Apache flight training I

First week of Apache flight training. Trying to land it with strong sidewind from direction 240.
Unlike the Hind with all it´s autopilot stabilizers and stepwise-trim function that can be landed with ease on any parking lot this beast is extreme hard to control. And pressing the button to begin automatic hoover mode like I tried a few seconds before landing when becoming slower than 5 knots does nothing most of the time except making it start to spin and weather vane plus tilt in one random direction.
But any landing you can walk away from is a good one. ;D
It is impossible to control out of the box with no joystick finetuning, that´s why doing the following tips is very recommended:
1.)
HOTAS joystick curve -40% or -50% sensitivity reduction. This makes it react smooth heavy and realistic to your joystick inputs instead of doing for such a big and heavy helicopter waaaaaaaaaaay too fast and erratic sqirrely movements.
With this new joystick curve setting it feels like a heavy helicopter with 5 tons and therefore a lot of mass inertia and stability, and less like a leaf in the wind that either wants to fly a looping or vertically crash the nose into the ground when you only slightly touch the joystick.
A real Apache pilot who was testing it recommended -33% sensitivity reduction, but beginners should go with 40 or 50 to make it extra-smooth and extra-stable.
2.)
Blocking all joystick movements that go beyond 50% input radius, and when you get better still allow only 75% maximum joystick deflection in the digital joystick curve. This prevents accidentally inputting too extreme joystick inputs which can build up an oscillation and therefore make it tilt over.
50% or later 75% maximum joystick movements make it feel heavy and realistic.
3.)
Tail rotor is good to control and not much can go wrong here, 15% or 20% joystick axis curve gives smooth smaller tail rotor inputs.
4.)
Like in the Hind force trim including force-trim for the rudder for spring-loaded joysticks is the most important button in the whole cockpit, otherwise you have to constantly counter-steer the tail rotor and other forces in all flight conditions and never let go of the joystick. With force trim if flies perfectly centered and stable and trimmed out and well-behaved like a Flight Simulator 2020 Cessna.
5.)
It will take about two weeks to get used to it´s quirks and flight dynamics, and doing landings with slight speed forward is recommended.
It becomes highly unstable and the risk of getting into vortex ring state is high when trying to hoover-land it with no forward speed, so keep a forward momentum of 15-25 knots and land it more like a slow STOL-airplane is recommended.
It has wheels - so why not? Immediately press collective down half a second before or while touchdown, otherwise it will tilt over because of sidewind.

[@tlwmdbt]

Guter sanfter Start, ist gar nicht so einfach. BEnutzt du Pedale?

[@juliashenandoah3965]

Nein, nur einen uralten abgewetzten Saitek X52, wo man den Joystick seitlich links und rechts drehen kann für Pedalsimulation :)

[@tlwmdbt]

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[@tlwmdbt]

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