Flying Helos

[Felt]

Hello all...

I am new to this game and love it! I am a bit confused however.. I have been trying for the life of me to learn how to fly these helos. I have a HOTAS X-52pro with rudder pedals and I'm a real world airline pilot with over 10,000 hours of flight time in mostly fixed wing jet aircraft, but I'm embarrased to say I can F&^king take this damn thing off...LOL. Any help would be appreciated.

S! Felt

[RazersEdge]

Wait for the rotors to spin up, it takes time for the bird to be ready to roll. Keep your throttle at 0 otherwise you will flip over and have unpleasantness in your newly acquired steel deathtrap. And make sure all your corrections are eased, jerky movement especially in the Blackhawk and LittleBird will cause you to lose control unless you REALLY know how to fly those things. Helos in PR are very touchy so take it easy on the controls until you get the hang of it


Oh and for the record you can tell it is warmed up when the rotor sound is constant and the wafting sound is rapid and not sporadic.

[Felt]

rgr, Thanks..Its just really hard trying to learn how to fly these things in MP servers. I'll need to work on it offline.

S! Felt

[orion808]

Also, because it is PR, you'll need to request a kit from a base or Rally Point of course. Then, like they said, wait 30 seconds and you should hear a change in the motor...you're ready to lift off.


These changes were made to eliminate the immediate take-offs and Rambo style play you might find in the vanilla version. How likely are you to survive on the ground as a pilot if you are only carrying a pistol?...lol

[Felt]

Yea, i just about an hour praticing and I finally was able to fly it around pretty good. I praticed quick insertion landings in tight LZs. Thanks for the help.

S! Felt

[Murderous]

Well you can blame the flight model for 1. It is terribly innacurate for the UH-60 (I fly em, I would know.) The little bird is pretty good save the roll-over tendency. I have an X52 that I use for Falcon4 and I find it way to...bulky and the range of movement is too much for PR. I have a Logitech Extreme 3d Pro that seems to be best suited for this game. (20-30 bucks at best buy.) If I slammed my X52 around like my logitech in an engagement, I'd be shelling out 100 bucks on 52's every month

BTW glad to see another RL aviator on here!

Murderous
US Army UH-60 Pilot in Command

[mingmong]

The blackhawk is weird. It turns like an elephant but if you roll a bit to one side so you're turning by pulling back on the collective then it can complete a turning circle with a competitive time to the little bird when it's hovering and using rudder. You can practically fly it like an airplane.

[Murderous]

Once you establish foward airspeed a helo "feels" like an airplane while turning. Bank to a side, pull aft stick to sharpen turn (w/ greater bank angle.) To be brutally honest, there are SO many terrible features of the Hawk's flight model in PR I dont know where to begin

[Sam Hoy]

Forget everything you know about flying helicopters in real life.

Although flying the helicopters off line is an okay start, you really don't get the feeling for them until you are in the heat of combat, with a full squad scrutinizing your every move and various light and heavy machine guns in combination with recoilless munitions making contact from every angle. Add in lag and its a whole new ball game.

[Morganan]

Originally Posted by Murderous

Once you establish forward airspeed a helo "feels" like an airplane while turning. Bank to a side, pull aft stick to sharpen turn (w/ greater bank angle.) To be brutally honest, there are SO many terrible features of the Hawk's flight model in PR I don't know where to begin

That's because of the game engine. It has zero code in it to simulate any type of flight physics. The planes and helo's work off the same code of the ground vehicles. Obviously the code is adjusted to allow for flight from certain vehicles, in some cases that means as little as allowing for the "Z" axis to be used. There is no drag, no lift, no weight compensation, nothing. It's one of the trade off's you accept for gameplay sake since at no point during the battlefield series was this game ever called a "flight simulator".

[Braidedheadman]

Which is unfortunate, really. A bunch of stuff about the way BF2 models flight is quite irritating. Like not being able to exceed 700 feet - in jets with engines capable of producing 43,000 pounds of thrust - leading to a spin and inevitable death on the OOB material at the edges of maps. It's gimped beyond belief. Sigh...

[Felt]

Well one thing to remember with sims, is that they are software code. Even the 13 million dollar sim that I take my recurrent checkrides in every 6 months are like flying a game. Some of the things like handling characteristics on the ground, ie takeoff roll, are not the same as in the real deal. So i wouldn't expect to much out of a 50 dollar game. Btw, thanks everyone for your inputs and help. I look forward to playing with you guys.

S! Felt

[Morganan]

Originally Posted by Braidedheadman

Which is unfortunate, really. A bunch of stuff about the way BF2 models flight is quite irritating. Like not being able to exceed 700 feet - in jets with engines capable of producing 43,000 pounds of thrust - leading to a spin and inevitable death on the OOB material at the edges of maps. It's gimped beyond belief. Sigh...

Back when I administered for CAL, we had an opportunity to talk with DICE a bit. The fighters in bf1942 for example were just for all intensive purposes jeeps that could be controlled on a "Z" axis as well as "X" and "Y" using a different skin but same physic's model. Bombers were Medium tanks with the same limitations. As for the limitations, blame that on the minimum requirements to play the game and their desire to make money. They wanted a game that required a computer that wasn't "top of the line" to be able to play to get a broader audience and thus more sales. For all intensive purposes the engine is the same today it was way back when 1942 first came out obviously with some updates. This engine was made with DX 8.0b in mind, so don't forget you can only upgrade it so far before you are better off spending the time working on a new one. That's why I wouldn't expect to much more out of the battlefield series, they are about at the engine's limit.

[Morganan]

Originally Posted by Felt

Well one thing to remember with sims, is that they are software code. Even the 13 million dollar sim that I take my recurrent checkrides in every 6 months are like flying a game. Some of the things like handling characteristics on the ground, ie takeoff roll, are not the same as in the real deal. So i wouldn't expect to much out of a 50 dollar game. Btw, thanks everyone for your inputs and help. I look forward to playing with you guys.

S! Felt

Well, flight simulations get much closer to "reality" for flight op's since the engine is made specifically for that. Handling on the ground is different simply because the simulation has no different code for "being on the ground". A jeep in your "checkride" would handle exactly like the helo only without a Z axis.

[Sabre_Tooth_Tigger]

The blackhawk in pr is nuts, I think its great Same for that strange chinese equalivant of the littlebird, it hops rather then glides or hovers.

I dont for a second think they bare a relation to real helis but they at least force you to concentrate and occasionally panic and struggle to control them which is the realistic bit?

I wouldnt mind hearing how these helis fly in real life. Is the blackhawk like a tank or is it more like a overweight littlebird.

I'd like to see all sorts of things matter like number of passengers altering handling and crosswinds, turbulence, weather patterns.
Not likely when we dont even have rain though


It seems all set to change in 0.6 back to normal bf2 style which is regretable imo.
I think of the physics like puppet strings, in pr we have them very long and something you did a mile back can still effect its feel seconds later. Each axis is like a pendulums arc

I use a mouse to fly, usually does ok except an extreme dive or swerve might need multiple pickup, drop and drags to get enough yaw, etc