Hi all,

I know this is one omgwtfhardcore flight simulation, so I never expected this to be easy at all. My helo tries to kill me on a regular basis. Often just after i get it stable flying somewhere or (almost) hovering, the chopper wildly pitches up or down. WTF is up with that. I have the stabilisation systems engeaged, and been using the trim button.

I read parts of the manual, but havent found yet what is the rationale, the logic behind the flight behavior of this mad little machine. Can someone help me understand why this machine pitches so wildly? Why does the trim button not allow for hands-off flight or hovering? Why does it wants to point its nose somewhere else than me?

At what speed do you engage auto-hover? Sometimes if you engage it while still travelling fairly fast (don't know the exact speed) it will have trouble settling down and engage in the behaviour you described. I try to wait until I slow to under 20 and then engage auto-hover. There are other conditions that bring about this behaviour but I will let more advanced pilots comment on that.

It did it while trying to hover, but also when i was puttering along at a nice 200kph.

There's a little evil monkey sitting behind the pilots' seat, and just when i start to relax and enjoy the feeling of a nice flight over the countryside to bomb the neighbours, he jumps out, grabs the stick and yanks it someplace. F#^&@N monkey.

there are so many systems it's hard to tell what's going wrong, as you well know! I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would cause this. Have you used the RightControl+Enter command to get your control axes displayed? There could be something wonky with your stick, although I'm guessing something is even wonkier with your helicopter :-P

If you could save a track where it happens and upload it someone will probably be able to figure it out.

Glad you're having fun.

Once you have a good understanding of the flight control system, the helicopter will indeed stay where you want it to stay all day with no problems. If you are having trouble, it is most likely either because you're doing something wrong or you are having controller issues. In either case, it will be hard to point out exactly what's happening without more specific descriptions.

If you have not already done so, you should take a look through the "flying the helicopter" part of our User FAQ:
http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=33527

And browse the forum for other threads on the topic. There is a ton of info.

Seeing as your helicopter is pitching, my first guess would be that your trimmer is not actually working, i.e. it remains in its default position even as you re-trim. If this is the case, the first thing I would do is disconnect any controller devices on your PC besides the HOTAS or disable the Forcefeedback functionality in-game. See here:
http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=583711&postcount=42

Or that his joystick is spiking.

Its a microsoft force feedback2 so i dont think its spiking. i would have noticed the spikes in il2, wouldnt i? I have been trying some more, and slower, more deliberate input and use of the trim button has calmed the machine somewhat, but still not nearly enough to allow me to safely go heads down. I'll get there!

The sim is awesome. best 40 euro's i've spent all summer. when my trackir gets delivered next week it'll be even better thanks for all the encouragements and tips so far guys!

I didnt see there's a metric ton of older threads discussing the exact same issues on this very forum because of the stupid default thread cutoff. my bad. thanks for not flaming the everloving C%$#P out of me for that.

Also check that after both engines are up and running that you throttle up to auto (press PgUp twice).
Some systems can cut out in flight if the throttle is too low.