What does the gyro actually do?

[Jiffypop]

I swear man. I watched the videos, it's all hooked up, but still my craft spirals out of control, wont fly up, and all of that. It's obviously user error here, but what does it actually do? How does it work?

[Ra-Ra-Rasputin]

The gyro only, and exclusively stabilizes a helicopter, and it is only intended to be used with a helicopter.

Why they haven't named it helicopter gyro is well beyond me.

[Jiffypop]

Originally posted by Ra-Ra-Rasputin:

The gyro only, and exclusively stabilizes a helicopter, and it is only intended to be used with a helicopter.

Why they haven't named it helicopter gyro is well beyond me.

It is indeed a helicopter. But again, i'm asking what it ACTUALLY does. I connect the points but explosive error, and I can't understand or track down the issue without knowing how it works

[ElfBossHogg]

They gyro is a essentially a collection of PIDs that work together to try to stabilise a helicopter. It will determine the vector (direction and speed of a helicopter) and through a combination of internal calculations to the collective, roll, yaw and pitch output values try to bring the vehicle in to a balance.

The balance may be auto-hover where the gyro works to try and keep the helicopter in one point and stopped (not moving in any direction). If auto-hover isn't on then it will attempt to satisfy a movement request (ex. pitch forward to move forward and turn with yaw) by adjusting all of the various outputs to put you in the direction you want to go and not rolling out or loosing too much altitude.

If you are providing too much RPS to the rotor then you can get in to a situation where the power overloads the ability for the gyro to adjust. Dial back the RPS either through adjusting gearing or decreasing the the power output from your engines.

[Jiffypop]

Originally posted by ElfBossHogg:

They gyro is a essentially a collection of PIDs that work together to try to stabilise a helicopter. It will determine the vector (direction and speed of a helicopter) and through a combination of internal calculations to the collective, roll, yaw and pitch output values try to bring the vehicle in to a balance.

The balance may be auto-hover where the gyro works to try and keep the helicopter in one point and stopped (not moving in any direction). If auto-hover isn't on then it will attempt to satisfy a movement request (ex. pitch forward to move forward and turn with yaw) by adjusting all of the various outputs to put you in the direction you want to go and not rolling out or loosing too much altitude.

If you are providing too much RPS to the rotor then you can get in to a situation where the power overloads the ability for the gyro to adjust. Dial back the RPS either through adjusting gearing or decreasing the the power output from your engines.

So, my understanding is that say the helicopter yaw's one way. It would then spike the blades set to the stabilized yaw output in the opposite direction?

[ElfBossHogg]

It would do a combination of things. If you remove any further input from yaw it will apply opposite yaw in order to try to keep your current direction. While doing that it will apply corrective power also to roll, pitch and collective to try to keep your helicopter from rolling or pitching during the maneuver.

You need to also consider that collective is not just an up and down force as when the helicopter is tilted it will apply a force also in that direction. So the gyro adjusts power to the collective to both keep you at the same altitude but also to try and keep you stable in your position... and that may involve that it needs to impart roll and pitch corrections at the same time behind the scene even if the only thing you are trying to do is yaw.

[DCBenton]

I like to add a heading autopilot PID, an altitude PID and engine RPS PID before the gyro, I assign pitch(Set to sticky) and yaw to keyboard controls, and my helos virtually fly themselves. The only time my helos fly out of control is when I forget to set the rotors to neutral pitch, they are always set to positive when you first place them. I made a simple PID MC that tries to keep all controls at zero as a basic position hold, and it was quite effective with the gyro. The helicopter just sits motionless, I was quite surprised when it even fought back against the wind. :D

[dishwasherexplosive]

its for voom voom in air