutral then adding more power you have to add some left to counter torque. (may also help keyboard uses)

    also you have done something to the blades i suspect giving them a "range" that is outside what the game will allow as the moving the cyclic back and forth with collective fully down sat on the ground the torque gauge goes straight to 110% ultimately damaging things while little in the way of anything hapaning to justify the torque gauge reading and damage.

    I'm afraid you have completely lost me. :386:

  12. Posted

    Too early to say for sure, but I think that the the numbers for thrust produced by the tail rotor were inverted, which is to say that as forward speed increased, the thrust produced by the tail rotor increased, but the wrong way. I need to play with some numbers and do some more thorough tests, but I think I might be on to something that will make us all happy. Here's hoping.

  14. Posted

    Brain food:

    The more collective (power) you add, the more torque you are applying to the airframe through the drive train. So as you pull more power to accelerate, you will need more left pedal to compensate. The amount of left pedal needed is NOT linked to airspeed. In fact, one of the issues I am sussing out is there does not seem to be an increase in tail rotor efficiency as the helicopter gains speed. In a real helicopter, alot of left pedal is needed in a hover, and also if the relative wind is blowing into the rotor, it can make it less efficient so you would need even more left pedal to compensate. When the helicopter moves into forward flight, both the main and the tail rotors start to become more efficient, so almost immediately the pilot needs to start REDUCING left pedal (or applying right pedal, however you want to think about it) as airspeed increases. My current mod is not reflecting this. I spent the last few hours reading through RTD's flight dynamics wiki that explains what all the values are and what they do. I have a few ideas, but nothing so easy as "HERE it is! This is the value you need to change!". It's more like I have a few things that I know affect it in some way and I need to find a balance between several values.

    About to dive in again. If I make any noteworthy changes I will upload them and post the link.

  16. Posted

    OMAC, I did all of my mods for maximum realism with a joystick or flight controls. I did not test, nor do I have any intention of testing with keyboard and mouse. As I told ziggy, I CAN put out a second mod specifically for keyboard/mouse users. But some realism will be sacrificed. Helicopters are not meant to be flown with a keyboard and mouse. You don't pull 50-100 collective, if you do, bad things will happen.

    SamB, I will revisit it tonight after work and see what I can do. I would like to see more EFFECTIVE pedal with more TIY effect. Right now I am simulating TIY with reduced pedal authority and that's not correct.

  17. Posted

    Md500 enthusiast: if you are not seeing changes then you must not have installed the files correctly. Make sure that you put the right folder in your root TOH folder. All the files within the HSim folder need to stay where they are. Just drop HSim into your root directory and that's it.

    Regarding everyone elses issues with yaw. I feel it's excessive and I am going to work on it some more tonight. I just can't find a happy balance. It's either too weak or too strong, and I notice that when power is off there is an excessive amount of transmission drag requiring a ton of right pedal. And I also noticed that translating tendency (the tail rotor pushing the helicopter sideways) is extreme and noticeable in forward flight when it should not be. I don't know how to fix these issues yet but I'm working on it. There will be another update.

    Thanks for your feedback and your patience.

  18. Posted

    -Ziggy-;2064634']nightsta1ker' date=' please tell me you can overcome 100% collective at liftoff with 100% left pedal?

    if this is not the case, then I fear keyboard/mouse users should shy away from this mod, sorry.[/quote']

    I have never once in my flying career pulled 100% of the collective pitch while the rotors were turning. Probably never more than about 50 percent in fact, and possibly even less than that. Personally, I am not happy with the way torque induced yaw is modeled. I am sure there is some parameter I can change to make it feel right, but I have not found it yet. I CAN however put out another mod that reduces the yaw some for the mouse and keyboard users, but not tonight.

  19. Posted

    -Ziggy-;2064631']thanks for your effort.

    unzip in toh root folder but ... directory is as follows : hsim/hsim/HSim/Air_US_H/Helicopters_Light

    I have to assume one too many hsim folders here?

    How the hell did that happen?

    ---------- Post added at 05:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:18 AM ----------

    Ok... here's a NEW link. This one you just unzip and copy into your root TOH folder.

    http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?cq5tdfzqdet6lj2

  20. Posted

    This is the second update I have done. I consider it the third community update because b101_uk recently released some excellent modifications that are included in this update. I basically took his work and added to it. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

    Click on the link and simply unzip this folder into your TOH root folder and enjoy the new flight dynamics.

    http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?bgdihcqukjdlysz

    A great big thanks to everyone who has helped me do this. And if I get positive feedback, I will move on to working on the medium and heavy helo's next.

    Enjoy!

  21. Posted

    I actually hope just the opposite. I hope BIS and RTD nail it. But that's just me. I would have been alot happier if I did not have to do all this code/ test/ troubleshoot/ code/ test/ troubleshoot. It's tiresome and boring and gives me a headache. I do it because I seem to have a rudimentary understanding of what the numbers mean, and I happen to be a real pilot, so I know what they should feel like. I just mess with numbers until it feels right.

    I am very pleased with what I have right now. I just shot an auto with throttle closed and it felt pretty all right. Much better than stock. Actually somewhat beleivable. I wish it acted that way with the throttle at idle...

    One thing that is kind of annoying me that I can't figure out... I still need left pedal in the flare with power off, even though there is no engine driving the rotors. There should be no torque at that point!

    Flight controls are feeling very nice. Some stability, but very sensitive. Not needing to overcorrect all the time and chase the helicopter around. Still have some wierd issues with torque. I find I need a LOT of right pedal with the collective all the way down, and a LOT of pedal with higher torque settings, but not a noticable amount at hover power, which is very odd feeling. I am hoping to get it released tonight. Issues or no. It's still a vast improvement. Most of the really hard stuff was done by b101_uk, I just played with control settings mostly and reduced some of the friction in the skids.

  23. Posted

    Sorry gents. Real world stuff and the release of the XP10 beta have kept me away from TOH for a bit. I am back at it today. I want to try and fix two things before this next release. The first one is reducing the pedal effectiveness a bit because I feel the amount currently needed is not enough.

    The second is increasing the roll rate. Sensitivity is not so much of an issue as the roll and pitch rates being too slow. I think I know HOW to do these things, now I just need to go do them. Don't worry, it's not dead, it was just on the backburner simmering for a few days.

    I was supposed to be testing the new official patch as well, but I needed some permissions that I don't currently have, so after several exchanged emails on the subject, I let it slide. I just don't have time to do all this stuff right now. Once I get MY update done and available for the community I will test the new patch (if it hasn't released already).

  25. Posted

    SpragClutch, I agree with you and share your frustation with the stock model. Please see my thread titled Flight Dynamics, Important Issues and my other thread titled First Community Patch for more details on what the community is doing about this. I have my TOH helicopters flying reasonably well now after some tweaking of the dynamics.

    See spoiler for my credentials.

    CFI Rotorcraft/Helicopter with PPL FW priveleges.

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