Landing the Hip

Is it just me or is it really that much more difficult to land the Hip compared to the Huey? I tried the oilplatform landing with the Huey and the Mi-8. While 2 attempts out of 2 were clean with the UH-1H, it took me around 10 attempts to get a "similiar" result.

Sure, I could have landed different (vertical approach, 180° turn or whatever), but I wanted to do it the "clean" way like with the Huey.

First thing I noticed when starting with the same parameters (speed/height) - slowing down and descending was more difficult in the Hip. I had to completely reduce the collective. With the Huey, I almost had to pay attention to not lose too much speed.

Anyway, it was an "interesting" experience to try it out.

If you're interested, here's a short video about the two landings.

yeah landing on small areas are really challenging me too

I've had a decent amount of stick time in an R22 and a jet ranger and the Mi-8 is way harder than either of those in this respect.

The Hip doesn't want to surrender altitude or airspeed easily and takes a lot of practice to learn how to do those things. Add to that a dramatic oversensitivity to VRS and you have a huge, powerful rock that wants to slam you into the ground every chance it gets.

I can hit a rooftop landing 10/10 now and can usually hit an oil rig landing 8/10.

Some things that helped me:

1 - Don't fly to the spot you want to land at. Start planning your landing WAAAY before you get there. Like a mile away and I am not joking. Fly to a spot in altitude under 20M either left or right of the landing spot and initiate your transition into hover there, then walk into your landing spot slow. A steep, straight down approach doesn't ever work in this bird, at least not for me.

2 - Lose altitude first. Don't try to lose altitude and speed at the same time. It doesn't work in a big heavy powerhouse like this.

3 - Be ready for ground effect. When you hit a certain altitude in descent, a transition to ground effect will kick in. If you are not ready to add a burst of collective to catch this, you will hit vortex ring state and slam down hard.

4 - Constantly re-trim. The trim required for stable flight in translational lift is substantially different than in hover, so your stick and pedals will wind up at the far edges of travel at times. Map an easily reachable button to trim set and use it. Often.

5 - Start using an axis curve. This is a very personal setting, but I use a curve of 25 on all the axes. It really helps take the overcorrection out, especially early on.

6 - LIghten it up. Do your landing practices with a slick helo and 33% fuel. No hardpoints, weaps, gunners. She's a lot more forgiving in this condition than heavy.

7 - Don't push a bad position. Just go around again. This is a simulator. That's what a pilot would do in real life, so do it.

8 - Stick with it, you will get there! :-)

I've had a decent amount of stick time in an R22 and a jet ranger and the Mi-8 is way harder than either of those in this respect.

 

The Hip doesn't want to surrender altitude or airspeed easily and takes a lot of practice to learn how to do those things. Add to that a dramatic oversensitivity to VRS and you have a huge, powerful rock that wants to slam you into the ground every chance it gets.

 

I can hit a rooftop landing 10/10 now and can usually hit an oil rig landing 8/10.

 

Some things that helped me:

 

1 - Don't fly to the spot you want to land at. Start planning your landing WAAAY before you get there. Like a mile away and I am not joking. Fly to a spot in altitude under 20M either left or right of the landing spot and initiate your transition into hover there, then walk into your landing spot slow. A steep, straight down approach doesn't ever work in this bird, at least not for me.

 

 

2 - Lose altitude first. Don't try to lose altitude and speed at the same time. It doesn't work in a big heavy powerhouse like this.

 

 

3 - Be ready for ground effect. When you hit a certain altitude in descent, a transition to ground effect will kick in. If you are not ready to add a burst of collective to catch this, you will hit vortex ring state and slam down hard.

 

4 - Constantly re-trim. The trim required for stable flight in translational lift is substantially different than in hover, so your stick and pedals will wind up at the far edges of travel at times. Map an easily reachable button to trim set and use it. Often.

 

5 - Start using an axis curve. This is a very personal setting, but I use a curve of 25 on all the axes. It really helps take the overcorrection out, especially early on.

 

6 - LIghten it up. Do your landing practices with a slick helo and 33% fuel. No hardpoints, weaps, gunners. She's a lot more forgiving in this condition than heavy.

 

7 - Don't push a bad position. Just go around again. This is a simulator. That's what a pilot would do in real life, so do it.

 

8 - Stick with it, you will get there! :-)

spot on! great tips. I've been following something similar. loving flying the Mi-8. :thumbup:

Very good points, thanks. I should probably use the trimming more often during landing (most of the time I only trim for flight and hover, but not for landing - I'm using the curvature though).

Let me mention that I don't land the Hip this way normally though. It really was just a test. During the campaign, I often lose altitude a lot earlier. But since I flew the Huey first in that platform landing test, the starting point seemed to work. So I simply wanted to see if it's possible to do it the same way. I had other attempts where I was in a hover before the platform and where I slowly moved toward the LZ.

So in this particular test, I had to push the bad position ;-)

I'm for sure not yet at the 8/10 oil rig landing though, but I'd say I have a 29/30 normal landing ratio. Every now and then, the vortex of doom happens when I don't pay enough attention on the instruments.

Shallow approaches help you avoid VRS.

Be careful of curves; they don't reduce sensitivity, they move it somewhere else, so aren't always of benefit. Both helos should be controllable with zero curve.

You know what's funny - I just was going to write "I only use few curvature for sling load" (so that I have more sensitivity from the trim region). So I wanted to check my cuvature value in the settings and noticed that I don't have one at all - looks like I only set it for the Huey.

So yeah, you're right, it's controllable with zero curve. I even managed my first sling load with the Mi-8 today. Trimming simply is the key to success.

As you can see in the controll indicator, it's just "subtile" correction all the time while not really moving the stick too much. And this is with no curvature.

But I'd say you still have better sensitivity from the trim region with some curvature. Anyway, I'll leave the axis the way they are. I'm just used to this now.

rg - how do you make that indicator appear at the top right? The one with the cargo represented as a dot and bullseye.

I can land like a bastard.

My cargo pick up rate however.... sucks. That would help me out quite a bit.

I am also readying a couple Mi-8 missions for posting and hope you guys will try them out.

I don't know what it's called in the english version. But by default it's RCtrl-RShift-P (External Cargo Indicator). I simply mapped it to one of my controller buttons.

My cargo pickup rate also isn't that great. But I think I'm doing better and better.

New missions are always welcome. I'll first finish the Oilfield Campaign though.

The Mi-8 is definitely tricky to land. Fargo007 made some good points!

About trim and axis curves : this heavily depends on the setup you have. I learned to fly with the TM Warthog, even though it is far from ideal for helicopters. About a week ago I got myself a Pro Flight Trainer Puma for helicopter flying, and that makes a ton of difference :)

I still use the Warthog for flying fixed wing aircraft, but the Puma was a game changer for me: it takes a lot of getting used to but that setup is made for flying helicopters: I no longer have to trim, and use negative axis curves now for optimal results :)

Yes, the setup plays a huge role. I e.g. had to set dead zone for my pedals (using pedals from a racing wheels and not real flight pedals).

I had to google that "Pro Flight Trainer Puma". That's for sure an amazing thing :-o And so are the prices. However, this must be a different experience with such controls. And damn, there are even swiss distributors... if I'd only fly choppers I'd probably consider getting something like this. Be aware that I'm slightly jealous though ;-)

Can you trim those control like in a real helo in that case?

The Mi-8 is definitely tricky to land. Fargo007 made some good points!

 

About trim and axis curves : this heavily depends on the setup you have. I learned to fly with the TM Warthog, even though it is far from ideal for helicopters. About a week ago I got myself a Pro Flight Trainer Puma for helicopter flying, and that makes a ton of difference :)

I still use the Warthog for flying fixed wing aircraft, but the Puma was a game changer for me: it takes a lot of getting used to but that setup is made for flying helicopters: I no longer have to trim, and use negative axis curves now for optimal results :)

One day, they get that bad boy down to around $500, I'm in... (Puma)

Let me know once this happens....

With Mi-8, you need to plan your landing way ahead, and come low and gradually slow. Not like Huey's where you can come fast (in comparison) and land like you may see in movies from Vietnam.

Obviously if 3rd dude could move his ass, open the door and tell you your position during hover then it might have helped too.

This video from POV might help. Notice how the guy slows down his Mi-8 gradually without gaining alt, pitching his nose up, turns horizontally while slowing down even further, lands at the end and right at the spot. Do observe his seating position (seems a bit higher than game) and at what point he is looking out of the window

(edit: do we have similar POV type video for UH-1H as well?)

The Mi-8 is definitely tricky to land. Fargo007 made some good points!

 

About trim and axis curves : this heavily depends on the setup you have. I learned to fly with the TM Warthog, even though it is far from ideal for helicopters. About a week ago I got myself a Pro Flight Trainer Puma for helicopter flying, and that makes a ton of difference :)

I still use the Warthog for flying fixed wing aircraft, but the Puma was a game changer for me: it takes a lot of getting used to but that setup is made for flying helicopters: I no longer have to trim, and use negative axis curves now for optimal results :)

I am curious. How your desk looks like with these two setups, and how much of space you have:D

One of the principal things I noticed on that video is that he's able to land with about 7-8 meters per second of negative vertical velocity in a hover.

If we dare to hit five, we're falling out of the sky like a rock.

Start at 43:20 and you'll see what I mean.

I have to disagree with a lot of people here; the Mi-8 is easy to land once you are used to it. It's not easy to learn, but all you have to do is trim with a slow descent and you can almost let go of the stick and let it land itself.

The key is not reacting, but instead planning. Do everything very slowly and carefully. No quick or dramatic changes. Try it on a keyboard and you will see how stable it is.

One of the principal things I noticed on that video is that he's able to land with about 7-8 meters per second of negative vertical velocity in a hover.

 

If we dare to hit five, we're falling out of the sky like a rock.

 

Start at 43:20 and you'll see what I mean.

The 6-o'clock position on the VVI is 5 m/s, as I can see he doesn't exceed 3m/s except for a quick burst while still moving forward.

they don't reduce sensitivity, they move it somewhere else

This isn't a problem at all if you trim often and avoid excessive control movements.

One of the principal things I noticed on that video is that he's able to land with about 7-8 meters per second of negative vertical velocity in a hover.

 

If we dare to hit five, we're falling out of the sky like a rock.

 

Start at 43:20 and you'll see what I mean.

This is the early type VSI, it's limited to +- 10 m/s.

Ah, so that instrument is a completely different scale.

I still use the Warthog for flying fixed wing aircraft, but the Puma was a game changer for me: it takes a lot of getting used to but that setup is made for flying helicopters: I no longer have to trim, and use negative axis curves now for optimal results :)

Having a closer to realistic cyclic length makes HUUUGE difference. Everything comes just "under control" instead "Do it gently, do it gently, do it gently"...

Can't go back to any normal stick after using a very long cyclic.

The video is interesting. The guy did a nice hover where it seemed like he didn't move even one inch at all.

I'm also curious to see the setup of fargo007 - we need a picture ;-)

Maybe "difficult to land" is the wrong term. I agree, overall it's even easier to land BUT less forgiving if you make a mistake. You don't watch your VSI for a short moment and it's below -5m/s... good luck catching it up from vortex. It's possible though. I'm actually at a video from Mission 5 where I almost lost the hip...catched it up a few meters before the ground.

BTW, Belsimtek has to change/fix the animation of the fan ;-) They look a lot cooler in the real video! They seem to turn slower.

I'd be too embarrassed. I use a TM Warthog stick and throttle.

I take the stick and sit it on the chair between my legs.

I did mod the warthog stick and removed the main spring and relocated the smaller springs to the top. That helped a LOT.

I do have a stick extension I haven't tried yet. I may give that a shot and go with a more permanent mount on the floor.

I'd be too embarrassed. I use a TM Warthog stick and throttle.

 

I take the stick and sit it on the chair between my legs.

 

I did mod the warthog stick and removed the main spring and relocated the smaller springs to the top. That helped a LOT.

 

I do have a stick extension I haven't tried yet. I may give that a shot and go with a more permanent mount on the floor.

For choppers, you will never go back once you have tried the extended stick....