> I'm not a trainer helicopter pilot, but an Aero engineer that has done
> several helicopter simulators. Maybe I can shed a little light on the
> subject.

Ahhhh, your more than welcome indeed ! :o)

> This doesn't sound right. Are you sure the collective is set to 0%, and not
> just bottomed out on control?  

Ah well, I don't know.. :-/ Since there is no torque guage, I don't have
clue what's really going on. All there is, is a vertical "cursor" on the
far left of the HUD display, which doens't have any marks on it. I just
assumed that it ranged from 0 to 100%, but maybe it's more like 50-100%,
so there is always some lift being produced...no way to tell :o(

> With zero colelctive, you should assume the
> flight profile of a homesick brick... Oh, sorry. In clearer terms, yes, you
> should fall out of the sky.

So, means that either the FDM is faulty, or that the Pg Up/Dn keys can't
zero the collective. In either case, it's not fixable and I can only
wait and pray that it's fixed soon in a future version of the
program ! :o(

> You don't 'enter auto-rotation' just because you lose power.
> Autorotation is more a maneuver than a state

Oops, sorry if my wording was incorrect. It's just that frogs don't
really speak english very well you know ;o) :-/
But it was great reading your description of autorotation, it was
exactly my understanding of the thing. Sadly I can't practice it right
now, as I am using the keyboard, and it really takes a joystick to do
fast yet accurate/fine adjustments to the controls, needed to land
safely when in autoration.... Computer parts being cheaper and cheaper
these days, hopefully I can afford a good joystick and pedals soon, and
really enjoy heli flying :o)

> I heard it described once as "An autorotation is something to keep the pilot
> busy while he is crashing".

:o) I will write this one down :-)

> I hope this helps, and yes, I look forward to someday in the future being
> able to contribute to the JSBSim helicopter modeling efforts, to make that
> FDM more complete. I have other stuff on the plate right now, though....

Yes, please help if (when...) you can.
Looks like for now, X-plane is much more suited to helis than Flightgear
is. Hopefully this will change soon, say in the next year or two ?
I guess it all depends how popular Helis are among flightGear
developpers community ? For now, sadly, Helis look more like an
afterthought... :o(


Vince



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