I was wondering, if it´s possible to implement improvements concerning the following flight
characterisics of a helicopter :
1.)if incrasing the pitch (raising collective lever) on the ground for take off or during any
(very) slow speed flying phase (f.e. close to ground, hovering), the airframe should start to
rotate against direction of rotorblade-circular direction. If you don´t push opposite rudder
pedal (i.o.to counteract this impulse), you start to rotate around your own vertical axis.
2.) if you decrease pitch (lowering collective lever) during low speed (f.e. close to ground for
landing), vice versa effect will happen (rotation of airframe starts in same direction like
rotorblade-circular direction-->if you don´t counteract with pedal)
3)if you decrease pitch (lowering collective lever) very rapidly and intensively during fast
speed, the nose of the helicopter will suddenly pitch up (but I think, this effect is already
realized with flight characteristics of uh1n helicopter and supercobra, am I right?). Same vice
versa. Pulling collective lever will give a little nose down - effect.
4.) if you decrease pitch (lowering collective lever) very rapidly and intensively during having
no forward speed, the rotorblades can come in their own downwash during the following vertical
descent. Trying to break the descent in this situation is not possible by applying more pull on
the collective lever but only by pushing nose a little bit down to get forward movement to escape
the vertical downwash airstream.
4.) If you want to land on a runway with slow forward speed and you are close to the ground, your
airframe should be drifting sidewards (even without any crosswind). Reason is the tailrotor,which
has the same effect like actual crosswind would have on your airframe (=side drift). That´s why
you should land with a little bit of bank (one side touches down first) in order to keep your
nose aligned with the desired landing direction (f.e. centerline of a runway) and in order to
counteract the side drift.
I am not a real helicopter-pilot, but I have some friends that are real heli-pilots and they
invited me sometimes to fly in a real heli-simulator. On these occasions, they explained to me
the funny behaviour of a helicopter during certain phases of flight
-especially, when close to the ground.
If someone of the developers of PRSP was willing to change some flightphysics of the littlebird,
I could try to gather more exact information about speed and altitude ranges where these
phenomenons appear or which angular speeds can occur not counteracting any rotations.
Of course, I am not sure, if there could be some more special issues to consider when steering a
helicopter, but having flown a couple of times in the real simulator, I think, I listed the most
important "add ons" for more realistic flight characteristics.
Any real pilots here who can help me out here and who might also want to convince our great
developers of PRSP to improve reality-feeling of helicopterflying?
