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Vlad_13

Helicopter CONTROLS

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So, let me get this right, there are two posters complaining that with all their wisdom and experience of virtually flying Helicopters in different games (BF Helicopters are nothing like the real thing, they were dumbed right down for ease of use) they feel that BIS have got it wrong?

Arma II is not perfect, though the helicopter flight model is fairly accurate. This is expected from a 'jack of all trades' simulator rather than a specific flight /infantry /vehicle simulator.

What is actually being complained about is the actual realistic way a helicopter flies, it is obvious that you have not experienced a realistic helicopter flight model, other than DCS Black Shark, and that helicopter is an exception, in its typical Kamov co-axial rotor design it uses a rudder control surface which allows for higher manouverability at speed.

The problem is not with the flight model in Arma II, it is with your misunderstanding of an accurate flight model through the experience of games rather than simulators on the whole.

Take time out and clock up some hours in the editor and give the helicopter some respect and assume you do not know it all and you will be all the more satisfied when you master it.

Learn, adapt and enjoy. :)

I cannot agree more!

It's a challenge... overcome or give up but please dont whine...

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Just to clarify, "Right Turn" and "Left Turn" are weird hybrid control that try to make one joystick axis do what should take two joystick axes by switching from yaw authority to bank authority based on speed.

Thanks Frederf - you have just explained what i have been experiencing - I have been playing the ARMA2 demo version (with no real instruction manual to speak of) so I had no idea that the Right Turn / Left Turn controls are actually combining turning and banking (once over a certain speed)!

Can't wait to get home and give it a try.

Cheers

:thumb:

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Yeah I'm mighty late to the party I guess, but anyway I'd like to chip in some things I've learnt so far. This seemed to be one of the few useful threads I've found through searching the boards, sorry for the thread necro.

Unfortunately I haven't found any decent tutorials or really helpful texts on how to fly these things in ARMA 2, maybe I can add some things that may be apparent but aren't at all to the complete noob.

1) Imo the tutorials in the game are pretty worthless because you suddenly are expected to master flight with sharp turns, landings in difficult spots (surrounded by phone wires, trees and buildings) etc. without much prior practice or understanding how the controls work in ARMA 2.

2) What everyone is saying "Make a custom map and fly around there, get some practice". This is really nice if you already are good at flying and don't loose choppers too often. But this just means people have to figure out how to set up a chopper without the crew inside, make it usable etc. Imho its much easier to just go to the Armory and select a chopper there, the MI-18 for example unlocked pretty early and is quite comfortable to begin with.

3) Start engine. Use thrust to go up 20-30m, move forwards just a little (nose down), reduce speed (nose back) a little until you are hovering, try to land gently. Repeat until it you can do it wherevery you want to land and in between obstacles or behind a treeline.

4) Go up 50 - 100m and just fly, fly, fly practice curves, sharp turns, following streets, make waypoints on your map and do a low altitude approach. Do this again and again.

5) If you are using a controller (gamepad in my case) try to increase the bars in the advanced controller setup (customize) a bit upwards until they are around 60 -80% depending on your liking, elsewise controls might be jerky and this is very counter intuitive for learning.

6) Thrust seems to only mean increasing altitude/decreasing altitude, not more speed (this was very confusing for me)

7) Try to level out when landing without too much banking. If you have side-winds or somehow are drifting to the left and right, carefully "counterbank" and then immedately do another very light bank in the other direction again to level out. If you are going very slow and the rotation from the main rotor is turning you, gently use the pedal to counter this.

8) Use the pickup missions in the armory to get a feel how it is to select a decent approach and landing site (LZ is what the pros call it) close to a pickup location and to feel a bit of time pressure (especially with those old grandmas limping to the chopper!)

9) Learn to use mountains, buildings, treelines as cover when flying around

10) Helicopters with wheels do not actually roll at all. Its more like rubber prongs sticking out downwards.

---

Now some questions that are still a mystery to me:

- What is the difference between Thrust And Thrust analogue? On the Analogue stick I didn't notice any difference.

- How do you keep the Helo from skating around / sliding if the LZ is not completely flat? I understand that I cannot land on a mountain side :) , but it seems as soon as there is the slightest angle on the landing site the heli starts to slide downwards.

- How do you set several waypoints for a route? Currently I can only set one with Shift + Mouseclick on the map.

- How do you go from fullspeed (160+) to 20 within such a short time? Whenever I try this "full stop" by pulling up, the helo of course keeps lots of the inertia and thus I often overshoot the landing site. For me the transition from normal flight speed to "landing speed" is currently the most difficult thing to do.

- If I go down just a little bit too fast, immediately INST indicator goes to yellow or orange, if I go down too slow I start getting side rotation or a skating effect. How do you go the middle path? Its very difficult for me to guess how fast I'm decreasing altitude.

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I wish arma helicopters behave like Take on Heli, but some players would not like or able to fly, so an option to helos to behave as ToH would be nice.

Thanks,

Wilson Calabresi

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Use these controls.

th_Flight-ctrl.png

They're more intuitive and closer to BF than default.

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Flying is more difficult than in other games that feature Helos / planes as a goodie to the standard infantry combat, but its really simple to figure out and medium / hard to master, which is fine.

Currently i'm happily flying with my controller using the stick, 2 shoulder buttons & 2 two for the pedals, thats all. X+ / X- for bank, Y+ / Y - for down / up and left shoulder top / bottom for thrust / altitude increase. Its just two buttons more than in other games (the pedals) so its no biggie. To get the typical feeling like for example Joint Operations, just leave away the bank / pedals and use the turn commands, it will make precise flying and low speed manoeuvring very weak though.

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For me Mice/Keyboard is the winner. Extremely simple. Up/More Power = Q Down/Less power = Z Everything else is basically the mouse. Occasionally you'll correct a drift with A or D or at low speed/altitude you'll rotate with X or C, but basically everything you need to do is done with the mouse and Q/Z.

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Now I know I´m not the only one and that is not possible to fly ArmA like ToH, let´s see if "ArmA III" will do.

Anyway, I´m using mouse to sensitive and comfortable flying like pickups and dropping and radio controls to fly hard and evasive, yet, the trust is on keyboard and rudder also, so I don't need to change my left hand all the time to manage rudder and trust, its not even good, but what can we do.

Hopping for BIS to fix and make evolution on that.

Thanks,

Wilson Calabresi

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I think i know what he is talking about ,he's right you can't turn while flying at high speed which is real in reality,i made a ticket on that few months ago.

https://dev-heaven.net/issues/23473

Should be obvious...this is not arcade BF where you turn your helo on a tighter area than a tank can. First lesson you learn when you come from an action shooter to ArmA...it doesn't work the BF way ;)

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The comanche is the only helo of traditional design(not twin rotor such as the kamov) that can do that, as far as i am aware. Even then the comanche can only fly in that manner for a max of 4-5 seconds and it is limited to under 70mph.

When the comanche videos showing it's ability to do that came out helo magazines were astounded because no other helo can do that at those speeds because the tail is designed to work like a wind-vane and point into the direction of travel.

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Well,the kamov is part of the game and i'm particulary answering the guy who said that he was playing DCS:black shark and is disappointed by it in ArmA.

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the OP said he played DCS Black Shark and assumed all helos in ArmA should function that way, I agree the Kamov should, but the other helos are just fine

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And what about the game ? :D

Do some testing and report back with your findings, I suppose.

One source says that Ah-1W seems like it has a maximum sideways flight of 35 knots (65km/h), and another says 55 km/h.

I guess the advantage of the kamov is that it could do it equally on both sides, whereas a helicopter with a tail rotor is limited by engine power on one side more than the other.

And then we get to the questionable nature of internet information when all I can find for the mil mi-28 is that it can fly sideways at 100km/h. Is that to be believed? I would be inclined not to think so.

edit: aviastar claims 70.

edit2: I was able to gain sideways flight in the ka-50 up until 60km/h. I was able to sustain it past 130km/h. At 70km/h, I could put the nose past 45 degrees from centre.

edit3: The flight characteristics of my ah1 are very similar so I would conclude that the flight envelopes for all helicopters in ArmA are very similar in this regard.

Edited by Max Power

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