Helicopter Flight Controls

I would like to get some advice on setting up the flight control for helicopter. the specific problems are

problem 1. tail rotor doesn't do anything.

problem 2. z axis (collective). when trying to fly it is slow and is late in moving up on lift off, and requires almost full collective to get off ground.

problem 3. throttle doesn't seem to work at all while trying to fly or has so little effect you can't.

problem 4. cyclic movements are only a fraction of what the movement should be.

When in set up everything seems to set properly but they don't work. While doing the setup the controls seem to work, everything moves form all the down to all the way up. I fly helicopters in real life but has gotten really costly, so I through I would try this. Its not going well. Any help be really appreciated. I am using fsx gold edition on windows 7.

thanks

dlf

First, just exactly what helicopter are you talking about? What zip file, is it payware or freeware, where did you download it from, if you did download it.

What do you mean setting up the flight controls? Do you mean calibrating your joystick? If so, what joystick? Ar you using some kind of 3rd party software for calibration, or the FSX internal calibration?

Do you have FSUIPC installed? Freeware or payware version? Just which version number? Are you using FSUIPC to do the joystick calibration?

As a general rule, most helicopters, at least the turbine powered ones like the Bell 206, utilize the sim's throttle axis for the collective, and the twist, or rudder (z) axis, for the tail rotor. If you are in a turbine powered bird, just set the twist grip in the VC all the way up, and leave it there. You usually need to do this by clicking on one side of the twist grip on the collective in the VC. Then leave it there until you go to shut the engine off completely.

What do you mean by the cyclic movements? The actual way the stick makes the blades look when you move it around, or the effect doing so has? Remember that what you SEE the rotor disc doing from the outside view, and what effect they're having on the bird are two different things.

Yes, you generally need almost full collective to launch a chopper off the ground, especially if it's near max TOW. Full fuel, passenger/cargo load, and so on. IN the sim. This isn't real life, although there are some very good ways to make the sim much closer to the way a helicopter flies in real life than the way it works out of the box. A lot of 3rd party helicopters in the sim load up either at MTOW, or over it, and you have to adjust the fuel and passenger/cargo load to make it correct.

Bear in mind there is NO "seat of the pants" feel to a sim helicopter, like the real ones that you're used to. It's the biggest complaint I've heard from real helicopter pilots who want to fly in the sim.

Are you using any 3rd party control software? Like HTR, for example? If so, are you sure you're using the correct .cfg file for it?

There are ways to adjust the effect the controls have on the different blades. In the bird's .air file. The main and tail rotors, the drag of the body of the helicopter it's self, and so on. I can direct to some very well written articles on this. Just be sure you have access to a good .air file editor.

Ok, I've rambled on long enough. Let me know what's going on...

Pat☺

I am using fsx gold edition with acceleration, This is a stock disk no add-ons, So its both the R22 and the 206 that in the a/c list not a down load. loaded form disk (3)two fsx disks and the acceleration disk that came with fsx . The controls are C-TEK collective, cyclic, and peddles, throttle is standard twist grip part of collective. No Fsuipc. I am using fsx to calibration, I have also tried the game calibration control in windows. Both helicopters are at low wt. mean min fuel and one person.

Both helicopters have a correlators (governors) so throttle is of little use except for start up and autos of course and shut down. the manual for C-tek says to set the controls in the following ways X=cyclic left and right, Y=forward & backward, Z =collective, X rotation =throttle, Y rotation anti torque peddles. But not working out real well.

no third party, I'm not familiar with htr but assume it's a after market brand if so I'm not using it.

Cyclic movements and tail rotors I got fixed by programming them properly (daa)

How does one set the startup so you don't have to set aircraft every time on start up of program?

thanks

dlf

Hi.

Googling 'best flight sim for helicopters' pulled up this broad review, where it's said of FSX that "Helicopter wise, it’s frankly weak, though. The flight dynamics are pretty bad for rotorcraft. The helicopters feel heavy and you lose a lot of [what] makes helicopters what they are."

https://www.helisimmer.com/articles/best-helicopter-simulator-2019

It has a link to this, concerning Helicopter Total Realism (HTR) :

https://www.helisimmer.com/downloads/fsx/tools/htr-helicopter-total-realism-1-6

That looks like a free download that requires FSUIPC (also a free download) and it may be what you need. I don't know -- I prefer fat & heavy transports :)

Alternatively, the reviewer favours DCS and X-Plane but also says that AeroFly FS2 has "Amazing flight dynamics (probably the best out there right now)" so you might try a different sim.

D