How to fly helicopters?

[piggypunt]

I just doenloaded flight gear and its great

I'm getting good at flying the planes

But i dont know how to fly or even start up a helicopter!

Can somebody help?

[new-at-flying]

To start up the helicopter, press this button, }. Then take control of your helicopter with the mouse (right click on the screen). Then reduce the collective, but to it slowly. To reduce the collective, press the Page Down button, but don't don't just keep on holding the page down or you'll crash. While reducing the collective, keep the helicopter stable, then soon you'll lift off. To land just increase the collective slowly by using the Page Up button on your keyboard. When you touch down, increase the collective to max (Page Up again). Then just turn off with { key.


Hope this helps!

[moonman]

After you press '}', wait for the rotors to reach there operating speed. You'll typically see 2 needles in one of the dials. One will reach optimal speed relatively quickly (That's the engine speed). The other needle, takes a bit of time to reach optimal speed (that's the rotor speed indicator)

If you're using a joystick with a throttle (which is far more preferable to use than pg-up/pg-down keys), put it to its maximum. The throttle is actually your collective and is at its minimum position when full up.

Slowly move the collective control back. Soon you'll see the aircraft begin to move. If you have a twist-joystick, or pedals, move these controls to stop the yaw that will typically occur. If you don't have yaw controls, click on the 'Auto-coordination' box in the Flightgear Wizard before you click the 'run' button

If the aircraft pitches forward while moving the collective (I see this alot more in V1.0.0 than in V.9.1.0), bring your joystick back (this is your cyclic) to compensate

Eventually you should get off the ground.

Good Luck
Moonman

To start up the helicopter, press this button, }. Then take control of your helicopter with the mouse (right click on the screen). Then reduce the collective, but to it slowly. To reduce the collective, press the Page Down button, but don't don't just keep on holding the page down or you'll crash. While reducing the collective, keep the helicopter stable, then soon you'll lift off. To land just increase the collective slowly by using the Page Up button on your keyboard. When you touch down, increase the collective to max (Page Up again). Then just turn off with { key.


Hope this helps!

[majic79]

In the Robinson R-22 you have to use the mouse, click on the buttons etc around the cabin, to get the engine started and engage that clutch on the rotor. One of the views goes straight to a view of the starter panel - try using the tutorial - it walks you through the procedure to start it up.

Once I got it started, I had a problem with the joystick configuration - I use a Saitek X-52 and the default file squares the input on the two main joystick axes (which would be the cyclic on the helicopter). Squaring the input (which is a floating point number between 0 and 1 by the looks of things) is a good thing where you might want to make finer movements, but I found a linear setting made everything a lot more responsive. The stick is very precise, so having a linear config has worked for me on all the aircraft I've flown so far, as well as making the heli's easier to get off the ground

[new-at-flying]

You don't have to use the mouse, I used the keyboard...

[Thorium]

As this post exists, i would like sharing a small experience of how to fly chinook
flying CH-74 In A/P is the best Idea, just you need to think like a heli
1)Set Pitch to "-2"
2)Set throttle to "0Kts" (Yes, you read it correct ! 0 Kts)
3)Set heading to "wings level"
Get on flying !
All The best, i flew using A/P in a straight direction for almost 40 Nm lear KLSV
All the best Guys !
Thorium