Westland Whirlwind for FSX and FS2004 now freeware

[Tomb]

thanks done that, still abit tail heavy but no so overt...heli trim makes life easier so i use that as well at the moment

regards

[Michael davies]

Tomb,

Ok did a little more tweaking and uploaded V2.3 ( just go back to initial post and re download ), would you mind grabbing that and see how it feels ?, on my set up its a little nose heavy now, but only a little, it'd be interesting to see if thats also reflected in your set up.

Thanks in advance.

Michael

[Tomb]

results

V2.2... need 40% forward trim (using hovertrim) to maintain a hover

V2.2Mod...need 20% forward trim to maintain hover

V2.3 need only 7% to maintain hover (still slightly tail heavy) also feels a bit more "squirally" but that might be me

i am using the "155sqn HAR4" to fly if that makes any difference tied the "korea" one also with the same result so i suspect not..

i am getting the rotary bug...help...help... lets hope "the management "of CBFSVA put some of BEA's overland routes in to relieve the pain LoL

[Michael davies]

Tomb

One of the problems with getting it to hover level is that it will impact fwd flight, even now at full chat its nose low by too much, making the tail lighter in the hover will force the nose lower at max speed, having said that the S-55 is notthe sort of thing you roar around the countryside at full speed in, about 70%Q is good and gives a nice nose down effect.

I can adjust it a little more for you so it hovers perfectly flat, but I'll do that as a one off for you, others may well feel free to grab as well.

Squirrelly ?, nope didn't change any of that at all but I can tone that down if you want, however you can also alter that yourself quite easily in the aircraft.cfg.

We need to open the cfg and look for essentially two sets of parameters, one is the MOI parameters and the other is the realism scalar. Before we go further its important to make sure your controller is set right for helo operations, you need to set it maximum sensitivity all round and you need to set your null zones to about 5%, this'll give your hand a little respite zone.

Ok back to the cfg, the MOI is basically the mass responsiveness, if you have a large MOI it will take a large input to get it moving and equally a large input to stop it moving, micro lights have low MOI, B747 has high MOI, the second set of parameters called the realism scalar is the force required to get that input, a low scalar figure will make the joystick inputs very sharp and precise, a high figure will make inputs slow. Generally speaking the realism scalar is the same as sim scale, ie easy medium or hard. It is true that you can change the sim setting to make helos easier to fly, but then you are altering the whole sim, so you need to reset it back to hard for aircraft, this way you are tayloring the aircraft to your needs, not the whole sim.

The realism scalar default is 1.0, lower and its more precise and sharper, higher and its more toned down, the scalars also tone down each axis not all at once, so if you want the yaw a little sharper you edit that scalar.

Now, having said all that the S-55 does not have the realism scalrs in the cfg ?, quite why or how I dont know as I've been using that edit for years, so here is V2.4 which has the scalar added in, I've set it to 1.0 so you only need to edit them to suit your wishes. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mickoo/fil ... t_V2.4.zip

Best

Michael

results

V2.2... need 40% forward trim (using hovertrim) to maintain a hover

V2.2Mod...need 20% forward trim to maintain hover

V2.3 need only 7% to maintain hover (still slightly tail heavy) also feels a bit more "squirally" but that might be me

i am using the "155sqn HAR4" to fly if that makes any difference tied the "korea" one also with the same result so i suspect not..

i am getting the rotary bug...help...help... lets hope "the management "of CBFSVA put some of BEA's overland routes in to relieve the pain LoL

[Tomb]

thanks for that, i think its the scalar i need to play with...

i find the helicopters in FS generally lack stability and are over sensative to disturbance.. basically if you put a distubance input in, the rotor disk will cone or tilt (in the real world)and then go back to its previous position so because of inertia the helicopter body has hardly moved, for this reason helicopters are much better in turbulance than its similar sized fixed wing counterpart, it also means you have to think slightly ahead of any control inputs because thier is a lag between the rotor disk moving then the helicopter body. i am talking small/medium/large turbine helicopters here, i dont know if the same is true of something like the R22... a test we use is to trim for the hover...set her back down and then lift back to the hover..

she should settle back into the hover position (usually moves forward a bit first because the rotor disk is inclined forward when the wheels are on the ground) is you look carfully many helicopters will be slightly tail down and canted over slightly in roll in the hover... because the rotordisk/body angle is set for the cruise to minimise drag, in forward flight the body is level and the rotor disk is tilted forward and canted to one side.

anyway i will have a fiddle to see if i can get the "control feel" right with the information you have provided...thanks again for your interest

regards

[Tomb]

ok used V2.4 it requires 4% trim rearwards to maintain the hover..this is good because after lifting off into the hover back stick is often required to prevent the forward drift mentioned in an earlier post..for my money V2.4 is the most "realistic" and if you use hover trim only a small adjustment is reqd to hover hands free, if not only a slight back pressure on the stick is req'd to maintain the hover...

i would recomend using hover trim because it nicely represents "beep" trim found on many helicopters..now if only we could model the trim release button..then we really would be thier. ( DCS black shark models it buts thats not FSX)

regards

[Tomb]

ok having installed the wessex autopilot and hovertrim into my CBFS expermental helicopter (aka the bell206) i have now have aset of controls that work like a real helicopter. The main item from the auto pilot is the "stab trim release" in that you move the controls and then operate the joystick "trigger" which then releases the "stab trim" you move the controls then release the trigger, this keeps your helicopter in its new trimmed speed and roll angle. in the real world the controls would be held thier but on a PC your joystick self centers...but its a jolly good aproximation and replicates the function.

but for the S-55 whirlwind goes all jittery if you engage the "stab function" not sure why that would be but will have to examine the bell 206/wessex/EH101 and compare with the S-55 to see why this is so.

why does it matter, well having experimented with different cargo and fuel loads the S-55 whirlwind destabilises and becomes very hard work to fly at anything but the default load, i find i need hovertrim installed as a minimum requirment.

loading any pax starts to make the S-55 very nose heavy so it would seem this location needs to be placed nearer the CofG under the rotor disk where it would in actuality be.

help help.. i have an enjoyable and almost realistic to fly chopper, i am enjoying flying the "freaks" and in danger of becoming an FS rotor head

regards

[Michael davies]

The reason the S-55 may go all jittery is down to the FDE, there are basically two pure types, helo turbine or piston, each totally different and each supporting different functions, for example, the turbine FDE will not support start and stop sounds, nor will it support the rotor brake, yet the piston one will. Its not the FDE thats at fault, its the sim, it just does not see the hook or commands from certain FDEs.

One way around the start stop sounds is to use a fixed wing turbo prop FDE, this will also give you rotor brake as well, how ever some gauges may not perform correctly.

The whole FS9 helo FDE set up is appauling at best, nearly everything is smoke and mirrors and very little of the innards of the FDE is anywhere near authentic, for example in helo turbines there is no function for engine power, it can be 1hp or 1 million hp, the end result is the same, its a unity engine and is directly coupled to the main rotor disc parameters, where 1 + 1 =2 it must always be so, more engine and you must halve the rotor figures, and vice versa, a good way to check this is to say for example double the number of blades from 2 to 4, at best it'll sit on the ground and jitter, at worst just smoke and blow up. Now, if each blade is 10 feet long and we have two then thats 20 feet of total blade, if you want four blades then the length must be adjusted to 5, ie unity or what ever figure MS have hidden in the code. On the other hand FSx is much better with helos, but again I suspect there are differences between turbine and piston FDEs.

So, many of these extra trim thingies and such may or may not work and may only work on certain types of FDE, I suspect on only helo turbines to be honest. Now I believe the R-22 has a cyclic lock so once you have it going just as you want it'll lock the cyclic there, being as the S-55 is also a piston FDE then that lock should also work.

Now having said all that, the S-55 does have quite a good weight section and being as FS really didnt think it'd ever have to use a monster piston FDE like the S-55 its a bit unstable up here in these high weights, I was told by a Nam Huey pilot that he could certainly feel the aircraft change attitude as grunts moved around in the back, so weight location can be quite important. On the S-55 you have two tanks, I'd initially placed them + and - 1 foot either side of the CoG longitudually, but to get the hover level I've moved both fwd to +1 foot, that means that when fuel gets burnt the helo is going to become tail heavy and if you've added four passengers or six into the back then it'll become even more tail heavy, I'd suggest chucking one or two out as you burn fuel to compensate and balance the helo........but they might not like that , the only other way is to cheat and put them all in a big pile at the CoG, thats actually what a lot of helo FDE guys do, throw the passengers, pilots and fuel all into the CoG location, I'd prefer not to and make users struggle like real world pilots have to some times. Actually when I added the stub wing tanks onto the AS Blackhawk it made a huge difference to perfomance, all that fuel sloshing around so far from the CoG ment you had your hands full, of course as it burnt off then performance came back.

Hope that helps a little and welcome to the world of egg beaters .

Best

Michael

[Tomb]

yup i think your right, as regards to the black hawk, i do believe they have baffles in the tanks to prevent fuel slosh..

FS has its limits i guess, i can fly the S-55 without the stick strim release it flys and is stable enough for that...but its jolly hard work to park on a oil rig in FSX...if CBFSVA go for it i suspect it will be land based and i think it will be quite pleasant to tootle along at 85kts 1500ft as they did back then... be a view i dont normally see.