Easiest Helicopter to Fly

[Captainslow]

I've read lots of posts about the easiest helicopters to learn how to fly (as in just flight, not weapon systems), but have found so many opinions. I'd say a small/medium majority say the Ka-50 is easiest. Would you say that's right? And easiest to hardest is Ka-50>Huey>Mi-8>Gazelle>Hind>Apache?

[JBM]

How long is a piece of string? That's a similar question.

The reality is that we all learn skills differently. What may be easy for some, might be difficult for you.

In terms of helicopter flying, the Ka-50 will offer the best hover stability due to its co-axial rotor arrangement. But for "true" helicopters (those with tail rotors), my own personal opinion on easiest to hardest would be:

Mi-8 > Hind > Apache > Huey > Gazelle.

If you're just starting out, I would recommend the Ka-50 for hover stability and single person operation of both aircraft and weapons. If you would rather start with a conventional helicopter though, try the Mi-8.

[spike2071]

I think the Ka-50 is the easiest to fly, but I don't own the Gazelle, Hind or Apache for comparison. The Black Shark has the best autopilot suite that will literally follow your flight plan if you want. Even when not flying the route, the autopilot and coaxial rotors make it the smoothest helo in my stable. The auto hover is also nice when deploying weapons in a sanitized environment.

The Huey isn't easy to fly, but it's fun. The lack of autopilot channels makes it a bit unforgiving, but it's a solid chopper that will teach you the basics of helo flying.

I hate the Mi-8. It has a much better autopilot suite than the Huey, but not nearly as good as the Ka-50. It's a big boy, and flies like a big boy. It also loves to enter a VRS, which will kill you. Pull the collective too much too quickly, and the generators cut out (which includes your autopilot dampening channels). It's the only module where I have to worry about pulling circuit breakers to get the damn thing in the air when heavily loaded. It's like the fat, ugly sister of the sexy and svelte Black Shark. Or even the plain and simple Huey. Other people love it, so I'm not the best person from whom to get an unbiased opinion of it.

Based on what I've heard, the Gazelle is also fun and easy to fly. The "easy" part might be because the flight model is bad (and the devs have promised to fix it), but people who do fly it regularly love it.

The standard advice if you're planning on buying any module is to get the one that interests you. There's nothing worse trying to learn the Huey when you'd rather be learning the Apache (or, God forbid, the Hip). Even if it's a "tougher to learn" module, it's worse trying to learn something you don't really like.

[WASR-10]

the hind is easy enough to get in the air but near the edge of the envelope it gets very hard to fly at times. the apache is the opposite, hard to get started with but easy once you get past that

[Patpat]

My favourite is the Mi8, not in terms of being easier to fly but it is a real multirole fella, slingloading missions requires a lot of skills though.
The Huey can be a pain with VRS and the Apache is very fun but sensitive and requires fingertips-like handling.
The Ka50 is the easiest to fly around, it was my last rotorcraft and coming from harder modules I was very surprised how easy it is and how it makes you feel real real badass :)

[David Bowman]

The Gazelle is a great beginner helicopter, it is fast and agile and is a ton of fun to fly :)

[Feldhobel]

Yes the KA-50 is the easiest to fly. but you have to think around the autopilot for a while. because you dont fly the helicopter, the autopilot does 100% of the time and you just can override it if you need to.
so maybe its not the best to learn how to flight helicopters.
for me the easiest one was the MI-24P. it flys like a plane thats why you dont hover that much.

[Camel]

you are going to get a lot of different answers here. As someone else said "what's hard for some, is easy for others". Personally I think the Huey is 1 of the easiest due to its lack of electronics and systems. You get more of a raw input which translates to a positive output in controls. That's only my opinion and it may not count for much.

[Goffik]

Originally posted by Camel:

Personally I think the Huey is 1 of the easiest due to its lack of electronics and systems. You get more of a raw input which translates to a positive output in controls. That's only my opinion and it may not count for much.

I agree, I think the Huey is "easiest" for the same reasons. I also think it's probably the best chopper to learn the ins and outs of how to fly rotary, given the lack of pilot aids. It's "easy" enough for a new pilot while being "hard" enough to teach you what to look out for, and how to deal with things without relying on autopilots.

It's also just iconic, so every chopper pilot should own it regardless! ;)

[JBM]

Originally posted by Goffik:

It's also just iconic, so every chopper pilot should own it regardless! ;)

This. If you're into helicopters, you MUST have the Huey. It's the law!

[Troll Norris]

In my opinion currently the Gazelle is the easiest to fly because its behaviour is very different from other helicopters in DCS. It is easy for new players and paradoxically difficult for players who already have experience with another helicopter. Because it behaves almost like Fly-by-wire. It feels like I control the rate of change of pitch/roll than cyclic in which is very unussual but as soon as i got used to it, I've found it is much easier than any other helicopter in DCS.

[startrekmike]

Originally posted by Captainslow:

I've read lots of posts about the easiest helicopters to learn how to fly (as in just flight, not weapon systems), but have found so many opinions. I'd say a small/medium majority say the Ka-50 is easiest. Would you say that's right? And easiest to hardest is Ka-50>Huey>Mi-8>Gazelle>Hind>Apache?

It isn't so much about something being "easier" or "harder". It really just comes down to how much meaningful practice and time you are willing to commit to the learning process.

For the majority of DCS helicopter modules, you are really looking at just building a set of basic underlying skills that will generally apply to all tail rotor equipped helicopters. Obviously some are more sophisticated than others in regards to weapon systems, avionics, flight assistance systems, etc but all tail rotor equipped helicopters generally follow the same basic rules when it comes to flying them.

The only real exceptions are the Ka-50 and the Gazelle. The Ka-50 is a co-axial rotor design with no tail rotor. On top of that, it has a fairly comprehensive auto-pilot/trim system that allows the aircraft to largely fly itself. This is important because the Ka-50 is a single-seat attack helicopter and as such, you will be doing the job of both the pilot and the gunner. Having the comprehensive autopilot means more of your attention can go towards engaging targets.

Some will say the Ka-50's autopilot is "out to kill you" but that is nonsense spoken by players who never really bothered to learn how the system works. It isn't complicated and isn't really that difficult to master assuming that one is actually willing to learn.

As far as the Gazelle goes, it largely is going to come down to the fact that even the developers have admitted that the module has some pretty serious flight modeling issues that are going to bother some more than others. In general, it is easier to fly because it isn't made to the same standard as other helicopters in DCS.

For the Mi-8, Mi-24, Huey, and the Apache, the hard part is going to be learning how to be VERY gentle and deliberate with the controls. You will also want to make sure you learn about the general flight characteristics of a helicopter so you can avoid bad situations like settling with power, vortex ring state, retreating blade stalls, and the like. These are not super-complicated concepts and pretty much every DCS helicopter manual will describe them in enough detail to meaningfully help.

Flying helicopters isn't exactly simple but the process will be a lot easier if you really focus on mastering one skill at a time and putting some focus on maintaining deliberate, gentle inputs on the controls. Heavy hands will cause crashes.

As far as system complexity goes, I don't really think this is a major hurdle since it really is just a matter of putting the time in to learn the systems. None of them are truly difficult to understand but it can be confusing if you try to find shortcuts around the learning process.

[Target]

Here is my opinion on the currently available DCS helicopters. (I also included my opinion on how they handle in a fight, because once you get comfortable with the controls, I guarantee you'll be tempted to blow things up :) )

Ka-50: extremely easy to control for a helicopter. Can be very effective on the battlefield. In its standard operating mode it does not teach you a lot about helicopters though (you are basically flying it by controlling a very advanced autopilot). It can be put into manual mode ("flight director mode"), in that mode it controls a bit more like a normal helicopter. But it still has an unconventional design (coax main rotors), which makes it not exactly the best trainer if you want to learn about conventional helicopter flight.

Apache: will be quite easy to fly once it gets all the auto pilot functions ("hold modes") it is currently missing. Right now its easy to control in fast flight, but quite complicated in slow flight/hover. Deadly effective on the battlefield.

Mi-24: good flight model that is pretty much finished (although the Mi-24 is still early access). Will teach you how to fly conventional helicopters, (and punish you if you don't understand helicopter physics well enough). Fun and can be very effective when used in its intended battlefield role (that is: making attack runs, not firing from a hover. Its role is more similar to an A10 than to an Apache).

Mi-8: Good flight model, similar to the Mi-24 but less capable in a fight. Extremely frustrating to newcomers (very easy to die of VRS during landing). I quite like the Mi-8 for variety and the challenge but unless you have a special connection to it I see no reason why you would pick the Mi-8 over the Mi-24.

Huey: recommended if you really just want to learn how to fly a raw helicopter (no autopilots or stability aids whatsoever). Hard to learn, but extremely fun when you finally "get it". When you can fly the Huey well, every other helicopter will be easy. Limited use for killing things on the battlefield, but can still be fun in multiplayer (troop insertion, search&rescue missions and such).

Gazelle: Might some day be great if they fix the flight model. I would not recommend anyone start with the Gazelle. It will teach you wrong things and bad habits. If you want a DCS module to teach you how to fly helicopters DON'T start with the Gazelle.

[Captainslow]

Wow. I really appreciate all of you taking the time to write so much about these choppers. What a great community.
I bought the Huey years back and will someday return to it to master the true rotary flight aspect of it. But thanks to ALL of your input, I'm going to buy Ka-50 now for two reasons. First, I want to be able to focus more on the weapon systems than flying the helo at this point. Two, I'm really interested in the Blackshark in real life. Once the Apache allows us to switch between front seater and back seater, and includes the enhanced stability modes, I will definitely be purchasing that one.
Thanks again, everyone!

[BirdDog]

Huey best starter chopper.

[Patpat]

Good luck with the KA-50 it is really badass material and as you said it's the one that interests you the most so you can't go wrong :) In general I love russian rotorcrafts, designwise those are the best, and for fixed wings aircrafts I prefer US.