Helicopter, yaw? and Seasickness

[Zacchaeus]

Hiya.
I have recently downloaded a number of new helicopters (freeware only) for testing purposes.
I have noticed that they all seem to yaw left/right/left/right constantly at higher speeds.
Is this 'normal' behaviour, is it a problem with the modelling, or does it mean my joystick is shot, heh.
OK, to be honest I know my joystick is shot, so that could well be the explanation, but I am trying to rule out the other two possibilities before I get a new stick.
Anyone have any advice?
Thanks, Zacc

[HardCorePawn]

FSX or FS9?

does your joystick have a rudder twist function? or are you using pedals? or are you using nothing for yaw?

[Zacchaeus]

QUOTE (HardCorePawn @ Jul 16 2008, 10:14 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

FSX or FS9?

does your joystick have a rudder twist function? or are you using pedals? or are you using nothing for yaw?

FS9, and my joystick has twist for rudder. I have noticed that it goes haywire in slew mode. Heli suddenly shoots left or right and stays heading that direction till I tap the stick to reset it. With that, I would expect yaw in flight to be in one direction, not to keep shifting left to right and back again.

[creator2003]

Yaw depends on the chopper ,some blades go left some go right rotation so you do get different Yaw ,there is a yaw tool for fs9 on hovercontrol but this wont help you with a stuffed stick ,,yaw is induced with power to the blades so expect it on take off mostly but the effect of this in fs9 is not a good rendition ie thats why they made a tool gauge for it ..
also i was told without rudder input the chopper would turn at lest 90 deg ,but in the realworld after the 90deg turn you would end up of course in never never land at what ever gate you were heading to ..
hope this helps

[Timmo]

Firstly, re-caliberate your joystick and check it.

Then try giving your joystick a small 'null zone' in the controls setup- This should hopefully reduce the problem with it shooting off when in slew mode (it happens to me in FSX as well.....can be a bit frustrating having to reload)

As for the yaw in flight, the need for pedal input will reduce as airspeed increases due to the torque being countered by the aerodynamics of the fuselage and appendages.....however you will still need to keep in balance using the pedals.

When flying, say in the 206, have a look at the 'ball' in the turn coordinator- This should be in the center. If not, it means you are flying out of balance and need to add in pedal ( in the direction of the ball) to avoid slipping through the air.

[Zacchaeus]

QUOTE (creator2003 @ Jul 16 2008, 11:18 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yaw depends on the chopper ,some blades go left some go right rotation so you do get different Yaw ,there is a yaw tool for fs9 on hovercontrol but this wont help you with a stuffed stick ,,yaw is induced with power to the blades so expect it on take off mostly but the effect of this in fs9 is not a good rendition ie thats why they made a tool gauge for it ..
also i was told without rudder input the chopper would turn at lest 90 deg ,but in the realworld after the 90deg turn you would end up of course in never never land at what ever gate you were heading to ..
hope this helps

Thanks Creator. I had expected that the heli would yaw predominantly left or right (depending on the model) and that it would also yaw depending on adjustments to the torque, but not the constant left/right/left/right that I am finding. So, I am guessing that it is the stick. I have been idly contemplating spending some time and building my own pedals, so I wonder if it is time to bring this project forward.

Hi Timmo
I have just recalibrated the stick. It shows as stable when I am not touching it, but as soon as I do touch it the rudder is 'bouncy'. I have considered adding a small null zone, as you suggested, but so far I have avoided this as all the advice I have read so far suggests that this is a bad idea when flying helicopters. When looking at the ball in the turn indicator, this is bouncing left/right constantly.

[NZ255]

I to get a very shakey, side to side ride when in heli's, it's not much of a yaw, maybe 5 deg's, but it yaws from side to side very quick'y. This only happens when I am at highspeed, and full power.

[Charl]

(Away on holiday, no time to dip into the forum...)

Guys you are overspeeding the chopper, it wags its tail to tell you!

[NZ255]

Yeah, thought it might be. *Guilty*

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (Charl @ Jul 16 2008, 08:16 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

(Away on holiday, no time to dip into the forum...)

WELL THAT SERVE,S YOU RIGHT ! ... AS PUNISHMENT ! take another month off !

[HardCorePawn]

one other thought... do you have other controllers plugged in that might be conflicting? I sometimes get issues if I have the joystick and yoke plugged in at the same time... Perhaps something else is also configured for rudder control...

Speaking of, do you have Auto Rudder Control switched on or off??

Finally, consider getting a registered copy of FSUIPC... it has some nifty features, like helping to remove control input spikes etc... it also seems to make the controls much smoother than...

[Zacchaeus]

QUOTE (HardCorePawn @ Jul 17 2008, 09:17 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

one other thought... do you have other controllers plugged in that might be conflicting? I sometimes get issues if I have the joystick and yoke plugged in at the same time... Perhaps something else is also configured for rudder control...

Speaking of, do you have Auto Rudder Control switched on or off??

Finally, consider getting a registered copy of FSUIPC... it has some nifty features, like helping to remove control input spikes etc... it also seems to make the controls much smoother than...

Hi HardCore...
I'm using an old microsoft sidewinder joystick which is a conflict all by it's very own self. I actually have three of these, and I wanted to run two at once. One for cyclic and one for collective. Unfortunately, they are unforgiving when it comes to the resource range that they need, and the two old gameport/soundcards I have could not be configured so that I could run both. So, short answer is that I do not have another controller plugged in, but that I would dearly love to, heh.

Still seriously considering building my own pedals. I hate having the rudder on the stick as I find that when I am hovering and try to apply a little yaw I am also adding left or right pitch, and things pretty much go haywire from there. Before I know it I am flying backwards with vague memories of large trees/buildings being somewhere there. *oh yes, found them*.

As for FSUIPC. I have considered this option but have a budget that is not so much limited as on life support. I do not want to give it too many surprises as balancing everything is only slightly more difficult that trying to land the damned helicopters. I have also thought about using glovepie to do the same thing, but the results this far have not been smooth enough.

As for overflying the helicopter (I soooooo feel like I just got told off) I can pick this behaviour as it always kicks in at certain speeds - that one is not a problem, but the constant yawing even at low speeds is a wee bit annoying

[creator2003]

Just a thought ,there are a couple of tips for helicopter control ,first of all in the realism settings you should change a couple of things all the sliders to the right but the top one i think general back one to 99% this makes the movement alot better ,next is the controls sliders there should be no nil zone so you dont have dead spots and this will improve response with the control of the choppers ,now these settings take abit to get use to but you will see how much more control you will have and when you do something it wont be delayed anymore ,this is alot more sensitive and will take some getting use to but is the best way of getting what you want done like landings and hovers done ...
when im in the sim next ill take a screen shot of the settings and show you just incase you dont understand it ,also theses settings are recomended over at hovercontrol so they do have merit and are widely used within the chopper community..
mike

[Timmo]

Indeed- Mike makes some good points.

Also be aware that the flight dynamics of choppers, especially in FS9 leaves a bit to be desired- the tail wagging is a known 'bug'. There are replacement .air and .cfg on Hovercontrol for the default choppers to fix these.....

(I tried the B206 replacement files....they make the chopper a lot more sensitive than the rather numb default Jetranger dynamics)

[Zacchaeus]

Speaking of Hovercontrol.
I have just read the article, Helicopter Simulator Flight Dynamics - Part 2
http://www.hovercontrol.com/artman/publish/article_88.shtml
I was wondering if anyone here has tinkered with these settings, and what their results were.

I have spent a fair bit of time on that site recently and I am quite impressed. My first impression was that the site was commercial, and that everything would be payware, but instead I find it is loaded with advice that seems to be very good ... you just have to get off that awful front page.

[creator2003]

Yeah im going to be going through dynamics after the job im doing ,trying to get the correct dynamics for a helo is going to be a tough one but i was talking to dave from IRIS the other day and he has given me some cool tips on how to FAKE it and this should solve the issues that i would come across ,,Hovercontrol is a great resource thats where i started out back in the day and you will learn cr@p loads from all the guys around there on the forums if you just ask,just remember its fire season i think there so all the dudes are of fighting fires and it will be a little dead on the forums for a couple of months,, happens every year on those forums

[Zacchaeus]

UPDATE.

I Have managed to fix this problem. I reverted to my original sidewinder, ripped it to pieces, cleaned and regreased all the parts, and made a washer to kill the sloppy centre zone. A small description of the process can be found in my blog on this site along with a link to the full process. After a quick test in FS9 I found I was getting a whole lot more control than I have ever had.

I'll be ripping my second sidewinder to pieces today - but I'm a little nervous about this as I do not have any instructionss for the process.