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Hinds FM

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Guys are you serious about the FM of the Hinds?

I really really enjoy TOH since the rotor lib update, the most incredible feeling of actually flying of all Helo Sims I have ever tried.

I have benn flying since 1997 I flew about 30 different types of airworthy equipment, Paragliders, Biplanes, Cessnas, Robinson R22s, and even Airliners. RC Helicopters, Gliders and and and... and countless different simulations.

But your Hind FM ist just unbelievable. They feel like they weigh about 2 kilos, like an RC Chopper. The real Hind is an EXTREMELY stable gun platform and flies incredible smooth even more than the Apache - The Apeche flies almost hands off and ecredible stable. What went wrong? Why do the Hinds not behave like at least the other Helos in TOH. Even the Light Chopper is more stable than the Hinds. I am very dissapointet. You need to fix this. I find the Hinds to be overly sensitive and yaw friendly. They feel a bit like the original heavy Chopper in the TOH Beta and before you added the rotor lib update.

PLs tell me that yu are planning to improve on this. Also the VC is not the same quality as the other helos. It looks pixilated and doesnt even seem to be the same kind of sim than TOH.

What are the plans guys? Is this a sort of teaser and are you going to built a nicer VC and update the FM? The weapons Systems are o.k. but also hardly reflect the system depth of the original bird either. Not to mention that the gunner is veeery slow in response even if they have a sitting duck right in front of them...Any improovements planned here as well??

blue skies and happy landings

the Baron

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The flight model fits with what I have read about the hind. Here is what the Brassey's book Military Helicopters says about the hind. It was written for the Royal Military College of Science in Shrivenham, UK.

"The maneuverability and agility of NATO attack helicopters, particularly at low speed, has already been discussed. The hind does not compare in this flight regime, being unstable and difficult to fly in the hover and slow to accellerate away from it."

I have also read that it can suffer from wing stalls which also seems to happen in the sim, but I'm not sure if that is something intentional or not. The flight model apparently was developed with consultation from hind pilots, who were reportedly pleased with the simulation. The Take On devs say that the pilots report that the same sort of maneuvers are possible in different flight regimes in the sim and in the real helicopter. Based on the pilot feedback, they claim that the flight simulation is 90% accurate. Additionally, they were saying that the development of matching the flight model with the real helicopter was quite labourious, and therefore another sim like it is less likely.

It would seem that your expectation of what the hind should fly like, and its stability as a gun platform isn't quite correct. I find the hind to be very stable at high speed, and given the terrain of eastern europe, that is what the hind itself was designed for- to scream in at tree top level, obtain the maximum possible surprise, and to deliver its weapons at maximum range. By contrast, the apache and other NATO helicopters have faster moving rotors and sacrifice top speed for low speed performance and agility.

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The Hind was designed to attack in attack runs at high speed, the Apache and Cobra were designed to fight the enemy from concealment at distance. Correspondingly they would differ a lot in terms of handling, the Hind is heavily armed unlike the Apache.

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Has anyone flown the Hind on expert using keyboard/mouse only? If so, I'm interested in your comments and thoughts.

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Since this isn't a troubleshooting issue, but one of discussion and criticism, I'll move it to general.

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sure I understand - yet every Heli ist still essentially a High Wing AC with the COG under the Wing Area. Giving it a certain stability from the get go. The rotor actually should help to improve this stability in the same manner as a bicycle stabs itself once the wheels turn, through gyroscopic precession. TOH Helos nevertheless generally tend to roll to the side extremely and the Hind is basically the King of Rollers if you will. Also its feels to be to yaw friendly, it just seems to lack the heavyness that you would expect from a Bird this size. Beeing highly manourarable doesnt really mean oversensitive. The other TOH Helos had the same issues befor you added the rotor lib update. The medium stopped pitching up and down the heavy started to feel heavy. Also the ground effect was fixed. The Hinds nevertheless seem to still lack this kind of fine tuning.

I know a little bit about how to implement a FM and everytime I was involved in such a process I disovered that the simulated planes seem to behave irrational in certain situations (pumpng in a spin etc..) although they have been rendered to the specs and the FM was calculated in realtime and the aerodynamics should have been just right. Nevertheless it always needed finetuning and later some kind of workaround to simualte really happens AND what pilots feel. This can be very different although by the books the bird should be just perfect. I admit that I never flew a Hind but I flew an EC 120 and a R 22. The R22 is known for its extremely unstable flight regime but it didnt feel anything like the TOH Hind. Maybe the Hind IS the King of unstableness but it just doesnt feel right. Of course its difficult to get a good feel on a PC especially with equipment of the shelf. Maybe you have a hardware recommendation for the pedals because there seems to be my biggest prob. I use SAITEK Pro Flight Pedals with the Spring removed to ease on keeping an uncentered position for longer periods of time.

I still hope there will be finetuning to the Hind. And what about the VC? It really doesnt compare to e.g. the "Hughes 500" type Helo in TOH. Turning around in the hind cockpit reveals a pixilated backside and also in the pilots direct view there are pixilated areas. Thanks.

happy landings

the Baron

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As others mentioned before, the FM was developed together with real Hind pilots who were impressed by the outcome and to me as an amateur the FM feels very convincing. I don't think at all that it feels light - to me it feels like a heavy machine with a lot of power. However, when I mess around with my sensitivity I can make every helicopter in TOH feel (very) light and oversensitive.

As Max Power already mentioned - from all I read the Hind is very difficult to control in slow flight and hover and that's exactly how this bird handles - very difficult at slow speeds but incredibly stable once you get past a certain speed.

It's not the FM but the taxiing that feels a little off to me in some situations - sometimes it feels more like drifting than rolling but maybe that's just me...

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I've been flying professionally since 1990. I've been flying sims since 1983. Flight simulations fly nothing like the real thing. Sometimes they get close (x-plane, Rise of Flight, Phoenix RC to name three). But generally they are way off. But so long as they get the "bullet points" right and include torque, accelerated stalls and non-scripted spins (for airplanes) and Autorotation, ETL and torque (for helicopters), I am generally happy. Just try to enjoy it. If you ever do find yourself in a real Hind, after mastering the crazy version in ToH, you will probably be able to fly the snot out of it.

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sure I understand - yet every Heli ist still essentially a High Wing AC with the COG under the Wing Area. Giving it a certain stability from the get go.

Helicopters lack positive dynamic stabililty.

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yes, I know, I did avoid the word Dynamic Stability for a reason and said "a certain stability"... Real Helos need a sufficient input to make them roll to either side, in TOH it takes a tiny input and of they roll like there is no tommorow :-). I am not saying this isnt fun to fly for instance in the Hughes 500 type Helo (the Light) its kind of cool to fly hands offf with just pitch and pedals something that you probably couldnt do in the real Hughes - but I dont know... Anyways, maybe I have the wrong settings for the Joystick/Pedals? What are your recommendations? Are you supoosed to use the same value for all choppers? You see I manage top fly all TOH Choppers just fine and they feel GREAT (think I said that before) Its only the Hind that is giving me some headache...

@Smokin`Hole Great advise anywayss I will probably just do exactly that, enjoy it as it is and take it as a new challenge.

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Helicopters pilots on these forums were saying that it takes very little control input at all to cause them to respond. But, if you're finding that the helicopters are too sensitive to input, you might try decreasing your joystick sensitivity. I believe the menu is under controls, then at the bottom, click on controllers, then something else, you can make the joystick less sensitive, which push the hard inputs out to the edges of the joystick's range of motion, and spread out the small inputs.

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The weapons Systems are o.k.

??

What weapons systems ? :)

And no, they are not ok at all, they are arcadish and we have no precision for shooting with gun, rockets, bombs.

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;2128543']You really should try DCS:Black Shark.:)

I actually did try Black Shark right from the get go and I love it - just like the A10C - also a great Sim. I am also planing to upgrade to the latest version of the Balckshark. But I always thought that the Heli feels almost too easy, too smooth to fly. Probably also due to the Koax Setup. But it flies like a piece of rock stable smooth and great!! Exactly what you would expect from a machine this size... Altough... I always thought the Trick about the Ka-50 is the System Depth and not so much the Flightmodel... What do the Ka-50 Experts say? The AAA Apache for instance flies almost by itself, which is great fun... but it lacks Vortex Ring state and other aerodynamic effects like Rotor Stall in Overspeed and its also very hard to roll. Nevertheless a great and fun to fly chopper with nice graphics. This is what I mean guys. I have a lot of experience with Sim Helos. I fly X-plane since V7 and the Helis there. Which is o.k. a little to prominent effects from Hover to forward flight but o.k. Autorotation works and it feels fine. I fly MSFS since FS 2000 and their Helis. I believe they are mostly crap the Dodosim Jetranger is o.k. but apart from this, there isnt much flyable material. I own just about every Game/Sim that deals with Aviation in some way. And I have been flying for real since `97. And now I have come to the point where I just dont buy the reality of the Sim (in this case the Hind) it just doesnt seem to fit in with all my prvious experience and what I expect. I have also of course been trying to change the Joystick settings and changed curves back and forth. BUT I was wondering if there is a specific! recommendation for specific! Hardware. The generall possibility to change the respond curve is understood in every sim, there is nearly no Sim without this option.

I tried the Hind again yesterday and managed to pinpoint my main area of concern. It seems way too yaw friendly. I mean you barely touch the pedals (with a linear curve and the Saitek Pedals) and the thing vioilently yaws out of control if you are not careful...for my feeling way too fast and way too quick this is not what I would expect from such a big and Heayv Bird. There has got to be some sort of mass inertia effect. It feels too light. My RC Helicpter reacts like this, o.k. fine but a several Tons heavy Gunship???? I still just dont buy it...

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I partly agree with sportspilot here. To me the lack of "inertia" (or rather the subjective feeling thereof) doesn't feel quite right, too.

I spent endless hours tweaking my controllers and now i'm still only halfway happy by mapping my available controller range to about 50% of the game's rudder input range (using PPJoy and GlovePIE). That seems to give me the needed amount of precision and tolerance but it still feels way too jumpy especially in hover and slow flight, almost like an RC chopper... To compensate for the smaller range i'm using fairly frequent manual trim in order to re-center my axis as I go. Not ideal but it's the best I could do.

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Hi. I'm new on this forum but not new in real aviation and simflying.

Like i wrote in my first post i'm working and flying on real hinds in Polnish Army Aviation since 2002.

Also i'm simflyer since 2000 year and helos is my favor so i can say that i'm one of YOU.

Here what i want to say.

"The maneuverability and agility of NATO attack helicopters, particularly at low speed, has already been discussed. The hind does not compare in this flight regime, being unstable and difficult to fly in the hover and slow to accellerate away from it."

Yes and No. Yes hind is born to attack at high speed but it is no true that hind is unstable and difficult during hover. Ofcourse hind is not toy for rookie pilots but hovering not driving pilots to sweat.

Hind have SAS. Sometime pilot during hover can even relase hand from stick for few seconds and after that hind slowly change his current position . Of course if we have not strong wind and pilot use central trim correctly. Even if SAS will turn off (perform during test flights after big maintance) good pilot shouldn't have a problem to keep stable hover . It's not easy but possible. Hind have autohover but as far i can remember pilots don't use this option.

I have also read that it can suffer from wing stalls which also seems to happen in the sim, but I'm not sure if that is something intentional or not.

Wings? Meaby you want to say rotor blades?

Hind feel good at high speeds ~250km/h . At max 320km/h vibrations is a little be uncomfortable. Yes the true is MI-24 is not design for sneaky close to target.

He is just to heavy. To heavy to rapid manouvers during hover and low speeds over battlefield. But if you want to make a nice airshow over airfield ...well it's not a Bo-105 or Apache

but skill pilot is able to perform show that you will not forget.

In overall, hind is quite sensitive in controls but "lazy like cow" makeing maouvers. It's 11 tons , you cant cheat a physics :o . Try a DCS Ka-50 it's similar in controls.

And last word about rudder . Please do something with this because it's not as in real. I wrote here http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?132569-To-much-torque-induced-yaw about "how it works".

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Yes and No. Yes hind is born to attack at high speed but it is no true that hind is unstable and difficult during hover. Ofcourse hind is not toy for rookie pilots but hovering not driving pilots to sweat.

Hind have SAS. Sometime pilot during hover can even relase hand from stick for few seconds and after that hind slowly change his current position . Of course if we have not strong wind and pilot use central trim correctly. Even if SAS will turn off (perform during test flights after big maintance) good pilot shouldn't have a problem to keep stable hover . It's not easy but possible. Hind have autohover but as far i can remember pilots don't use this option.

I'm sure that the author is talking comparatively to western helicopters. Skilled people can do very difficult things. I find the hind in the sim at least to be more difficult to hover than the western helicopters. It seems twitchy yet sluggish for those twithes to mean anything- like it's easy to over control but there is quite a delay before your changes in flight attitude amount to much, giving the hind a feeling of being very vague in the hover.

If you have some experience flying the hind perhaps you would like to put your appraisal next to the other professional hind pilots that have rated the sim's accuracy? We'd be all ears.

Wings? Meaby you want to say rotor blades?

Hind feel good at high speeds ~250km/h . At max 320km/h vibrations is a little be uncomfortable. Yes the true is MI-24 is not design for sneaky close to target.

He is just to heavy. To heavy to rapid manouvers during hover and low speeds over battlefield. But if you want to make a nice airshow over airfield ...well it's not a Bo-105 or Apache

but skill pilot is able to perform show that you will not forget.

No, I meant to say the wings. I have read that in steep turns the inside wing can stall leading to a tendency roll into the stalled wing. In the sim I was conducting a left hand turn at about 250km/h and I lifted the collective to see what affect that had on the turning performance and it departed from controlled flight for a second and snapped into a 90 degree roll into the turn, and then was all over the place while I regained controlled flight.

Edited by Max Power

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In the sim I was conducting a left hand turn at about 250km/h

In Hinds, and ToH since 1.04, I am concerned that speeds >220km/h simply cannot be gained using keyboard/mouse, especially over flat terrain. At least for me. Can anyone confirm this? Probably nobody but me flies with kb/mouse only. :(

Perhaps I'm just doing something wrong....

In 1.01-1.03, collective could be cranked to max to consistently allow red/yellow zone danger speeds over flat terrain, which are required to make gold times on time trials. This is no longer possible with RTD FMs, as high collective will (correctly) produce massive yaw, but even if you compensate for the yaw, high speeds are still not possible.

But hey, I finished the Patrol challenge yesterday on expert, and even landed without using autohover. I definitely feel like I accomplished something!

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No, I meant to say the wings. I have read that in steep turns the inside wing can stall leading to a tendency roll into the stalled wing.

Before i wrote this post i talk with my friend who was very experience hind pilot (2000h) for sure. I ask him about "wing stall". During more than 20 years of traningflights , test flights even display flight on airshows he don't experience this kind of occurrence. Wings on hind start "working" from 70km/h and it's helpfull for entire capacity (it's about ~25%) .

In the sim I was conducting a left hand turn at about 250km/h and I lifted the collective to see what affect that had on the turning performance and it departed from controlled flight for a second and snapped into a 90 degree roll into the turn, and then was all over the place while I regained controlled flight.

For now i don't have chance to do the same test but on the previous friday during flights (in real) we perform training attack to air targets (training target was other hind) and we perform i think similar maneuver as yours.

For exp. diving from 8 o'clock going to 7 and break to left turn up (angle bank ~ 30 to 40 degrees) and nothing happend. The same on right.

I'm sure that the author is talking comparatively to western helicopters. Skilled people can do very difficult things.

Meaby we don't understand together. I don't want to say that hind is easy like western helos. I mean that hind is not difficult as you think

I find the hind in the sim at least to be more difficult to hover than the western helicopters.

But remember it's only sim.

If you have some experience flying the hind perhaps you would like to put your appraisal next to the other professional hind pilots that have rated the sim's accuracy? We'd be all ears.

Let's make it clear .I'm flying on Mi-24 as crew chief not a pilot. I had occasions to take control but 3 or 4 times . But it's old times. I have my own knowlage about mi-24 and possibility to ask pilots about some aspects of FM real hind. Fly simulation is my hobby so i take a conversation with a pleasure on this forum especially about hind.

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Before i wrote this post i talk with my friend who was very experience hind pilot (2000h) for sure. I ask him about "wing stall". During more than 20 years of traningflights , test flights even display flight on airshows he don't experience this kind of occurrence. Wings on hind start "working" from 70km/h and it's helpfull for entire capacity (it's about ~25%) .

That I heard also.

For now i don't have chance to do the same test but on the previous friday during flights (in real) we perform training attack to air targets (training target was other hind) and we perform i think similar maneuver as yours.

For exp. diving from 8 o'clock going to 7 and break to left turn up (angle bank ~ 30 to 40 degrees) and nothing happend. The same on right.

I'm not sure what conditions exactly are supposed to make this happen. I would imagine high slip, high bank conditions where the fuselage is occluding the inside wing.

Meaby we don't understand together. I don't want to say that hind is easy like western helos. I mean that hind is not difficult as you think

I don't really think anything. I don't know how western helos are to fly, nor do I know hinds. I noticed the hind in the sim is a little unstable and that seems to coincide with what that book was saying.

But remember it's only sim.

Let's make it clear .I'm flying on Mi-24 as crew chief not a pilot. I had occasions to take control but 3 or 4 times . But it's old times. I have my own knowlage about mi-24 and possibility to ask pilots about some aspects of FM real hind. Fly simulation is my hobby so i take a conversation with a pleasure on this forum especially about hind.

Well you have more experience than me :) It's good to have people like you around.

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so guys bottom line, are you planing to change anything with the FM concerning the Yaw behaviour... more mass inertia, or someting like this...???

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Guys are you serious about the FM of the Hinds?

I really really enjoy TOH since the rotor lib update, the most incredible feeling of actually flying of all Helo Sims I have ever tried.

I have benn flying since 1997 I flew about 30 different types of airworthy equipment, Paragliders, Biplanes, Cessnas, Robinson R22s, and even Airliners. RC Helicopters, Gliders and and and... and countless different simulations.

But your Hind FM ist just unbelievable. They feel like they weigh about 2 kilos, like an RC Chopper.

...snip...

blue skies and happy landings

the Baron

Yes. I agree, but I'd say the Hind's FM on expert (which is just lovely in the Hughes500) is worse than any paper-clip improvised Z-bend linkage no-gyro blades un-tracked bent flybar RC model I or anyone I know has ever flown. Worse than an R-22 with out-of-time ball joints and dampers and a parkinson's pilot. Worse than an AH-1 with the SCAS turned off and air in the hydraulic system. Worse than a Bell 47 with the white-side mixer linkages shot off. Worse than an OH-6 in forward flight with the tail rotor completely missing.

It should not require full deflection of the TR control to avoid spinning around with collective torque. Releasing the controls in flight should not result in an instant, violent series of random oscillations resulting in inverted flight within 1 second. No. Never. Not in any conventional (main rotor, tail rotor) helicopter.

My evidence for believing that the real Mi24 should be at least as easy to fly as a particular RC scale heli of mine is:

1. I have a 5 bladed direct swashplate hub with no SCAS or gyro on the cyclic channels, tailrotor only, on my Trex 450 airframe. This rotor system is mechanically very similar to both the 500D and the Mi24 rotor systems.

2. It leads, lags, and flaps in its rubber dampers just as the Mi 24 rotors do, on a smaller scale.

3. It's exactly the same topology, albeit with much smaller moments of inertia, so it should be HARDER than the Mi24 to fly.

Only it isn't. Not by a country mile. I, or any heli nut can have a relaxing time flying it around. Not so the Mi24 in expert.

So, my challenge to anyone on here who would like to defend the TOH Hind's FM, simply post a Fraps grab on youtube taking off, hovering, flying around, transitioning back to a hover and landing in Expert setting under human control near a FARP in any of the challenge missions. Mouse-freelook the camera down so we can see the stick and pedals, as well as out the front. Anybody up for this challenge? I've done such things in other sims. It takes about 15 minutes, and you can leave it uploading.

For extra laughs, try to find even a real Mi24 pilot to try. Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Uganda, Sri Lanka, they all fly 'em. They are not all that rare. It must be one of the most popular combat helicopters in the world.

I daresay, either my Steam install is messed up, but only for the Mi24 and not for the other ~3 types, or the Mi24 on Expert isn't flyable by normal human beings, real world pilot or otherwise. So I agree with sportpilot.

To add perspective, we're talking about a 57.5 foot rotor disk, an absolutely huge gyroscope, weighing at least a ton, and nearly 19,000 pound empty weight for the airframe. To think this thing should twitch and thrash around like a 2 gram falling leaf is just silly.

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It should not require full deflection of the TR control to avoid spinning around with collective torque. Releasing the controls in flight should not result in an instant, violent series of random oscillations resulting in inverted flight within 1 second. No. Never. Not in any conventional (main rotor, tail rotor) helicopter.

Hmmm... This doesn't line up with my experience flying the sim. Perhaps there is something odd going on there.

For extra laughs, try to find even a real Mi24 pilot to try. Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Uganda, Sri Lanka, they all fly 'em. They are not all that rare. It must be one of the most popular combat helicopters in the world.
Flight model of hind was done in cooperation with real world display pilot from Czech "Tiger" squadron. He was able to fly the same menauvers with aprox same use of controls as with real aircraft. He claimed that the flight model is at least 90% the same behavior. The only difference in use of tail rotor I know about is that real Mi24 has a system that limits pedal / tail rotor angles depending on altitude.
I daresay, either my Steam install is messed up, but only for the Mi24 and not for the other ~3 types, or the Mi24 on Expert isn't flyable by normal human beings, real world pilot or otherwise. So I agree with sportpilot.

That sounds like it might be a possibility.

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I'm far to be a helicopter pilot so I can not say the flight model is wrong. However I just technicaly CAN'T be as precise on pedal with the hind than the other helo type. Way too "light" or "sensitive" or "powerfull" don't know how to describe it..

Yes.. Even after ajusting my setting ;) I need something close to 50% right pedal input to take off without.. (The thing that happend when you crush the left pedal :o).

is worse than any paper-clip improvised Z-bend linkage no-gyro blades un-tracked bent flybar RC model I or anyone I know has ever flown. Worse than an R-22 with out-of-time ball joints and dampers and a parkinson's pilot. Worse than an AH-1 with the SCAS turned off and air in the hydraulic system. Worse than a Bell 47 with the white-side mixer linkages shot off. Worse than an OH-6 in forward flight with the tail rotor completely missing.

I understand 2 words on 3 but it looks funny ;)

Anybody up for this challenge?
fuk :yay: Here is my.. Hmmm FARP in seattle where I challenge my training skill with all kind of helo.

AUa-4Mdh3R8?hd=1

9PkIMCikUlo?hd=1

Edited by hon0

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The FM of the Hind is very weird for me too on expert. Very twitchy, completely unbalanced in trim neutral mode (strong tendency to nose up, roll left and yaw right), only controlleable in high speed forward flight.

It seems something is off with the twitchyness, but apart from that, all the helo needs is trim settings.

I would imagine the real one has tabs that can be set for different flight modes (because if the Hind pilots tested the same FM we have right now in expert and found it realistic, the big difference is either us not being twitchy enough, or not having access to control aids that the real pilots do have.)

Would be interesting to hear what this is about.

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