How to fly?

[Sigmar]

Every time i try to fly a chopper i fail miserably. Q and e make it yaw left and right? it is very unstable.
W and S makes the nose go up and down. How do i accelerate and make the chopper go forward? how do i decelerate? Moving the mouse makes the chopper go crazy, waving in all directions. please help me lol

[ETucc]

Try my controls.

Advanced Flight Model: Yes
Set mouse controls to "Yaw Only."
Roll left: A
Roll right: D
Increase collective: W
Decrease collective: S
Center Helicopter collective (the oh f##k button): Space Bar

If you want to slow down, you have to pull your nose up. However, if your collective is too high, you'll just kinda float there and won't actually drop in altitude.

Rolling will significantly drop your speed and is necessary for landing quickly from a higher altitude.

It's hard for me to explain, as others will tell you, but your best option is to listen to what I just said and PRACTICE!

Go to the helicopter range in the tutorials and fly until you can't take it anymore. Practice landing too.

[Mr Said]

I find it best to use the mouse. There are You Tube vidios that were of help for me. Also I have found that some seem to be just gifted to fly. Look at yourself, some things you seem to be good at, and some your just not.
Let me add my finger placement.
I'm right handed. I use the mouse to fly, but I use my left hand on the key board, on "Q, E, and my little finger bent on the Ctrl , not the best, but I have gotten it to work.

[FlashBurn]

The simplistic simulation of a helo flight model does get all the basic elements of chopper flight. And I have no idea how to explain how the heck to fly right in this. It really helps if you ever played a legit helo flight sim. Then at least its just a matter of figuring out the wacko control scheme or make one up. Like I can not for the life of me deal with roll on the a and d keys. And alas, there is no way to suspend or go back and forth from mouse roll to key roll on the fly. I use to do something like that in the Arma series with good effect. But how a chopper flies totally differs in low and high speed. Low speed nose turning is all about what the tail rotor is doing (q and e keys here). Alas forget fine movements, its just clunky movement with keys. High speed turning is mainly about banking. I fine it much better with the mouse to do all this than those clunky a and e keys. For the UH-1 and Ah-1 it works pretty well. OH-6....not so much. Oh and turn ON advanced flight model. The defualt stuff just crashes you into the ground. I have no clue how folks fly with defualts on. Alas for mouse yaw and roll you might want to hit invert axis for mouse. Its backwards for a "flight" sim. I ended up binding w and s my collective. Seems more natural to me.

[ETucc]

Originally posted by MrSaid {SNIPE}-USA:

I find it best to use the mouse. There are You Tube vidios that were of help for me. Also I have found that some seem to be just gifted to fly. Look at yourself, some things you seem to be good at, and some your just not.

Some of the best RS2 players never touch pilot roles, especially the Huey transport.

It's not for everyone, and you may never be as good as you want to be. I can fly with the best of them, though.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by ETucc:

Try my controls.

Advanced Flight Model: Yes
Set mouse controls to "Yaw Only."
Roll left: A
Roll right: D
Increase collective: W
Decrease collective: S
Center Helicopter collective (the oh f##k button): Space Bar

I recommend something based off that, mostly advanced flight model, mouse yaw only, and roll using KB.
I have W and S still on pitch (mostly used if I'm too lazy to grab my mouse during takeoff at the base), and space/C for collective, with no key to centre collective. But details like that are personal preference.



First rule of flying is to practise. If you have the time, do a quick flight (~5mins, maybe even less) every day or so. More time-efficient than playing once a week for 35mins.
This isn't a real sim ofcourse, so I doubt it'll even take those 35mins. But then, I've played some flight sims, and also remember some heli-sim being part of that (allthough that was long ago).

One small tip: Collective != throttle. If you just entered the heli, leave the collective low until the engine revved up - it'll do it quicker than with high collective, allowing you to take off sooner.


Pitch down (nose down; push) to move forward, pitch up (nose up; pull) to reduce speed or fly backwards.
To turn while hovering, you may simply yaw. However, if you are at speed you should roll first, then pitch up - yawing will be ineffective for that.

For a controlled (aka easiest possible) landing, reduce horizontal speed to 0 (there should be some white ball at the bottom showing you your horizontal movement), set collective to 0, and then make sure you're at 0 pitch and roll angle - the rotor's drag will slow you down enough that you do not take damage (unless you suffered severe damage maybe).

To land fast, make a tight turn (roll nearly 90° then pull hard) to kill your horizontal speed, then level the heli (0 pitch and roll angle) to prevent a crash. If you ever intend to take Cargo Pilot, you should practise that some. RPGs love it when Hueys take so long to load that you get 2-3 shots off.