So, is it possible to do a stable pick-up into hover?

The moment I give enough collective to lift, she starts moving forward.

Gently feed in just a little aft cyclic ... keep sliding forward at same speed.

Gently feed in just a little aft cyclic ... keep sliding forward at same speed.

Gently feed in just a little aft cyclic ... keep sliding forward at same speed.

Gently feed in just a little aft cyclic ... tail strike and die.

In addition, I'm wobbly on controlling the torque-induced yaw. Don't know if this is contributing to above. But I think I've got it more or less manageable, though I have to be very careful to ease up on the right pedal at just the right amount at just the right time as move forward into translational flight, otherwise things go craaaazy.

I just don't bother about hovering T/O.

Raise collective and push the right rudder. This bird just want to fly and not held into one fix position, so let it fly.

Someone else on here has suggested making a few trim tail down adjustments before lifting off. I tried it and it seems to help.

I just don't bother about hovering T/O.

Raise collective and push the right rudder. This bird just want to fly and not held into one fix position, so let it fly.

That's one perspective. And definitely, the stable pick-up-and-hover-in-ground-effect is not the most crucial skill for missions etc.: you can just jump in and careen away like pushing off a wobbly kayak into rapids. And I have not only definitely done my fair share of that with the Huey, I continue to do so. But I do have the goal of being a good (simulated) pilot. And, from my perspective, getting the mission accomplished is secondary to getting in accomplished well with good piloting/flying! So, the pick-up-and-hover, assuming that it can be done, is a basic benchmark/qualification I need to master before I do other things!

Of course, you might be right: maybe the Gazelle is just not meant for this ...

I followed same advice about using trim.

Two to three trim taps aft two to three right helps a lot.

Also trying with auto pilot master off, almost prefer it that way, feels more free to move.

Someone else on here has suggested making a few trim tail down adjustments before lifting off. I tried it and it seems to help.

I tried it. It does make things more manageable. But there's still this forward slipping which I cannot control.

Well, what happens is that, as I slip forward I gain some altitude, and then I can actually pull back and get into a hover. Still fighting the yaw/torque crazily here, so swaying back and forth, but forward/lateral movement I can (barely) put in check. But all this is after I've been slipping forward for a while.

The moment I give enough collective to lift, she starts moving forward.

 

Gently feed in just a little aft cyclic ... keep sliding forward at same speed. [...]

I have a hunch this behavior is not realistic and will be fixed, or at least I haven't read any meaningful comment yet that it is indeed realistic the way it is.

Anyway, given that that's what we have right now, I think the chopper currently doesn't "want" to be light on the skids.

My technique is to practically jump it into the air, apply a bit of back pressure on the cyclic, and then have a nice hover IGE. Looks almost as if I knew what I was doing. :)

I use TM Warthog, no extension, and MFG Crosswinds, and a curve of 15 for Roll, Pitch and Yaw, no other axis tuning.

I'm currently more struggling with picking up forward speed without losing too much altitude, and flying a nice level turn.

I did notice the other day that pressing the autopilot mode switch either up/down or both and then back to off I was able to lift off with a lot less forward motion, have not had time to confirm this behaviour, but give it a try.

I have a hunch this behavior is not realistic and will be fixed, or at least I haven't read any meaningful comment yet that it is indeed realistic the way it is.

I've noticed that the Huey seems a little lighter now, too—I had to add some antitorque when I spun the engine/rotor up to normal RPM the other day. I don't remember ever having to do that before.

Nice to see it's not just me that is hitting the tail rotor. I have warthog/crosswind, and if anything harder to take off,

Generally the heloS do a hover taxi out to the runway, and shortly after t/o a short handling check, rock nose up down, slide tail left right, no restriction's your good to go. But I think we need a tad too much collective before it lifts and so it tends to leap into the air and set off a series if PIO pilot induced oscillations that don't look very professional .....but it is fun

I've noticed that the Huey seems a little lighter now, too—I had to add some antitorque when I spun the engine/rotor up to normal RPM the other day. I don't remember ever having to do that before.

I don't believe that's new.

For me, I've found that tuning your stick and collective to suit your equipment, and learning a more sensitive style of flying to say, the Huey, will give good results.

Here's a quick vid, note the subtle positioning of the cyclic on lifting to a hover.

My kit is TMWH stick (12cm ext) and throttle with a horizontal 15" collective zipped to one of the throttles & Crosswind pedals.

Pitch / Roll, no curves, Y Axis @ 80%

Collective no curve, Y Axis @ 70%

Rudder 15% curve, Y Axis 100%

I don't believe that's new.

I haven't flown the Huey since 1.2.x (x < 10) was the state of the art, so I could certainly be remembering wrong. :P

I regard the thread title being justified. As I wrote in the Something wrong with flight dynamics thread:

when sitting on ground, apply collective.

Notice the helo commencing forward slide.

Reduce torque to 40% and don't touch it anymore.

Pull the stick backwards to counter the forward slide.

Notice how loooong that takes.

Notice how the forward slide only comes to a stop right at that moment your tail boom tilts towards the ground and strikes it.

 

How can this behavior be accurate?

 

No, I never flew a Gazelle in RL. I did some hours on the Gazelle's successor though. The EC-120 also features 3 blades and a fenestron. Also a pretty light weight. Of course this doesn't mean both machines behave similar at all.

 

What I am experiencing here is some behavior that simply doesn't make sense when you think about how you would construct a helicopter.

 

Apparently the DCS Gazelle is quite nose-heavy. I can't tell if it matches the RL Gazelle. I only can say that it is not the way you would expect a helicopter to be.

Whatching some Videos of the RL Gazelle on Youtube I came to reallise that every single Gazelle Pilot first went into a stable hover before flying away.

The moment I give enough collective to lift, she starts moving forward.

 

Gently feed in just a little aft cyclic ... keep sliding forward at same speed.

 

Gently feed in just a little aft cyclic ... keep sliding forward at same speed.

 

Gently feed in just a little aft cyclic ... keep sliding forward at same speed.

 

Gently feed in just a little aft cyclic ... tail strike and die.

 

In addition, I'm wobbly on controlling the torque-induced yaw. Don't know if this is contributing to above. But I think I've got it more or less manageable, though I have to be very careful to ease up on the right pedal at just the right amount at just the right time as move forward into translational flight, otherwise things go craaaazy.

Absolutely, it can be done. Use Control Indicator and preset your cyclic and pedals. I suspect sweet spot position will vary tween rigs AND wind conditions so no point in sharing mine. BTW, my cylic is not self centering.

Absolutely, it can be done. Use Control Indicator and preset your cyclic and pedals. I suspect sweet spot position will vary tween rigs AND wind conditions so no point in sharing mine. BTW, my cylic is not self centering.

No, Rongor is correct, it can't be done.

It should be possible to very slowly raise the collective and lift into the hover. However if you raise the collective slowly, as the helo gets light on its (skids but prior to getting airborne), it starts moving forwards. At this point, progressively moving the cyclic aft won't stop the forward movement before it causes the helo to pivot backwards on its skids.

If you raise the collective smoothly and continuously straight into the hover without stopping in the skids light regime then you won't necessarily notice because you'll be airborne before you've slid forward an appreciable distance.

Geskes provides some amazing references over in this thread:

Real-world Gazelle videos

After skipping through all of them, I'm convinced the real Gazelle can be picked up into a hover without sliding forward (and/or tailstriking). There are several instances where the chopper is light on the skids, you can even see the tail coming around a bit before the pilot corrects the amount of rudder input, and then the chopper very gently goes into a hover.

Looks like a bit of FM tweaking to be done for "our" bird. ;)

Real Gazelle lift...

If you look at this video, it's clear that the pilot is easily able to lift into a stable hover without the slightest hint of a skid forward. If you look closely, you can see that there is very little aft cyclic being applied - nothing like the momentary correction needed in DCS.

Aside, (it's already been mentioned) the rotor is clearly turning much faster than the visual model in DCS suggests. In DCS, with the rotor RPM gauge showing 340rpm+ as it should be for flight, the external model seems to rotate at around 150rpm at a rough guess.

It's a great module but Polychop do seem to have exercised a little 'poetic licence' when it comes to the flight model in particular. It makes me curious as to how the flight model is being calculated during the lift off phase and the skids interaction with the ground. Something is certainly odd about it.

And another thing... Balanced turns appear to be next to impossible if you believe what the slip ball is telling you. If you fly a turn in accordance with the slip ball indications, you end up with a very under ruddered turn, slipping out of the turn direction. You can see this clearly during replays. A balanced turn seems only possible if you apply far more 'in turn' rudder than the ball suggests.

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Whatching some Videos of the RL Gazelle on Youtube I came to reallise that every single Gazelle Pilot first went into a stable hover before flying away.

Any helicopter pilot for that matter. You always do a hover check before departing.

Good news it is easily accomplished (Fairly) to hover on T/O with 1.5.3 OB. It all seems a lot more stable to hover fly and attain auto hover at least for myself. Still added 70% saturation on X and Y axis

Also remember that Nevada is not sealevel. Nellis is at roughly 1850ft, Creech around 3000ft.

I have a video about the Gazelles' handling coming up where I show my control setup and demonstrate some flight characteristics of the Gazelle.

While I do slide a bit on my first take off but it isn't too bad on the second one. I think Polychop can fix it with some careful tweaking.

Edit: Video is online

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Absolutely, it can be done. Use Control Indicator and preset your cyclic and pedals. I suspect sweet spot position will vary tween rigs AND wind conditions so no point in sharing mine. BTW, my cylic is not self centering.

No, Rongor is correct, it can't be done.

 

It should be possible to very slowly raise the collective and lift into the hover. However if you raise the collective slowly, as the helo gets light on its (skids but prior to getting airborne), it starts moving forwards. At this point, progressively moving the cyclic aft won't stop the forward movement before it causes the helo to pivot backwards on its skids.

 

If you raise the collective smoothly and continuously straight into the hover without stopping in the skids light regime then you won't necessarily notice because you'll be airborne before you've slid forward an appreciable distance.

Agreed.

I've been bypassing light-on-the-skids.

Its possible to take off into a hover. after few days I managed to take off into hover and land softly anywhere, and hover without auto-hover. It took sometimes to practice. Im using x52 pro, 50%, no X-Y curve, no pedal curve too. Actually this bird is very agile and stable.

its interesting to follow this and other topics about the FM and other very detailed stuff people try and test with the gazelle.

i have not yet bought it, but it is definitely high on my interest list, since the huey and blackshark are my favorite Helis in DCS and i have hundreds of hours with the dodosim 206 in FSX (think huey, only even MORE realistic).

watching the videos and seing this specific topic i wonder how heavy exactly the big camera "hat" is ontop of the cockpit (and don't forget the extra electronics,screen etc, in the cockpit, even more weight towards the nose). that probably will shift the Center of gravity towards the nose a lot compared to a normal "clean" civil gazelle and could explain the differences at least to some extend!