Your helicopter's capabilities.

Welcome to what should be your first lesson in Hovercontrol flight school.  By now, you have completed the ground school material, and are probably looking forward to putting in some stick time.  We will be getting to that shortly.  But first, let's just cover a few of the basic capabilities of your helicopter.  We won't go overboard in this section, but hopefully provide just enough information to help keep things safer, and smoother in the cockpit.

Fuel Capacity and Consumption

Your JetRanger carries 91 gallons of fuel.  That's about 600 pounds.  The JetRanger is a relatively light aircraft (2700lbs with fuel), so the weight taken up by fuel is a substantial factor to flight, especially when you are at higher altitudes where lift producing oxygen is hard to find.  Because your helicopter will fully loaded with fuel by default, the flight-school training material will be based on full tanks.  Your helicopter will consume fuel at different rates.  For example, sitting on the ramp at idle rpm will consume far less fuel then at lift off power.  Because fuel consumption can vary greatly depending on the particular mission, the most important thing to consider is that your aircraft's handling characteristics can change drastically from liftoff to touchdown.  Most notably, you might feel an increased sense of power and sensitivity to control input at lighter fuel loads. This can be an advantage, but also dangerous if not taken into account.

Torque Percent

The amount of power being applied to turn the rotor blades will be measured as torque.  As you learned in groundschool, you will monitor your torque by using the Torque Indicator.  Now we will be training at about 3200ft above sea level.  You'll find that about 65-70% torque you will begin to lift off the ground in the JetRanger.  That is with full fuel of course.  This will also be approximately the amount of torque needed to sustain a hover.  It's important to note, that your torque is NOT like a throttle setting, it is not a "set and forget" type of control.  You will need to make continuous changes throughout your flight, especially during takeoffs and landings.

Reverse Velocity Tolerance

Your helicopter will fly backwards.  However, it's important to understand that a helicopter moves through the air like a dart having been thrown at a dart board.  Various stabilizer surfaces at the rear of the helicopter are going to try and keep the front of the helicopter pointed in the direction it is moving.  So if you begin to increase velocity in the backward direction, eventually the helicopter will attempt to violently switch directions. Normally you'll begin to experience this principle at about 5-10kts reverse. The flight simulator software will make this situation seem even more drastic, however with practice, you'll learn to feel this situation coming on, and to avoid it.
 


Anti-Torque Rotor Control

One of the small problems with the simulator software is that the tail rotor effectiveness is linked to the amount of collective you have applied to the main rotor.  This will add an unrealistic but challenging aspect to your manoeuvres. At a time when you will need the pedals to work the most, you might be lowering the collective which can make them work less.  This will likely affect you the most during hovers and landing approaches.  This is a pretty serious factor, which is undoubtedly a major component in the frustration of new helicopter simulation pilots.

Cyclic Control

You will find that much of the cyclic sensitivity is also linked to the amount of collective you have engaged as well as airspeed.  Slow response in the cyclic can be a frustrating sensation when trying to master hovers and slow approaches.  Once you know the problem, you can begin to account for it and become a better pilot.

Apply what you have learned in this lesson and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!