Helicopter Questions

[AG-51_Glider]

I wanted to make a thread to ask some of the real life rotorheads in squad questions as they come up and I have one for a start.

So you are coming in to the LZ and are wanting to land. When you pull the cyclic back to slow do you add any collective in as well. I know it is probably a matter of practice and getting the feel for it but I wanted to know how it is done in the real world. Skeetr, Razor, or Ted?

Also it seems like I remember Razor telling me not to use the Force Trimmer in the Huey? Is that correct and what the heck does it do?

[AG-51_Razor]

I don't think it was me that told you not to use the force trimmer since I have no clue what that is in this game.

As for your question about coming into an LZ, you could look at it like a flare in an airplane. As you're coming down the groove towards the runway, ask yourself how you got there. You pulled a bunch of power off (lowered the collective) and Adjusted your pitch attitude (pulled back on the cyclic) because pulling the power off (lowering the collective) has the effect of lowering the nose. So, as you reduce power (in either type of aircraft), the nose tends to drop, which requires you to raise the nose to hold a desired flight path towards the point of intended touch down. If you just pulled the nose up to slow down without reducing power, you'd climb like a raped ape!

So it's just a compromise between lowering the collective (reducing power) and adjusting your attitude to maintain a desired path, or angle of descent, towards the spot where you intend to wind up in a hover. Once you get to that point, this is where the biggest difference between airplanes and helicopters show up, you will need to add power with the collective (and make adjustments with tail rotor pedals and cyclic) to hold your position and altitude over the selected spot. Good luck with that!!!

[AG-51_Bulldog]

Ahhhh nothing a little practice won't fix!!!