This is the last of the initial Practice Missions in YAPv2. Consider it "How To Fly A Helicopter". Two things:

1- Practice.
2- All YAP helicopters have different Flight Models to approximate the actual helicopter and the way it handles. Practice with all of them.

Flying a real helicopter and a YAP helicopter are very similar. They are full-body workouts. Here's what the controls do in each.

Pedals: They point the nose. If you hold full pedal, you are flying sideways and all that drag will slow you down and can cause you to lose control if you don't watch your airspeed.

Cyclic: It's the joystick. It is used to point the thrust vector in a helicopter as represented by the rotor disk. Want to go up? Blow down. Go left? Blow right. All this is done with the same movements as in an airplane.

Collective: It's a stick in your left hand that has the throttle in the grip. You set the engine speed and pull the collective to increase your pitch and, therefore, lift. In YAP, its sort of the same. You use the Thrust Vector keys (UPARROW and DOWNARROW) to set the pitch. Then you use the throttle to increase the lift. In action, it feels about the same.

Shall we pull pitch? Okay...first pic

You are flying a Dustoff (see the blood? yick!) from Can Tho Army base across the Mekong River to the Navy base at Binh Thuy, home of the Brown Water Navy. You are to pick up some medical supplies.



The first thing you need to do is set the pitch. So, push the UP ARROW for a few seconds to set full down vector or full up collective...think of it however you wish. We set the UP arrow so you think push up to go up.

To lift off vertically, you advance the throttle smoothly. Too slow and the helicopter gets to dance around. Too fast and you may not be able to compensate fast enough.



If we lift off straight up for too long, we have no forward speed and will go out of control easily. In a helicopter, it is called settling-with-power. You recover the same way...or avoid it the same way. PUSH. Push the stick forward to cause yourself to start moving into lift over the rotating wing.

You can see that you are lifting off straight up.



Now slowly tap the DOWN ARROW to decrease pitch and to start moving forward faster. In a helicopter, it is called translational lift...going from hovering into flying. Your instincts will take over here and you will pull the stick back to gain more lift and climb. Otherwise, when you dump the collective, you will hit the ground.



Okay. Up and flying. Just a bouncy, slow airplane now. You're going across the river to that town stuff over there.



Look around some. That's why people fly, you know. Looks like a ship over at the docks.



And there's a ship out in the river sailing out. Let's go take a look.



Oh. Just YAP's oiler, the Misspillion or Misspelling or something.





Okay. Back to business. There's the base. Where am I supposed to land?



Following the autopilot dots (and autopilot is terrible in the helicopters), I end up here on final into the base.



Time to configure. Deploy the Airbrakes. (What airbrakes?) What we need here is drag. We need to transition quickly from cruise to hover so we use drag brakes. Just deploy them. And start increasing the UP ARROW. Remember, if you go full UP ARROW here, you will need to PUSH the stick to keep moving. Watch your airspeed. Keep off the pedals. You will be fine.



There's an ATC-H down there. Oh yeah. Brown Water Navy headquarters.



Okay. Here's where they want me. By that truck. Kind of tight, isn't it?



This shot is to show you the airspeed superimposed over the pier below. That's a good comfortable speed at this point. But in landing a helicopter, you maintain a constant apparent rate of closure. So you move more slowly as you approach the landing zone. It looks constant from where you are sitting.



Okay, go right between that building and the tree. Easy and smooth.



(My old flight instructor would be amazed that I still remember this stuff.) Just keep closing in on the spot, slower, lower, stick back a little, watch your airspeed...don't stare at it, just glance and go back to flying. Your brain will register the number after your eyes move back...some fighter pilot stuff there.



Almost down. Almost hovering. Just keep sliding forward until you touch. Continue to play the throttle to make it just kiss the ground.



And you are down. B for brakes and you are stopped.



Okay. You have the goodies from that M-35 truck. Now how do you get out of here? Just the same as back at Can Tho...except this time, do a pedal turn at the same time. Remember, a little bank will cure a lot of ills when flying a helicopter. So when you lift off, increase throttle (for collective), push the stick a little, roll a tiny bit of bank in and push the left pedal and up you go over the hospital building.



And you are clear. Time to do what? Start weaning it from UP ARROW to DOWN ARROW and you are flying again. (You can pull in the airbrakes now.)



What now? Practice. Practice. Practice. See what gets you into trouble and how you can get out of it. You have an HH-53, a CH-53D, a CH-47, several UH-1's, an AH-1G and a couple more helicopters to use on missions so you need to be able to do this reliably.

Good stuff .05, thanks. I need a LOT of practice!