I'm new to BS(1 or 2) and heliopter sims in general, so I might be just fundamentally misunderstanding something, but I can't make my HOTAS control the collective. I have a G940, and I have the left throttle mapped to throttle, and the right throttle mapped to collective. It registers the input when I map it, and the axis themselves are working, but moving the collective control on my HOTAS has no effect in the sim (collective graphic doesn't even move), but I can adjust the collective via the keyboard.

Maybe there is a button to release the brake on the collective handle or something?

The throttle control (right throttle lever on the G940) works.

reason for edit: If you make an L with your hand, and it's pointing the right way, that's your left hand.

edit2: Question for people who know more about rotorwing flight:

As I understand it, the throttle is something you manipulate relatively infrequently, whereas the collective is something you're fiddling with constantly. Might I be better off mapping the throttle to a wheel or slider? It's a little awkward to use the two (HOTAS) throttle halves for totally independent things. I'm thinking maybe I'm better off not using the split throttle, the whole thing just controlling collective.

Have you transplanted a profile from BS1?

If so: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2223284

It has a LUA hack you can do.

Alternatively, delete the contents of
C:\Users\XXXX\SavedGames\BlackShark 2\Config\Input

Then re-start the game and re-map manually.

Yeah, that could be it. I'll try that.

Update: Yeah, thanks that was it. It was the 2088/2087 thing and the hack did it. Wasn't looking forward to re-mapping everything, because I don't know what any of that stuff does yet.

I've never sat in a real cockpit*, but I think you've got it right. Let me try to give an explanation in my own words (people with more knowledge are welcome to correct me if/where I'm wrong!).

Increasing the blade's pitch angle via the collective increases the overall lift generated by the rotor. However, this induces more drag, slowing the rotor down. To counter that, more engine power is required to keep the rotor rotating at its optimum RPM - and vice versa when the collective is lowered. (This is only a basic example. Cyclic input, changes in airspeed, going from hover to forward flight etc also have an effect on drag and the amount of engine power required to keep the rotor at its optimum RPM).

In simpler (smaller/less expensive) helicopters, the engine power output is controlled via a throttle integrated into the collective stick. You'll get a very good look at the basics in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5i2XRweAvE (it's ancient, but to my knowledge the basic controls haven't changed since the 60's). In these helicopters, it's the pilot's job to adjust both engine RPM and collective pitch manually.

The Ka-50, like many modern helicopters, features an electronic engine governor or EEG. With these choppers, the engine's power output is automatically adjusted to maintain optimum rotor RPM. Think of the Ka-50s throttles as an EEG master mode selector (idle/auto/full) - there's simply no way to set the throttles to, say, 50% or 80%. There's just idle, auto and full.
(At this point, some readers are most likely going to point out that there's a throttle detent between idle and auto. What's it good for? To be honest, I don't know. Please post a reply if you know. :-) )

Under normal circumstances, you'll have to set the throttles from idle to auto once during startup and then back again after landing, so there's absolutely no need to assign an HOTAS axis to them. Besides, in case of single engine failure or during a cold start with full checklist, you'll have to move the two throttles independently, so you'd have to assign two axes to do it properly. IMO it's much simpler to learn the keyboard controls for the throttles and not assign any axis to them.

(*) Not entirely true. I've once sat in a Panavia Tornado cockpit at ILA sometime late 80s or early 90s, with a pilot showing me all the instruments. It was quite impressive, but hardly counts as "I've collected stick time" :-)

Fantastic job, Yurgon!

The throttle setting on the Ka-50 between Idle and Auto is the "governor fail" mode. You set this when an EEG fails and an engine may overspeed. Since power is reduced in this setting, this is usually a good time to RTB as well.

Thank you for the clear explanation, that is indeed very helpful. I've set a slider that I don't generally use for anything and that seems to be better. I've barely scratched the surface of learning to fly this thing. I'm starting off with the free flight mission, just to learn basic maneuvering, so it's extremely helpful to know that I just shouldn't be fooling with the throttle at all for the time being.

If I could beg the experienced for one more quick question: I have a FFB stick, so I've been using that method of trimming (though I'm not sure it's working properly). The rudder pedals, however, are not FFB. On the real thing, to they stay where they're put when you trim it? Should I be hitting trim and then immediately re-centering my pedals?

The difficulty I'm having with learning is that It's hard gauge the result of my inputs versus desired outcomes when everything is so touchy, interrelated, and possibly being compensated for by the computer (I read up on the axis stabilization stuff, but putting that knowledge into practice is another thing entirely).

If only they'd re-worked the training missions for BS2 in the style of A-10C. To me, and I suspect a lot of other people new to the sim, that alone would have been worth $20.

Thx. :-)

It just never seizes to amaze me how much there is to learn in this bird.

I've taken a fairly thorough look through the manual. Is it correct that the only indication of EEG fail is displayed in the EKRAN? I couldn't find anything related to EEG fail on any of the warning light panels; the only messages I could find in the manual are the EKRAN messages "LEFT ENG GOVERNOR" and "RIGHT ENG GOVERNOR" respectively.

If so, this would de-mystify a few more of the Shark's mysteries for me. :-)


I've never had a FFB stick, but I think it's correct that in the sim, pedals need to be re-centered right after releasing the trim button.

I would think that in real choppers pedals will remain in the trimmed position.

However, in "Low Level Hell" the author describes how the Loach mostly needed some left pedal during forward flight, so he liked to hang his right foot out of the cockpit while en route to/from the target area. That seems to indicate that the pedals require constant pressure from the feet.

Do we have any real life pilots to clarify that? :-)


Yeah, the A-10C training is pretty cool, that would have been a huge help for the Ka-50 as well.

But I think it generally takes a lot of practice to fly and understand the Shark. I'm almost through the GOW campaign (BS 1.0.2) and still there's so much to learn and understand.

A few things that helped me:

• RCTL+ENTER to display virtual controls
• always keep the 3 most important stability augmentation channels on: pitch, bank and heading hold.
• after every control input, trim (and trim again and again until the chopper flies where you want it to).
• Use the Flight Director override to bypass the autopilot while retaining the stability augmentation. This makes for a much smoother flight (= less fighting the autopilot). However, the whole point of having the chopper reduce the pilot's workload by doing most of the actual flying is defied by the Flight Director, so IMO the Flight Director is a great tool to learn how to fly the Ka-50, but not a great tool to learn how to fight in it.

An engine overspeed warning is your no-doubt indication that the governors aren't working. That comes from the EKRAN, the overhead warning panel, or you can see %RPM over normal values.

Not all helis have force trimmer, and not all force trimmers trim pedal inputs. Since the purpose of the force trimmer is to reduce required input forces to zero, I would expect the rudder pedals to stay in the same position as when the trimmer was applied, similar to the cyclic stick.


Another +1 here.

A common complaint from new pilots is that the Ka-50's autopilot is fighting them, when in fact, it's doing exactly what it was told to do! To see what the AP is doing in the background, fly it yourself first. Fly with the Flight Director on and practice basic maneuvers: liftoff into a hover, transition to forward flight, transition to hover, fast forward flight (>250kts), right/left turns (each has different control characteristics!), climbing/descending turns, etc. Once you get the hang of what controls are needed to maintain steady flight, you'll better understand what the autopilot is actually doing in the background.

Most modern large helicopters do not tie rudder trim with the trimmer. Some have another method of rudder trim. Others (especially the non-military types with no need for autohover) have none at all. But also, most western designs don't have a pilot and autopilot flying at the same time, other than background SAS inputs. They sense a pilot stick input and "unlactch" until the input ceases. The Ka50 is a different sort of beast than anything else flying. I used to argue against the accuracy of the AP modelling. Now I am sure they got it either right or close. Kamov must have recognized the unique nature of a single-seat attack heli and made one with which the fail-safe was: AP flies, pilot fights.

Okay, that's pretty obvious indeed. :-)

I was thinking more of a case where an EEG malfunction is detected prior to engine overspeed. I'd have thought that there would be warning lamps like "LH EEG FAIL" and "RH EEG FAIL" respectively on the left hand or overhead panels, informing the pilot as soon as the chopper detects a failure in either of these systems.

Apparently, that's not the case, it seems such warnings are only displayed in the EKRAN.

Anyways, during this discussion I've added "throttle down one detent as soon as engine overspeed is encountered" to the list of emergency procedures I always forget to implement in the heat of battle, but do know how to implement in theory. :-)


Quite an interesting find, thanks a lot!


Thanks a bunch for the explanation, that's really good to know!

Sorry to jump in late here, but I am having a similar collective issue. Normal reaction in the Axis Tune screen but sluggish reaction in game. Raising the collective does not have a correlating raise in the game until the collective is halfway up. Once all the way up the motion in game matches the motion going down. It's just raising it that is wonky.

Edit: Clarification, this is BS1.

The Steam forums are down currently, can someone point me to a reference to said LUA hack/fix, please?

Lastly, any good threads on how to use the FD? If I recall from the last time I played and used the trimmer the way to do it was:

- Press and hold trimmer
- Adjust cyclic and pedals to desired heading
- Release trimmer
- Go on merry way

Is this not so? Should I be adjusting cyclic and then clicking the trimmer?

Thanks.

Mick

In my silliness I didn't actually copy-paste the relevant LUA hack, and it's dug down pretty deep in the files. However, the hack only applies to issues arising when transplanting a controller profile from BS1 to BS2. The hack in question cannot fix issues in BS1.

Regarding Flight Director, that is a mode that kills the AP channel authority but keeps the dampers on. There really isn't a special trimming method required for it, just that you don't need to trim quite as often to be smooth when you use it (but, on the other hand, you do need to be more active yourself).

The two methods, click-and-hold and just-click, apply to different situations in my opinion. I use the simple "click" for minor adjustments, and click-and-hold just as you describe when executing a planned maneuver that has multi-second duration.

I am beginning to suspect it has something to do with power to the bird.

On the runway cold it does what I described. I just nuked the configuration files for the pedals and joystick, reset the mappings just for the collective, powered up the helicopter and once I brought the throttles to full (must remember to bring throttles to full) the collective moved in sync with the handle on the joystick.

Need to repeat experiment a few times.

Mick

Don't forget to use the HUD representation of your stick positions, I think it's Ctrl-Enter? That shows you after you trim where the bird thinks your stick and rudders are at. While the stick of course will hold in that position with the G940 (if you have it setup properly), and the throttle naturally does, the pedals you still have to do manually. So recentering them after you trim is what you want or else you're doubling the input when you release that trim button. Similarly to negate that you have to input a precise opposite movement and re-trim...that's nearly impossible without using that floating box.



The Jedi Master

Guess you figured it out yourself. That's exactly right, without engine power the collective in game does not correlate to the throttle/collective setting of the PC controller.

I think this is meant to simulate the lack of hydraulic pressure. I just did a little test; as soon as a single engine was running, the collective behaved as expected (even with the throttle lever in the Idle position).

This behavior can be confusing, especially so because with engines off, the virtual controls panel (RCTL+Enter) doesn't show any collective input for about the first half of controller movement either.

Then again, on the ground there's not much reason to add any collective at all. You should probably just write this off as a peculiarity, so long as the collective works fine with engines running. :-)

Interesting. In external view you can see the swashplate moving up and down with the linkage. Maybe the hydraulics actually just powers the collective lever?