Help with building a helicopter

[Zachary]

If someone could give a new player some tips on making a working helictoper, it would be appreciated!

[Lulloser]

Depends how big it shall be :D, Helicopters in this game have always the risk to fall out of the sky because the Main Rotors got damaged. To prevent that you can just have a aesthetic Main Rotor and the rotor that brings all the lift is inside the helicopter.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=585397147

Something like this, the main rotor ontop doesn't do anything for lift it just has a ACB attached with 3 Block range to let it spin. The main lift comes from the small spinner in the middle. It's Motor drive is increased to get more lift but using Engine power to do so. The Always up fraction is also set to 1 to only give lift upwards.
With that way you get a stable helicopter that doesn't fall out of the sky just because 1 of the big main rotorblades got damaged.

Though keep in mind the main lift spinner HAS to be on the center of Mass and best just above it. You have to adjust your build to that.

I learned most of that from this Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMBI2gr_GNE

With that you can make almost anything to a flyer :D

[Matt]

fixing balance issues.
sometimes being directly above the center of mass is impractical or impossible for your design.

ACBs can be set to change rotor spin on nearby spinblocks based on vehical angle.
you can set stabalizing rotors fwd and aft and left and right, each with a pair of control blocks to change spin direction based on the angle your vehical sits at. these can be increadably useful if you heli takes some damage that moves the center of mass.