Having trouble with basic turns

I'm learning the Ka-50 and I'm finding it much harder to do basic maneuvers than in the UH-1 or Mi-8.

 

I have the Pitch/Roll/HDG Hold buttons on.

 

When I turn, I bank and add rudder, plus back pressure to keep altitude, like I would in the Huey or the Hip, and everything starts off okay. Then the nose stops rating completely. I'm still banked, I'm still moving at 200+ kph, but the nose is stuck, so I feed more rudder to get it turning again. This process gradually continues so that by the time I've done about 90 degrees of turn, my foot is up against the wall maxing out my rudder pedals just to get there.

 

What's going on here?

You don't mention the trimmer at all. Are you using it? There's endless debate about whether you should hold down the trimmer during manoeuvres or just tap it when you're done (I do the former), but if you're not doing it at all you're fighting the autopilot the entire time.

 

Flying as fast as you say, you need all the control authority you can get, and the autopilot will be fighting you with 20% of it if you don't use the trimmer.

There's endless debate about whether you should hold down the trimmer during manoeuvres or just tap it when you're done (I do the former)

...or tap it frequently during the entire maneuver, as I do ;-)

And there are also those who turning off the heading channel just before turning, then turn it on again when established new heading.

But yes, use the trimmer (the way you feel giving you the smoothest control) until you have established a steady attitude. Then release/stop taping.

Edited March 21, 2020 by Holton181

I use the trimmer, but found that unless the stick is near-neutral, I experience wild and extreme pitch moments while pressing and holding the trimmer. I only use it when level.

 

I have also tried turning off the heading channel during turns and found no difference. The nose still stops rating.

And there are also those who turning off the heading channel just before turning, then turn it on again when established new heading.

 

And that is not just unrealistic, but as well very illogical thing to do.

 

People start doing these wrong procedures when they can bind all the functions on anything. So they don't really need to do anything else than push a button on joystick/throttle to perform some actions at any given time.

 

Long time ago when I had only a screen, it was keyboard + HOTAS so all functions were possible with combinations.

Then TrackIR + Mouse + HOTAS and it became easy just bind things or just use mouse to click things.

 

But when the VR came, I stopped all extra bindings all together. I have nothing more binded to HOTAS than the real functions in the aircraft. Everything else I need to operate by moving my virtual hands in the cockpit and manipulate them in their corresponding locations etc.

 

And that literally means that I can't use my left hand to operate something on right side of the cockpit.

Middle of the combat I can't just press HOTAS combo to do something like operate flaps, as I literally need to take my hands off from joystick and throttle to do so, and that easily can mean death or failure to task at hands.

 

So VR with virtual hands makes it far better to learning experience and immersion to fly all aircrafts as I literally need to move my hands to do so. So it becomes muscle memory how to do things, instead waving mouse around on screen or pressing combos on HOTAS/Keyboard etc.

I use the trimmer, but found that unless the stick is near-neutral, I experience wild and extreme pitch moments while pressing and holding the trimmer. I only use it when level.

 

I have also tried turning off the heading channel during turns and found no difference. The nose still stops rating.

 

Trimming works only so that when tim button is released, it programs the current helicopter attitude to Auto Pilot.

On the moment when the trim button is pressed, all the programmed attitude is cleared from the memory and input is only dampened. Holding trim button down is same as activating a Flight Director channel.

 

Do you have a spring centering joystick? As real helicopter would have a magnetic cyclic lock so it is locked to place when trim is not pressed, and pressing trim down would release magnetic lock and allow easy movement, and once you release trim button the cyclic locks again to that position you have it holded.

 

If you have a centering joystick and you have the setting that Joystick is needed to be resentered before it acts for trimming, you will easily end up to these situations that you don't really have a controlled flight with stick and trimming.

Standard Warthog on a 20cm extension.

 

If I'm holding the stick forward, say on takeoff with a nose-down attitude, and press and hold the trimmer switch, the aircraft acts as if I have just doubled my stick pressure and the nose bunts down even more.

 

Trim setting is "Default" with rudder trimmer off.

when you press and hold the trimmer it turns off all autopilot input.

so you have full control. why you experience extra twitchy :)

 

if you fly without pressing the trimmer then the autopilots steals 30% of your stick authority.

why its a lot less twitchy but seems to want to fly itself :)

its using 30% stick to steer to the carrot. even if you are going the other way.

tapping the trimmer resets the carrot to current heading.

 

if you want to coordinate the turn, then hold the trimmer. the carrot resets when you release.

or fight the AP, change heading and then reset it with a trimmer tap.

 

mixing up trim and heading autopilot is just one of those odd design compromises.

It's not "extra twitchy," it literally goes from 10 degrees nose-down attitude to 20~30 degrees nose-down attitude as soon as I press and hold the trim switch...

Standard Warthog on a 20cm extension.

 

If I'm holding the stick forward, say on takeoff with a nose-down attitude, and press and hold the trimmer switch, the aircraft acts as if I have just doubled my stick pressure and the nose bunts down even more.

 

Trim setting is "Default" with rudder trimmer off.

It's not "extra twitchy," it literally goes from 10 degrees nose-down attitude to 20~30 degrees nose-down attitude as soon as I press and hold the trim switch...

This has been discussed in long threads several times. In one of the latest I believe one of the forum admins (NineLine or BIGNEWY) promised to report it to ED for investigation.

I have learned to handle this tendency (having a long stick without centering spring but with some friction just enough so it stays in whatever position I put it, then frequently taping the trimmer during attitude changes), but others have big problems with it.

If it's a bug or realistic behavior I don't dare to guess (but I suspect that this very thread might become yet one more of those lengthy ones I mentioned above).

I finally had a flight where the trimmer didn't try to kill me, and I think I figured it out. It's not so much a trimmer as it is an autopilot-override like in the M2000C. Problem is that when I have it mapped to a momentary switch, my finger gets loose and ends up releasing the button, thus putting me in some uncontrollable attitude. After mapping it to a toggle things got a hell of a lot easier. I also started messing with the trimmer only when the nose is within +/- 3 degrees of the horizon.

Hey Nealius - Just map the Autopilot Flight Director switch to your HOTAS! Otherwise known as the 'make this thing fly like a normal helo button'.

Do you have trimmer set right in the settings? I believe there are 3 different settings for how the trimmer reacts. I use the "No Force Feedback / wait for joystick to center" setting. Not the exact name, but it's close to something like that.

 

 

 

What this does ( and where I think you are having your "jump" problem) is that you hold down the trimmer, auto pilot goes off, you move to where you want to be and steady the craft, let off the trimmer. Autopilot will now kick back in, and reset to the point you are at now. There will be no jump, because the stick is now ignoring any commands you give until you center it again. Looks to me, the way you have it set, the stick is NOT ignoring commands, so the minute you let off the trimmer, the autopilot resets AND the stick ADDS IN the, say, 60% push you have going on the stick at that second, as well!. Big Jump!

 

 

This is also why your getting that big jump on takeoff, because the minute you let off the trimmer, it's resetting AND adding in the forward down command of the stick.

Edited March 22, 2020 by 3WA

So much this (see attached from Ka-50 manual).

 

If you're not moving the stick back too the center position, and instead continue pushing the stick further, you're compounding the inputs. As someone said earlier, if you push the stick to 10 degrees, then press trim and release trim, you're setting the autopilot for 10 degrees. From that point on, if you fail to return the stick to neutral, you're in fact adding additional input. You're 10 degrees of trim is now 20+ degrees depending on how much farther you continue to push the stick.

 

This is why many of us, myself included, will tell people to press and HOLD trim while maneuvering the aircraft, and release trim only when you are ready for stable flight; even if that stable flight is in a banking turn; as sometimes there may be a point when you simply want to maintain a banking turn without holding the stick.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Baaz

Trimmer settings set to default.

 

I was pressing and holding the trimmer button (I had it mapped to the castle switch on my Warthog stick), but the electrical signal seemed to be intermittent, so despite holding my physical switch down, DCS thought I had released it, and my attitude would get all FUBAR.

 

I moved the mapping to the boat switch on the throttle so I can just click it and leave it while maneuvering.

Trimmer settings set to default.

 

I was pressing and holding the trimmer button (I had it mapped to the castle switch on my Warthog stick), but the electrical signal seemed to be intermittent, so despite holding my physical switch down, DCS thought I had released it, and my attitude would get all FUBAR.

 

I moved the mapping to the boat switch on the throttle so I can just click it and leave it while maneuvering.

That's funny, I just got a Virpil CM2 and was initially using the castle switch for the trimmer. I had to change it for the exact same reason.
Edited March 23, 2020 by electricaltill

Standard Warthog on a 20cm extension.

 

If I'm holding the stick forward, say on takeoff with a nose-down attitude, and press and hold the trimmer switch, the aircraft acts as if I have just doubled my stick pressure and the nose bunts down even more.

 

Trim setting is "Default" with rudder trimmer off.

 

When you start the aircraft, your cyclic is trimmed to center (!= hover position).

When you start to move your cyclic away from that position, you are fighting against AP authority of 20% of input. So all inputs you do with cyclic is -20% in effect toward the previously trimmed position.

 

On the moment you will press the Trimming button, all that 20% authority is reseted on cyclic, and you receive all that extra 20% that on that moment gets added to your input. Hence, you are not anticipated for that.

 

That is reason why you should keep clicking like once a second the trimming button when you are doing those moves far from the trimmed position.

You should NOT do big movements away from trimmed position, and then trim.

 

The other mean would be that you press trim button down, then you do your big movement to wanted attitude and after that release trim button. So you hold down the trim button through the whole cyclic movement.

 

So for repeat:

What you should not do is "Move cyclic for new attitude with large movement, trim it there".

What you can do is: "Start moving cyclick for new attitude with large movement, repeatedly pressing trim through movement"

OR

You can do: "Press and hold trim button, move cyclic for new attitude and release trim button".

 

Example, listen carefully the clicks the pilot performs with the trim button while maneuvering. You can clearly hear the clicks.

 

 

It is the Mi-8 but you can do that same thing with Ka-50.

Trim setting is "Default" with rudder trimmer off.

 

 

 

There is your problem….

 

 

Set it to "Central Position trimming mode"

 

Then, before you move the stick, press and hold the trimmer button during your move. Once your happy, release the trim button and let go of the stick return to center position)

 

 

This fixed the same issue you describe for me (also Warthog stick)

Trimmer settings set to default.

 

I was pressing and holding the trimmer button (I had it mapped to the castle switch on my Warthog stick), but the electrical signal seemed to be intermittent, so despite holding my physical switch down, DCS thought I had released it, and my attitude would get all FUBAR.

 

I moved the mapping to the boat switch on the throttle so I can just click it and leave it while maneuvering.

That's funny, I just got a Virpil CM2 and was initially using the castle switch for the trimmer. I had to change it for the exact same reason.

Yeah, I think there's a pseudo-bug going on at the moment where the trimmer is very happy to release (and preferably then immediately re-engage to further cause issues) when bound to a regular momentary button. I can sometime be mashing the button down to the point where I fear the underlying springs and contacts will take damage, and I still hear the trimmer sound in the cockpit clicking off and on, back-and-forth, as if it was receiving a series of presses rather than a continuous one.

 

And it's not just a matter of the hardware actually flaking out — this holds true no matter what (momentary) button I bind it on on whichever controller. Only a proper latched switch offers the ability to reliably keep DCS from thinking the button has been released.

 

Under the hood, it may very well be the case that DCS is receiving a stream of button-down events and is reacting accordingly, but there might be a need to add in some filtering to where it ever so slightly delays the enacting of the trimmer function: a rapid enough succession of on-off-on signals should probably be blended together to just be treated as a single continuous push.

There is your problem….

 

 

Set it to "Central Position trimming mode"

 

Then, before you move the stick, press and hold the trimmer button during your move. Once your happy, release the trim button and let go of the stick return to center position)

 

 

This fixed the same issue you describe for me (also Warthog stick)

 

+1 on this.

+1 on this.

 

Make that +2.

 

Press Trim.

 

Fly aircraft to desired STABLE attitude.

 

Release trim.

 

Immediately center stick.

 

 

 

Tapping the trim works but there are plenty of issue with that at the edge of the flight envelope. It's MHO that during these videos where you can hear the pilot "tapping" the trim... We are hearing it in reverse polarity. I think they're pressing trim, then we hear a "release/press" cycle. Not a "press/release" cycle. Keep in mind they don't have to have the "centering mode" hack like we do because their stick stays where it's supposed to be during that cycle.

 

Play with rudder trim on and off to see which you like.

The problem was solved in post #15.......

The problem was solved in post #15.......

You mentioned "trimming".

It's like the Pandoras Box of the Ka-50.......

The problem was solved in post #15.......

…which then introduced a new (well… old) problem that probably needs to be solved. ;)