DCS Player tries to fly REAL Helicopter

all right so so okay um who are you you know who I am no I am I am Cass I've been uh I've been flying helicopters for 10 years uh just broke a little over 3,000 hours uh I'm a civilian only pilot never flew in the military I did uh I started out as a flight instructor went into uh doing some some tours in the Grand Canyon then I worked offshore became a lead pilot of an offshore base at the uh in Louisiana and then uh and then transition recently in the last year or so into helicopter EMS and I'm loving that it's a ton of fun and yeah flying night vision and and in the dark and landing in cool spots and helping people out it's a lot of fun so that's my experience doing that like I said 10 years and uh I got into DCS i di my toe in the water in uh the end of 2017 and I started uh I did my toe in the water then I I kind of lost my job we went out of business and then I didn't have for DCs so I didn't touch it again until towards the end of 2019 I got into it again and then Co hit in 2020 and I just went off the deep end and spent way too much money bought all kinds of fancy controls and I have like 70% of the modules and I bought big monitors and track R then VR and uh started my own server and my own Discord and and I've kind of uh just grown from there and DCS is my my past time I like making missions you know I just enjoy that creative process almost more than flying yeah so I uh yeah and then we I met you we met each other what in uh yeah Stone burner in 2020 yeah I was another Co DCS person who was like well you know you got to find something I do and um I was like planes and I finally got the money together get the PC and like you know you know it's like a three grand investment with PC and peripherals doesn't have to be but for me it was so I waited till uh that and Co hit and everything kind of collided and I've been addicted ever since yeah it's like our unique Pastime every day yeah Y and we we hadn't met before this yeah no I met you what the day I picked you up to the airport yeah came down here um we we just talked online and you brought up this idea um and I'll explain the idea what was your thought with uh bringing me out here and having me fly the helicopter why why what were you looking to see well the whole idea for me was I've seen videos on on the internet of uh of people that fly flight Sims whether it be Microsoft or DCS or anything and they'll bring them in they'll put them in all kinds of different I've seen them do it in like big class D level uh simulators for the airlines or I've seen them take some players and put them in a cesna or Piper or something small and have them fly whether they land or do some type of event I've seen that a lot I've never seen that with a helicopter and I thought that would be interesting um so I decided Well I I have a friend that owns a couple helicopters so I uh and he gave me permission to do it and uh I'm already a flight instructor so the FAA is on board with me doing it so I said well let me uh let me find some guys that I think are pretty good in the DCS helicopters and they've never flown anything before and I I grabbed you and another friend of ours uh who unfortunately couldn't make it because the uh his boss canceled his vacation but I think me and him are going to get together later and we might do a part two of this to kind of get a second a second helping of uh of of the result maybe bigger than a sample size of one a sample size of two and uh so that was the idea I just want to see without any like me like teaching anything other than maybe like a like a pre- lson like a PreFlight briefing we uh which we we did we're going to do and uh just I just want to give you the control to see if you can do it on your own without me helping you and that's that's essentially the idea so here's the helicopter let me know what let me see what you can do and I'll just be there as a safety net I don't want to uh I don't want to teach you normally I would introduce controls he here's the pedals here's the collective here's the cyclic I show you how they all work no you learned it in DCS here you go I'm hands off let's see what happens and that's that's the whole idea I just want to see you can fly I had never seen that before I feel like every Sim pilot who's never flown like myself in the back of their head they think you know could I land the plane like and then you know you go well okay I haven't flown the real thing but like maybe I'd be all right cuz I get the understanding the basics of it and I felt like helicopter was a really interesting one because it's so difficult in Sim so and in real life it's a it's it's extremely difficult a lot of as I understand a lot of fix wi guys come over helicopters and it's a whole another world for them yeah um you know maybe some of the basics of air speed and altitudes and stuff like that they understand those numbers or or how to look for them but they don't you know the everything kind of works a little differently so I thought coming over and trying a helicopter was a really interesting challenge to challenge a Sim player uh something that's more difficult than just taking controls of a cesno and going left to right you know uh doing something like this is really got to see how well it translates you know was it was an interesting experiment we are ready to fly sir a little exhaust coming in huh was good yeah we'll probably get a carbon oxide have to clear in a second all right so uh we're going to hop on we'll just actually we'll go up to altitude and we'll do that first and then we'll come down to hover and that's the real challenge if you can hover all right all right any questions no sir all right all right we're clear left clear right all winds out the Northeast we got a wind sock behind us and a one over there in the distance all right so I'm going bring it up to a hover one light yard RP in the Green Engine gaug in the green we've got plenty of fuel no carp to speak of all right little left pedal as I bring in the collective little ayic cuz I know where knows heavy all right and there we go I'm going to do a hover check here so we're hovering at 22 in of manif pressure that's our hover power which means that's our takeoff power all right and I'm feeling for the controls to make sure they feel normal watching my engine gauges make sure everything's as it should be and it feels good so we're going to go ahead and take off into the wind you right and we're going to climb out a little bit vertical get over these little trees and then we'll go forward I got plenty of power and Reserve I'm not even close to my 26 yet going to go and accelerate forward all right well we're at 500 ft we're doing about 70 knots I'm going to point just kind of general direction here I'm going to point back towards the South and we see big tall tower out there the distance yeah there's a, 1600t we got the small one right here okay about 300 ft all right that's good we got rid of that okay and all right you ready to go all right I'm not going to tell I'm not going to coach you at all here okay all right so feel one thing to notice is the cyclic is not centered between your legs it should be slightly off to the left that'll be the center point but C is not necessarily flying straight all right you ready all right you have the controls I have control easy well this you you already got all set up for me yeah it was it's pretty well so your in trim your trim strings there you got your 80 knots of air speed and you're pretty much level I can feel it as I as I touch the PS oh um the strings you relax oh yeah yeah yeah all right so if you want to start I mean just feel it do just do some of the things you would do in DCS but not well the wild St let's just try and turn around yeah just give me a 180° turn to the left so we're starting at 800 ft let's see if uh what how much out to we gain and lose in the turn you swim good yeah I swim all right good enough to cross this Lake good enough to cross this Lake all right oh you've done some uh training with that yeah well we had life vest we're within gliding distance of the shore though so we're good I could Glide to that field no problem you're doing better than most of my students are flying honestly and they they've got 20 hours in the aircraft 185 mile short short climbing a little bit here yeah just's take a little power out or you can use the speed one of the two you can change your speed hey let me try and change the speed here let's let's try and push forward gentle let's going for slower oh you want to slow down yeah lower reduce power and maintain out to with a Cy y oh and pedal long as we stay under 130 knots we're good and unlike stepping on the ball the strings are the you strings to the left pedal to the right exactly okay okay I'm descending here what are we at now or n almost a th which is good I mean we still got room to go it might be able to get everything in today let's try and go back okay okay so we're I want to shoot for 70 and I want to go maybe 800 ft or so let's okay let's here a little bit what time we uh 16.1 or took off at about 12 10 I try to try to keep track of time here what I said 1210 right yeah okay maybe okay so we're blowing down just keep it above 45 KN for me don't go any lower than that not yet you're not ready for that yet I don't I I haven't seen you in a hover yet and I don't want to do it up here uh miles south passi see what feels like to change speeds and you know it's just like getting in somebody else a Sim rig right it's like it's a it's a Sim rig but it's it's no different yeah your life's just online okay so what did you uh what did you expect before you came down here to fly how did you think it would be yeah I I guess I you you'd kind of give me a little bit of fair warning you know in the weeks leading up that the controls and stuff are going to be real light so you know at home I'm I'm there with like the loosest Springs I can on on my stick and uh the pedals I I take the spring off and some stuff I you try and make it as similar as possible to get whatever practice I could um and I thought it would be really difficult and honestly I I expected it to do worse than I did um it was but you know what what was interesting was the um the feedback from the aircraft actually was detrimental to my flying because I'm used to not feeling anything not getting used to getting bumped around while I'm trying to move the controls so now you know a little turbulence or or whatever bumps it or or I or I make a movement on the stick and then my body makes a movement and then you know there's a maybe the arm goes further and like that would made it harder and you think more feel would be like just make it easier but I'm just not used to that feel yeah I'll tell you my my uh my expectation going into this was that uh you would be able to CU the plan was to take off we'll get up to the cruise just like I would any other student and I I start teaching at altitude we don't start in a hover so I I did exactly the same and I thought we'd get up high and I would give you the controls and I expected you to do just fine I expected you to to hold up to at least a Private Pilot standard you know and uh that's what I expected and then I when we came down to the hover I did not expect you to be able to hover at all I expected you to hold it for a few seconds maybe better than someone that's never done it at all but I expected you to get to that point and then within 5 to 10 seconds we'd be spinning out of control and I'd have to take over but uh but as we saw that's not how it turned out yeah that was surprising the hover um even for myself did not expect it to go that well uh was not easy and I was definitely Dred with sweat by the end of it cuz uh you know focusing so hard but that coordination of uh a little bit of collective a little bit of left pedal to counteract it or the movements on the controls of of just kind of bumping it one way or the other instead of going like oh I'm going right so I push left and then you're going left you know just kind of the just the tap tap kind of each way uh and pressures I thought was from the pressures not movements right pressures not movements yeah I thought that translated really well from the Sim the coordination of that and I think we were both surprised by how well the hovering went yeah the hovering went excellent I was I was blown away I mean I I thought like I said I thought you would uh you wouldn't be able to hover but at the end of the day I mean you you covered like somebody that's been doing it for at least 6 to 10 hours of Flight Training uh so essentially if you wanted to go your license you just saved yourself 10 hours $6,000 in a helicopter of of money that so your DCS investment finally paid off yes so DCS actually like a good deal that we just figure out it save you some uh some uh flying lessons there you go all right so you ready all right same thing I'm just going to give you the controls I'm not going to give them to you one at a time all right all right so just Loosely feel what I'm doing I'm give you a little hint here all right you see what I'm doing the pyic in the pedals and the collective yep that's all you need to do you ready yep all right you have controls I have controls you got them there pick a point in the distance don't look at the ground right in front of you I start a timer I can see it getting out of out of out of hand here yeah just make small Corrections don't overcorrect you get those pilot induced OS ations we're also losing our airf flow here you're hovering like I'm not most people when I handle the controls they're completely out of control at this point within 5 Seconds they're spinning out of control but here we are I'm not touching the hand the pedals or the controls or the collective we're wiggling pretty good but I mean we're not spinning out of control you maintain it heading and maintain a rough altitude and general position like we're not all over the place for someone that's never flown on any any aircraft before in your life this is amazing I'm I'm honestly blown away I did not expect You' to be able to hover this good uh I expected you to be able to fly at altitude but not hover but you're hovering you're on your own just stay relaxed you're really tense I well I keep loosening up when I'm thinking about it I loosen up and then I get tense again and I got to think loosen again yeah okay wait it's like uh yeah take a breath right yeah the more think about it more stress I get about the more we get out of control okay let's settle back in here okay here we go nice and nice and calm no problems relax the hand two fingers talking myself makes it feel good it's like when you learn air refuel in DCS you got to just keep yakking and bullshitting very similar to a refueling is hovering like the sensitivity of it and how calm you have to be a lot of the same techniques yeah let let's uh fly back left cuz we've drifted right haven't we that's fine I really didn't mark a point on the ground so H just for my own sanity pick pick a fence post I'm looking I got this nice little tree way out in the distance slightly different color than the rest okay he's been good to me all right when you feel comfortable with this let me know cuz then we'll I'll make it harder well okay here let's let's settle in here pedals are real sensitive yep everything sens like the cyclic um isn't as surprising as the pedals all right here no you got it I I thought no I did pull C you hit the ground but they uh I'm losing focus of the ad yeah that's fine so we keep drifting right you know why uh what that thrust uh so you got to fix it with the cyclic you got to overcome that with the Cy that's why it's wanting the drif and a little bit of the Wind okay um all right well one of the things that I did struggle with was the approach and that was the only time you had to fully rip out the controls from my hand and take over CU I was getting us into a situation where I could induce um uh settlement power Vortex ring state right um that was the only time I I I wonder why why do you think like that was difficult for a Sim pilot coming over maybe it's just cuz I suck but well that that transition any transition uh from either hover to for flight or for flight into a hover uh is uh very Dynamic there's a lot of changes in the way the aerodynamics affect the rotor system during that transition and um for one it's not perfectly modeled in any flight Sim I've never found a flight Sim even the professional level flight Sims don't model that properly you don't get the full sense of what's going on there's so much more happening you know you got the transition uh the reduction and induced flow you got you're passing through uh effective translational lift you've got a transverse flow effect uh you've got maybe the wind conditions uh the weight of the aircraft the temperature the altitude all these things coming together to affect that transition and uh it it can be it's something you have to feel it's not something you can visually see and then in DCS particular for the Huey is what we used to train for this the it's just a little Rumble the aircraft doesn't really move it might climb a little bit it doesn't it doesn't roll it doesn't twist the tail rer doesn't really have much of an effect change whereas in the helicopter oh our main RoR became more efficient it starts to climb our tailer became more efficient it wants to Pivot to the left you're also getting transverse FL effect which will roll you to the right uh and all that's going on at once when you correct one now you messed up something else and it's it's something you just have to feel and learn to do through feeling right uh there's you're not doing that without being able to see and without being able to feel and uh that that's I think that's why that transition all right so now so you can kind can you see the air strip now yep all right it runs that way so we'll start coming down and we'll we'll just make a uh a traffic pattern to come get landed okay I'll let you kind of fly in how you see fit and just bring us anywhere on that Runway is fine I'll tell you this the numbers for final is 300t 60 knots when you turn out on Final that's what you're aiming for 300 ft 300t and 60 knots the ground here is at 35 ft okay basically see level okay we're 65 at 400 perfect don't worry about the light bit right pedal here or Bank okay we're below speed Slow Down slow down wrong way I'm going let you mess it up remember your box of safety how you feel comfortable mine is out here I got I'm going to get you out of yours but not out of mine yeah so we're 300 ft so I don't need to I don't need to send but I need to accelerate so the runway's on the left side of this fence you see the orange markers on the side yeah yeah I see anywhere anywhere on there fine pick a pick a specific point a small Miss small all right and bring yourself into a hover into it here relax on my my we're out of we're in trim right so we're not we're kind of crabbing because the wind's out of the Northeast that's just fine right that bugs a lot of people in DCS for some reason I want to point the way I want to go yeah oh 3 F feet per second for uh all right I have controls so we getting ready for some vrs right there fell a little little bumper there I was looking over and we were at like 300 so you're you're at like 200t there 15 ft and you're coming into a hover and we're just going to start sinking no worries that's pretty normal but you did good up to that point he just didn't keep the keep it going and and down but I bet was there's a minimal amount of coaching you could get that's coming in and out of ETL right ETL is probably the biggest contributor to that what um that was kind of I felt like where personally where I where all those things cut up because it had some external factors in the Sim um it's just your controls that you have to balance and there's not a whole lot and like you fly them wind but the wind's pretty constant DCS and uh the changing variables outside of what you're doing I think make it difficult and ETL um which is the remind me again the um effective translation lift effective translational lift that's where the the uh the air flow the horizontal air flow over the rotor system essentially cleans out the vortices and uh and makes the rotor system more efficient yeah and it becomes effective at a certain point to where the pilot can actually feel it and it makes a significant a significant change in lift and that significant change in in the power requirements and uh kind of the the feel of the aircraft as it goes from kind of sluggish along and then all a sudden pops off the ground I thought DCS doesn't model that very well like you said it's just a little bit of a rumble but you don't feel this massive change in how the the aircraft handles and the performance of the of the of the motor and stuff well I guess the aerodynamic performance um yeah you get more lift for the same pitch right and I thought that those were those external factors that DCS like it kind of just does what you want and is affected by only you most of the time and not affected by some of those uh changing aeronomic conditions which I thought was really really interesting and part of the difficulty between s and you mentioned the wind that's another thing between DCS and life was the wind in DCS is concept I said I mean you can set some turbulence but it doesn't really it's not Gusty wind I think uh when we flew it was it was 10 Gus into 15 occasionally and so that's a that's a significant amount of win that's enough to to actually be difficult to control if you're if you're novice it's it's enough to get a DCS player to start bitching at the mission maker for adding win yeah if I prend not to win in a mission that people are whining and crying besides the point but yeah like you mentioned the wind is not constant so if you you get it settled in you're you're you're locked on you feel real good in your hover and all of a sudden you get three knots of increase in Wind now the aircraft wants to climb it wants to turn into that wind and it will slide over it'll move around on you and you're you're makeing correction for that and then the wind dies down and you have to correct back a different direction and uh and it and it was also variable in Direction when we were flying it was going from Northeast all the way to Northwest it was varying I'd say a good 40° of variation it was changing a lot which you don't get that at all in in any flight them I've ever fallen I mean they might have something out there but I've never fallen it yeah I think and the effects of those like the wind and those environmental factors they maybe it's just in Sim you don't feel it in your butt as much those little changes when you get pushed around or something um and uh out here in the real world you you feel it um so you're fighting it maybe more sometimes simply cuz you're getting the feedback at least I thought maybe I was over over corrected cuz you're getting a lot of lot of information that you don't usually get sitting in your chair at home you know AB absolutely and uh you mentioned the feeling for example the you were coming in on approach and uh we I could feel and I obviously could read the instruments and in DCS you only have your instruments and what you see out the window I could feel how the aircraft just gently starts to settle or descend I mean me doing it for 10 years I can feel those really minute changes in in the aircraft's attitude without looking at an instrument I can see that by looking at the Horizon I can I can see just a minute change in attitude and I can feel very small changes in the aircraft's uh Vertical Velocity and uh those little feelings are enough to me so I can predict what's about to happen based on those small feelings that cuz I know okay we're coming in their starting to settle yeah we're going to need a bunch of power so as a pilot myself I would pull in the power but a student even one that that I've been teaching doesn't it takes years to build that feeling up to understand that this is about to happen because I felt that right you know and you don't get that at all in DCs so that's one thing you came in without that without that skill DCS couldn't I could spend a decade on DCS and never get that feel yeah um because it just doesn't exist um so it seems like the things that do translate over from DCS the things that are modeled in DCS and the things that you can have at your your home coordination between the the the flight controls the uh reading the gauges and knowing what they mean and and stuff like that that translates really well it's there's just other things in real life other variables and and stuff that you you isn't simulated maybe if I had a $110,000 setup if be simulated you get like I said even then yeah I flown simulators the biggest one I ever flown was for an s76 C++ uh which is a 12 passenger two pilot TN engine helicopter we use offshore mostly and uh I flew the highest level SIM for it and you can each count it as and highest level being like most realistic the highest level that the FAA certifies so it's it's like a pod it's up on hydraulic mounts it's 15 ft in the air and the whole room moves you know it's got an instructure setting in the back and the the the cockpits fully modeled fully physical and the controls are even hydraulic they're hydraulic they have they feel really good the whole thing rumbles and moves like significant like 20 or 30° nose up and down and it rolls and and it feels great but even that does not fully it doesn't give you the the same feeling and feedback as the real thing it just there's no way to fully replicate it at least with today's technology other just go out and do it yeah that point T you cheaper to go do it for real yeah yeah hey maybe so it's a some of us are chasing the more the bigger batter setup at home just know that there's there's no way to really get a full helicopter in your bedroom or a full plane for that matter I personally fly VR and so do you yeah and and I wanted to bring someone in here that flies on the flat screen to see if and how that goes how that would go or the other guy Rattler he's going to be he's a VR guy too so I'll have to get a flat screen down here flat screen guy down here to see how they you know who that could be now we we'll talk about it some other time but I I'd have to make don't make any promises like I said for this we have a sample size of one just you now I've flown you in DCS for three years and I've seen your progress over over the years and you're really competent DCS pilot as it is like you know how to fly the aircraft well I can't beat you in a dog fight in any aircraft anymore yeah and so I mean it shows you understand the energy management and how aircraft operate and you've got a good theoretical theoretical knowledge of aerodynamics uh so you were a really high-end DCS player that could come in maybe not from a procedural standpoint but from a physical flying skill right and so I'd like to get someone in that's uh that's not as good in DCS and and that would be like taking someone that wasn't as good as regular fly as as uh someone that is good at it we'll have to get some more people down and find out I wonder um maybe be interesting to see someone who has maybe 6 months or a year in DCS um or any flight SIM for that matter yeah so after I did my flying and did a little hovering and approaches and some takeoffs and some Landings uh you took me on for a couple Maneuvers in the helicopter yeah we did some fun stuff what were those we did a lot of stuff we we did we flew I flew for about hour of just doing Maneuvers and demonstrations so I did a uh did some hover Autos did some full auto rotations there some some funky Auto rotations uh did some quick stops uh gosh what else did we do we uh did some we actually did some stuck pedal uh demonstration we did we landed off airport we landed in the river we oh man we did a little bit of I even let you fly Hydraulics off a little bit there at the end that was really that oh my God the Hydraulics off was I mean you could turn them off in the Sim and the are slow to react kind like a delay right there's like a delay real life man they're so freaking heavy to move them any which way Collective yeah everything was Heavy the only thing I didn't change is the pedals cuz they're not hydraulically assisted that's right um but everything else is so freaking heavy made it really hard to be smooth and when we were just doing normal hydraulics on like hovers and flying around you just kind of think where you want to go and the controls are so light that you just fly there the heavy control I mean you got to like intend to go places and it was it's quite interesting yeah and then switching right back after the hers come back on you over control now you're over control right right right I I forgot about that right as soon as they came back on I was like w w got to got to relax again now here's something for you when when I worked offshore we had to do hydraulics off in a bigger helicopter which has about 30 to 35 lbs of force on the cyclic when you're flying yeah and you have to land you saw how we how did I land I did a kind of sliding landing on the r right right uh out there you have to essentially come to a hover and land on a a hell deck a you can't slide it in which is what the manufacturers tell you to do can't do that off I just thought that that's just a very unique facet of that off flying Landing Hydraulics off on a platform it's pretty tough here you go go to the right I was like uh so go and put your hand on the collective yep all all right Hydraulics are off grip it with your whole hand Hydraulics are off let's slow it down to 70 knots okay okay a little different now yeah she's heavy now oh my God the collectives oh you you fight me there oh the collective's heavy that's the aerodynamic forces it's like a car with power steering you just turn power steering off all of a sudden it's it's heavy oh yeah all right you can start descending down to to 500t this is it's going to be tough for you to take controls cuz I'm gripping it though is a problem here I'll just tell you but this sucks right yeah all right let's not going this is good speed just come on down with altitude 70 knots is a good 60 to 70 knots is is a good speed for brutal dude this is let's go and let the collector down so we can descend so let it come down and don't you don't don't nose it over yeah now we got to land oh my God I'm going to do the landing I you fly in there so we're going to kind of come in and make a right turn back to landing and you see the control tower now yeah the taxi way in front of it that comes comes at an angle like this we're going to land at the intersection of those two taxiways 6 Char L Runway 33 Ed char then you can maneuver to the ramp right 33 at Charli C land 6 Charli all right so just kind of set yourself in a downwind here and we're going to land at the intersection of this taxi way and the runway we're land on the runway y b looks good we're do a shallow approach sh like an airplane sh like 3° of of angle we're going to like I said we're going to downwind consider this down we'll come out and make a right turn and come back y oh yep yeah don't get slow cuz you m you can't hover like this I say the wind the wind's all over the place today it's only four knots I said a little left pedal you pull in power the pedals are still the same though they're not hydraulic we're going to keep goinging out we're going extend it I'd rather be long than short if a Final Approach okay so I'm left here yeah a little bit let's not go any slower we come down to 300 ft it a little forward pressure and you see when you move this it moves the collective you move the collective it moves the cyclic yep yep that's just because they're mechanically intertwined all right you can turn in back now turn I'm on controls with you now when you turn you're going to descend so you add a little power but this is fine we want to descend I a shallow gentle turn all way around left pedal get that get us in trim as we come around pushing forward forward forward forward all right I'm going to do the landing at the very and I'll tell you when I take over so you just fly it in you get tired yet um imine if you had to fly you offshore and you had to fly like an hour Home mentally cuz I feel like cuz before the controls so light I just kind of had the notion of it in my mind and I was able to do what I want to do I got to put some Force into it now all right I'm going to go take controls your controls I have controls so it's important that I got the nose straight with the runway got time for lunch yeah oh if the restaurant was open we could go we went yesterday all right let see if I can remember how to do this without crashing helicopter this looks like our landing speed uh we're good here coming in ETL and we just need a little for Speed not a ton all little for pressure scrapes up pretty good huh yeah Al are on we got them back good to go does that leave a little big scrape in the runway yeah it does not my problem well so how often do you get to do those kind of procedures or those uh man maneuver yeah how of do you get to do those kind of Maneuvers uh so Auto rotations and hydraulics off all those things when you're working for let's say an EMS company or you're working doing offshore work or any kind of commercial work uh generally only once a year which kind of sucks I would like to do it every couple months or personally I do it every day but yeah we're not we're not allowed there's a lot of risk involved so uh and we're flying we we have a mission we have a job to go do now I'm flying patient so they don't have time for me to go out and practice and play with it you the helicopter has to be ready to go to pick up the next patient um so we don't get to go I'm actually going next week to go back to our home our our headquarters base and uh go do an annual training and check ride that's just kind of how it works so for me in my my parttime this is kind of a parttime get friend with a helicopter teaching I got a couple of students on the side I get to go out and practice my Maneuvers which is a lot of fun and these helicopters are great for for that kind of fun stuff and as you know I love doing Auto rotations and we did some fun ones what' you think of Auto rotations I thought it was uh spooky at first then like cuz you know you go so light you go so low G for a sec and then once it's kind of into the uh you're at your speed and kind of gliding down and real peaceful and then right at the end big flare and then it's all good yeah and I thought it was pretty fun uh and honestly that one um they did 360 down or right that was uh that was pretty neat um just just spinning and kind of uh falling on your way down then coming into a nice landing so I'm going to go ahead and ENT an auto rotation here in just a sec uh that's not going to be too basic it's going to be like a 180 turn ready all right so go close the throttle down the collective all right so we got our RoR RPMs coming back we got a little r RPM right where we want it we got 70 knots that's what we want in this aircraft I'm going land on the runway all right I'm in trm I got air speed I got RPM and now I'm just looking out the window I'm flying it coming through 900 ft that first cut takes a feel that in your chest there it's kind of it's you don't feel that in DCS huh no but this is nice and calm coming down yeah just flying it we got a descent rate of about 1,700 ft per minute a little extra speed I'm going get rid of there lower my RPM just a bit so I can flare harder all right we start our flare and we would touchdown boom just like that that's cool it was just the two of us and half a tank of gas like this this thing Glides pretty good so I don't want to go any higher here but we got a lot of energy I want to land on that Runway I'm going to go ahead and cut the throttle lower the collective RPM got low that time all right so now if I just hold this 70 knots so we're going to end maybe we'd probably make the end of the runway here right so I but I can what I can do let's Spike the rotor RPM a little bit slow it down some of that speed oh there's the negative G or not negative it doesn't matter in our rotation low G right because we have a downward velocity downward momentum there we go so I slowed it down let me do this more and also if I'm coming in too hot I can I kick it out of trim put the nose back come in for the flare little extra RPM flare flare flare this essentially what I do in the Hue in DCS yep yep that was pretty cool yeah that was fun so we did two things there I slowed it down grabbed my speed back and then I kicked it out of trim at the end to kill off a little bit more of four momentum yes I had the whole Runway but assume we're trying to hit a specific point and you do that ready ever be lower the click to First Take the power away let's do a [Applause] turn we're in auto rotation by the way yeah I get that this is a There's no practical purpose for that at all it was fun though man making my palm sweat but uh that's pretty cool there's our 70 knots we got RPM we got air speed we're good we'll bring it on in a little extra air speed so we'll come in here we'll use it getting used to trust in the the the vehicle yep sorry so you'll see the runway below us out the window yeah I see it I'm going bring it to a hover which is fun in itself hovering High We essentially at'll hover here and I can tell you when I get a bunch of power and where to hover all right we do still have ETL unfortunately but our ground speed is three knots we're essentially hovering right are you ready 3 two one that's pretty fun get you every time right that's fun all right so now that was just fun I got to maneuver to get onto this Runway I got a long way to go o a little G well what it was is the rotor har P was getting high I got my speed back all right we still got 700t to use I'm good here yeah that was pretty fun I'm not going to lie that was really fun we're coming up a little short huh got a fence down there to worry about I'm going to come into this this field here and not worry about the fence all right a little slow we got plenty of RPM blare hard there we are fun stuff that was awesome we did all kinds of stuff oh we also did a I forgot the other thing we did was a A Shard selling pack power and DCS play called vrs Vortex ring State I did a demonstration to show you what that feels like you don't feel that in in Sim what does that feel like to you well so buffets you can you can kind of tell what's going in there cuz it it it buffets and and shakes right and then the floor kind of drops out on you uh cuz you're just not making any lift anymore and that that was really uh interesting so kind of into it buff it uh you're you're putting us into our own vortices there and and get a little buff it and then just the sink rate just goes crazy on you and you recovered it nicely and the recovery a lot of pitch but um pretty pretty calm yeah we did a couple of different recovery techniques there did this traditional and and the vard recovery to the side uh which I don't think is moded in DCS at all so right that was something interesting the V where you go sideways to get out of the the TA thrust to push you out of your vortices instead of having to sacrifice all your altitude yeah that's something that obviously it's not model in DCs so getting to see that in real life and some of the things that you could can't do in DCS I'm going to slow it down bring us to essentially an outou of ground effect hover which is fun in itself so pulling in some power we're at zero air speed essentially what's our ground speed uh we got 20 not ground speed so all right on our ground speed at essentially zero we're we're hovering here I don't want to climb into the clouds all right so I'm going to go and let it start descending like the wind's a different direction here we're flying backwards you feel that yep yep all right so let's get a good descent rate going all right so now the collective is low I'm going to pull collective in let's see if it increases or decreases ah sea level's tough man cuz there really get into it all right there's our descent right let me I'm I'm going to pull in some power now ah it's still climbing we're flying backwards all right let's go and spin it around whoa whoa ah it's struggling I'm struggling to force it to happen that's it's not as prevalent as they make it seem in DCS I'm struggling to make it occur that like light uh G loing thing is yeah but we're don't have any air speed so we don't have any upward momentum see if I can do it here flare into it oh there it is we're in it now oh so we're just sinking huh yeah pulling some power and look our descent rate is not going away so traditional recovery lower the collective lower the nose uh it takes time look it's still descending all right trim strings are up we can climb out Hill traffic 122 uniform you see the vibration it we just start sinking yeah yeah yeah it's tough the the wind's making it hard actually to get it in to actually make it happen just blowing it away from you yeah it's making it hard for me to cause problems for myself all right we got some altitude again we're going to try it one more time but this time I'm going to do the the other recovery technique so I'm basically flaring myself into it putting my vortices out in front of me now pulling some power there it is feel that so I'm going to do left and we're recovered wow is the difference yeah yeah recovered quick another thing we did that I didn't uh that I did a uh a demonstration of special disorientation of you're missing with your inner ear at the end of the at the end of our flight you had me put my head down and stick my thumbs up and point which way that I thought the helicopter was turning and I was going as I mean you did like maybe a turn or something and I immediately started just getting lost yeah you got lost right away when in reality I just did a long slow 360 turn and then and leveled it out and you thought you were going you were turning and were sh you went you went two circles to the left right and then I and then you slowly went to the right smoothly transitioned to a right turn so slow that you wouldn't your inner ear wouldn't detect it and then I when I leveled the aircraft you thought we were in a left turn right cuz you cuz you went from uh right Bank to level and that flick motion made me think we're going to left and I'm like this and he's like I look up I'm like we're straight level yeah so that was uh it's it's fascinating that's another thing don't have to deal with in the Sim right you know and that's probably the biggest killer at helicopters is flying helicopters VFR helicopters into into the clouds into IMC conditions where you can't see out the window and uh that gets a lot of even really experienced guys it gets them and uh so it's it's good to show people that demonstration of how that actually feels it's when your senses will mess with you and you just can't control the aircraft based solely on senses so it's actually kind of a a a I say a credit to sim players cuz they get really good at trusting their instruments because they don't have the feelings where real Pilots trust their feelings and then learn to use the instruments all right so what I'm going to do is have you put your hands on your knees like this um think I'm sure the camera can see that all right so what you're going to do is when you feel this turn if we're turning left you point your both your thumbs to the left kill me yeah yeah so what you're going to do is you're going not yet but uh I'm going to have you put your head down close your eyes try not to cheat um I don't want to cheat I want to see how this works yeah put your head on put your chin on your chest and yeah lean your back back there just the chin down and uh and I said when you feel it start to turn you let me know okay or don't let me know just point in the direction of the turn hope you don't fill the cyclic okay give it a a good point in that direction okay and just hold it until you feel us if we're leveling out or for turning or what have no idea to be honest I'm pointing because I think stuff is happening but I got no idea okay just keep pointing I'm going to see this on video later and be like man I didn't know where the hell we're we're going oh man just let it go for a couple minutes what's happening is the fluid in your ears is bouncing out it only detects accelerations it does not detect constant movement okay so done yet I'm not done yet I just want to be clear that I have literally no idea I'm not even pretending to think I know I I'm I'm trying my best to figure it out but I uh I know I'm going to look like an idiot like like oh man you could easily feel that no no I'm feeling nothing I feel more um forward and a than I do yeah we're getting a little turbulent bumps here and there yeah yeah and uh so okay I feel I think we're level right now like we're level right now okay you can see if you're in the clouds and you can't see out the window and you don't well I have no idea maybe I'm a 100% right right now yeah what do you mean c I'm I'm perfect the score is perfect I'm I'm dead on uh maybe still going left get my eyes closed I pick my head up but my eyes stay closer that all right go and open your eyes that last little move was you just centering huh yeah I leveled off we were turning right I when I so that whole time I'm going to tell you right now was a we turned we did two 360° turns to the left oh and then at the end I slowly leveled us out to level and started a gentle right turn eventually and then I leveled out and when you leveled out you thought you would point it to the left as if we were turn to left cuz your fluid had centered up and it wasn't enough of a movement to trigger the fluid in your ears landing on the river land on the river was uh really neat um you started the approach I did start the approach oh I so I see what you're getting so that one of the things with that was obviously different from the Sim is that you're really out there and you're really flying and those are real trees and you're in a real helicopter and it things can go wrong so you have me fly it in on the approach and the stress was really building as we're getting closer to those trees and close to the ground and coming in and I didn't think I'd have any problem with that but the stress of of holding those controls and and not being very confident cuz I you know I'm hour one of flying ever uh it was stressing me out and I I was like wanting you to take over controls and it was a huge relief when we we're coming in obviously I'm not going to land on a river bank U with an hour of experience uh so when you took over those controls it was a huge so now we're the proper altitude proper speed we do an orbit and see uh we'll go through our Recon we'll do kind of a low Recon or high Recon technically is what this is but uh we 4T it's somewhere in here it doesn't matter this is fine speeds a little high but that's okay just look out the window and fly don't worry about it too much and we're going to land on this like curved inner part of the uh the U here let CES up do an orbit around it C it out your window and hold it there you have to increase your bank angle if you need to there you go and uh you see any obstacles other than there's trees sticking out here and there and our approach path in we'll just come down the river from uh from south to North and we'll take off North over the trees uh I don't see any L any wires or anything do you a lot of people string wires across Rivers that's pretty common yeah no all right entry exit you know I don't think uh elevation is not an issue cuz uh it looks somewhat flat it looks roughly hard packed we'll see and uh sun's not a problem no turbulence really it should be fine we'll s set ourselves up on a downwind going this way and we'll make a right turn in and uh come in over the river on that side over there slow it down we're 80 knots we don't need to be going that fast P down to 60 there you go and can you still see your spot yep all right so keep it in sight turn you can start descending now start slowing down we're coming a little steeper and slower than we normally would [Applause] all right don't lose all the speed but this is a good speed don't go any slower CU we're kind of in a dangerous territory here as far as aerodynamics and power management all right so this is a good Final Approach right here level down here it's slowing down coming down slowing down this is what I would be doing at night I mean at work I would do it at night too but we see our obstacles trees sticking up here so we just need to clear our clear our tail over that and then we can come down to that sample all right slowing down coming down so I'm going to come on controls with you yep all right you're you're still with me but I'm I'm flying okay just stay with I'm I'm going to go limp on the control yeah you can just feel what I'm doing yeah so this is a good angle I going to clear all of our obstacles I'm going to go so feel ETL feel that Rumble yep I'm going to start adding in power cuz we our power demand is increasing as we come in add there a pedal it's a little spooky with all the obstacle all the trees and stuff huhuh yeah try in the dark yeah yeah with power lines and stuff too oh yeah with power lines you don't see Y bird uh where right off our nose a he'll be fine he just looks almost like a bald eagle ah it might be actually a white tail see that white tail white head that a bald eagle sure she is and I'm proud to me and American at least I know I'm free pull this down no no no you pulled down you got it I was just kind of putting a finger on feel feel your movements not much I look like I'm like babysitting you but really I appreciate it I need someone to babysit me this is what it's all about right this is sweet you see all these like deer tracks and bird tracks over here yeah yeah I see if it's see if it's hard enough to land on make sure the kids don't get stuck in mud or something oh no yeah you look good look at that right on top of the sand no problem Wile it yeah it's a little un stable it's all right I just just just gassed yeah you you mentioned uh you actually said it and I I've said it before uh there's no there's no break if you're flying right you can't set the autopilot and relax you can't pull over the side of the road you just have to keep working even though you're stressed out or tired and it's it's a lot more exhausting than you would expect right 100% % and I can see you get better and it becomes less less work but I don't think it ever is no work cuz man it you're you're on and um you can't you can't just take a break and and you can't let go of the cyclic you can't even let go of the controls to you know itch your balls or something you know you you better better use your left hand for that so that was uh yeah and I can see how a pilot especially soloing gets in a situation where they're really uncomfortable and there's just no no way out and if they fre there's no safety and if you freeze up there's no you can't you can't you can't just stop I remember when I was a student myself many many moons ago uh I my first solo flight the first time the instructor stepped out of the aircraft closed the door and I had to go fly by myself and I picked it up into a hover knowing that there was no one there to save me if I screw it up right and you know that that was a scary moment and it was a confidence building moment cuz once I got through that flight and it was the dun and Krueger effect at its wor at its finest you know I thought I was the best in the world after that flight but before it I was I was I was was nervous cuz right you your instructor you always know that hey if I mess up this move he'll save it right you know and now if I mess it up and if I get into vs I have to get out or you know lights out you know it's there's no no safety net there and uh that that's just that's an interesting thing that you felt the same way yeah tired and like I want you to there's a couple times you asked me to take them and I told you no yeah I can't believe I've had once in a life to have an opportunity to fly a helicopter get I fly out of here come and fly this helicopter and you know have an hour of free helicopter time which is unheard of and to then be asking for him to take controls back over I kind of surprised myself in that and I think I would if I was to see myself do that on a video or something be like what are you thinking you know don't give up the time you fly it's like honestly in person I just mentally exhausted and I was getting worse at certain stuff especially um setting back down we did someck the stress really just got me and I think when I came back to you know you went and did some Maneuvers and right at the end I did a little more flying and I think it was really helpful to take that breather kind of digest what I kind of learned and a what do you want to do next take a break yeah yeah yeah just a Break um yeah sometimes was good to take a break and then come back to it but yeah just it was mentally um exhausting being um being so inexperienced in it and so like stressed uh for for uh DCS players we can give a good analog is the exhaustion and that stress is the Aero refueling and DS that's what you're saying it's very similar AER refueling that that feeling you get tired the more you do it the more frustrated you the more difficult it becomes right and uh it's very simpar like hovering a helicopter will be the same we just working in a helicopter and you're not used to it any any new aircraft would be that way you know you're falling behind the aircraft is ahead of your brain you're you're kind of it's over there and you're back there thinking about what what's what's already happening you need to think about what's coming you know it's that that whole thing so overall I I don't think there was any other Maneuvers that we did that uh it was a it was a real hoop though to try all those uh or um fly with you when you went through all those Maneuvers um it was fun for me cuz I don't get to do them very often fun for everyone and honestly in the video some of those times I had a bit of a straight face to it cuz I'm just tense cuz you know it's it's like a roller coaster but there's no rail so you're like tense but man the feeling you're gut and stuff and a lot of those times we do do the the low G or something and i' be tense and I go wow that was really fun that you just did what you just did there so yeah I really appreciate all the just showing me what a helicopter can do in person and what that feels like yeah too bad we didn't get to land at the restaurant the weather was too bad so we uh we had a drive that's the best there is for helicopter landing to get food yeah show that's that's all we do we go restaurant to restaurant you know that's that's all there for right expensive hamburgers expensive $600 hamburger is all it is all I'm not be grills I'm actually you letting you do it they relax on the collective so much don't twerk Don't Twerk it just kind of Let The Descent rate build a little forward pressure on the cyclic and left battle not that much forward pressure we don't want the nose to do we just want a little forward motion and then just put it just let it come down let it come down let it come down let it come down let it come down little forward let it come down let it come down come on let down oh that was that was rough that was kind of rough that was pretty rough I got the controls yeah all right that was funny well I mean we became friends off it and uh speaking of which thank you so much it's it been really awesome getting to come out here and meet you in person meet your DCS friends in person and get some good food right get some good food and thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to try a helicopter in real life I mean this is a Sim Pilot's dream yeah absolutely it was fun I enjoyed it cheers

Channel: KazFactorStudios

Views: 183,595

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Id: -YXnOkXQZfE

Length: 58min 29sec (3509 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 26 2024