Helo Study

Dent's guide for aspiring helicopterists in Arma 3 / Arma Reforger.

Updated
2025-11-20
File started
Wed Jan 16 09:24:04 2019 -0400

birdgun.jpg
Figure 1: bird with gun

Helicopter controls

A typical helicopter has three flight control:

  • The cyclic is used to control the main rotor in order to change the helicopter's direction of movement. In a hover, the cyclic controls the movement of the helicopter forward, back, and laterally
  • The collective changes the pitch angle of all the main rotor blades collectively (i.e., all at the same time) and independent of their position. Therefore, if a collective input is made, all the blades change equally, and as a result, the helicopter increases or decreases its total lift derived from the rotor.
  • The anti-torque pedals control the direction that the nose of the aircraft points. Applying the pedal in a given direction changes the tail rotor blade pitch, increasing or reducing tail rotor thrust and making the nose yaw in the direction of the applied pedal.

helicopter_controls_300.png

Controls image pulled from wikipedia

Speed States

Being mindful of your speed has to be constant. At no point should you allow your speed to be out of your mind.

This can also be thought of as managing your energy of movement, and the following "speed states" can assist.

State range in kph range in knots
Touchdown 0 - 30 0 - 20
Approach 30 - 70 20 - 40
Balanced 70 - 130 40 - 70
Travel 130 - max 70 - max

Touchdown

  • 30 km/h and lower you can mostly put skids down safely
  • Keep an altitude of at least 5 m and you can avoid tail strikes. Use this to flare hard on approach if needed
  • Pedals are fully effective
  • Can be thought of as the "30 and 5" rule for 30kph and 5 M
  • Amusingly, converting to knots and feet makes this the "15 and 15 rule" for 15 knots and 15 ft

Landing / Maneuver / Approach

  • 70 km/h and lower
  • Should be able to bleed off speed quickly to set down accurately and on demand
  • Pedals are mostly effective

Balanced

  • About 70 - 130 km/h
  • Maneuverability and speed are well balanced
  • Pedals are much less effective

Travel

  • Full ahead, about 200 km/h - 250 km/h
  • Pedals are ineffective

Knots / kph

Some aircraft instruments are not modeled in metric, but in "knots" instead.

The rough conversion of knots to kph is times 2.

15 knots is roughly 30 kph.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knot_(unit)

One knot equals one nautical mile per hour, or roughly 1.15 statute mph. The term knot dates from the 17th century, when sailors measured the speed of their ship using a device called a “common log.” The common log was a rope with knots at regular intervals, attached to a piece of wood shaped like a slice of pie.

  • 1 knot == 1 nautical mile per hour
  • 1 knot == 1.852 kilometers per hour

Terms

  • KIAS == "Knots-Indicated Air Speed"
  • KCAS == "Knots-Calibrated Air Speed"
  • KTAS == "Knots-True Air Speed"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indicated_airspeed

Common speed states converted to knots:

kph knots
30 16.2
70 37.8
130 70.2

So a touchdown can safely be executed at 16 knots for example.

Techniques to know

copters.com - maneuvers

Excellent page with a variety or articles that are well crafted and well worth reading.

Switchback turn

Similar in effect to a j-hook landing

https://youtu.be/8AG3ba7LkYo?t=700

  • Aim your nose roughly level with the horizon
  • roll to one side with max cyclic into the roll
  • pedal in direction of the roll and lowering collective fully

Out Of Trim Flight / Lateral Flare

Within the balanced state or slower you can fly in whatever direction you need.

Flaring to the side has the advantage of avoiding a tail strike at very low altitude as well.

Ag Turn

http://www.rotorshop.com/ag-turn.html

BTW, I first started doing these when I guy I knew who did AG flying showed it to me. It's a way to make passes up and down a field spraying without having to have your feet on the pedals. The way I was shown, and do them myself, is to not use any extra collective during the turn. Bring the nose up to bleed off airspeed, as the airspeed decays, torque will yaw you without any extra collective. As the aircraft continues to yaw, allow the nose to drop and gain airspeed, then use aft cyclic to level out over the ground as you begin your next pass.

The higher you raise the nose, the faster the yaw will snap you around, to the point of being quite frightening. If you do it with less nose up attitude, the yaw will be slow and very comfortable. Neither the pedals or the collective are being used during this: it's all cyclic work (and not much of that). It's a very relaxing way to make 180 degree turns.

https://helicopterflight.net/performance.php

In Arma 3 some pedal will be needed to perform an ag turn, using the simple flight model anyway. I haven't worked on this in the advanced flight model yet.

  • Max cyclic back so you put your nose straight up to the sky.
  • Once your nose is vertical enough, apply pedal to the direction you want to go and let your nose follow
  • cyclic back to level out and build speed.

Flaring

Types of flare

Landing flare

Maneuver used during landing where you pitch the nose up to bleed away speed

Quick stop

Flaring without landing and coming to a stop in mid-air

Bleed flare

Transitional flare to bleed away speed without gaining altitude.

Nose up and collective down, balance the forces and win.

Can be used all the way to the ground as a landing technique.

Barrier flare

Extreme flare to avoid colliding with an obstacle

Hard aft cyclic movement (X) followed by raising collective (W)

Objective here is to use all your power to arrest forward speed

Scissors flare

https://youtu.be/8AG3ba7LkYo?t=649

  • Roll to one side, pull up
  • Roll to the other side, pull up
  • Repeat

Landings

In the Balanced state

  • A smooth flight profile that can be rapidly turned into a final LZ approach on short notice
  • About 100 km/h to 110 km/h for maneuver to final

Final flare

  • The maneuvers and actions required to transition out of the balanced state and land at the LZ
  • About 150m to 300m out from LZ for a hummingbird

Bleed flare landing

  • Fast
  • looks cool
  • hard to master
  • better w/track ir
  • catastrophic crash

Links

On approach nose up and collective down to bleed off speed and not gain altitude. If you do it early enough and smooth, you can glide right down to your LZ and touch down.

J-Hook

  • fastest
  • evasive
  • requires lots of precision
  • requires lots of practice

Steps

  • Hold collective down (S)
  • Bank hard either left or right with cyclic (mouse)
  • Tap or Hold cyclic backwards (X) to bleed off speed
  • circle to bleed off speed until 40-60 kph, then stick the landing

Links

Roebuck325 - Bind a key on your mouse to cyclic back, bank 45 degrees left first, then full left pedal, then press the key for full cyclic back, almost all at the same time. it's doable without a HOTAS, and if you have a hotas just do those things. If you lose or gain too much altitude adjust your banking.

In the remap I present "X" is full cyclic back.

Switchback turn / landing

Videos

Steps

  • Be in balanced state (70 to 130 kph)
  • Aim rough nose roughly level with the horizon, adjust above or below horizon
    to adjust sharpness of the turn as needed
  • Then rolling to one side (mouse)
  • Then doing a maximum performance turn via aft cyclic ('x' or mouse back)
  • While simultaneously inputting pedal in the direction of the ground ('a' or 'd')
  • and also lowing collective fully ('s')

Note on technique tipping nose down while spiraling in allows to nose in to a visible landing zone and allows precision rewrite this later.

Downward spiral

downward spiral landing

  • easier to learn
  • better for bigger helos
  • can be very slow
  • risk of enemy fire on approach

Using cyclic and pedals bank around in long arc into target LZ

Emergency drills

Install the updated Hell-Heli scenario to practice emergency drills. There is something like 15 different maps available. Download the Altis one at least so it will always be available no matter what set of mods you have loaded.

Altis : Hell-Heli Refactored

Engine Failure - Basic Autorotation

Links

Basic autorotation drill

  • On engine failure immediately hold the "Collective Lower" "S" and reduce forward speed
  • Listen to the blade speed change
  • Approx 30m (or higher if you are heavier) above ground press the "Collective Raise" "W" to reduce landing speed.

Practice Practice Practice Practice Practice this until it becomes reflex.

Dyslexi's Dead-Simple tail rotor recovery guide

Updated tail rotor drill, works better in Arma 3 than the previous drill.

https://youtu.be/jy-S-2nP32Q

  1. Climb to at least 150m, let it spin for this part
  2. Full down collective, point nose in desired direction to allow the airframe
    to travel forward and out of the spin
  3. Attempt to land

Directional stability will allow you to fly and land like a fixed wing as long as you maintain forward movement. Flying in a long curve will assist in maintaining this directional stability while you flare for approach and landing.

If you fail to nose out of the spin just resume climbing without fighting the spin, once you have some more height try and nose out again.

Another thing to keep in mind is the aircraft is lost, your objective at this point is getting your passengers and crew on the ground, alive. Don't be afraid to put it down rough if you see an opportunity.

Similar to the Engine failure drill, this will require practice.

Older video on Loss of tail-rotor effectiveness for notes

Practice Drills

Runway Touch And Go

Starting from a stop at one of a long runway, lift off and proceed down the runway 25 to 50 meters then touch down. Repeat.

Execute the drill at a variety of speeds and ranges to build familiarity.

Landing Zone Circuit

Setup a triangle of landing zones in terrain of desired complexity. Place the LZ markers about a kilometer apart so you can maneuver at speed between them. Use helipad markers and possibly smoke if desired. Also put some sort of icon on the map for each LZ.

Execute an approach and landing at each LZ in turn. Explore different approaches to each LZ.

Nose Orbiting

A simple drill to build muscle memory and familiarity. Your objective here is keep your nose pointed at the target while orbiting around it at a consistent range and speed.

This is accomplished by balanced usage of the cyclic and pedals.

  • Find some object on the map with some clear space around it
  • Approach the object slowly and apply right cyclic to strafe right
  • Apply left pedal to pull the nose to the left
  • Now balance the inputs and draw a smooth orbit around the object

One wheel practice

Practice in rooftop pickup / dropoff by setting the pilot side wheel on the roof.

One wheel practice

Control Remaps

Battlefield style helicopter controls. Liberated from CallMehTOMMEH.

The concept to this remap is to put the cyclic on the mouse, and the collective and other controls on the keyboard.

This allows the fine motor control inputs on the mouse you need for precise low-speed maneuvers.

CallMehTOMMEH's keybindings https://pastebin.com/zjJCLsNX

Dial down mouse sensitivity to about 0.45 for both X and Y In the UI for mouse controls this is about 1/6th of the adjustment bar.

Helicopter Movement

I apply the same scheme to both Arma 3 and Arma Reforger.

action key
cyclic left mouse left, Q
cyclic right mouse right, E
cyclic forward mouse up,
cyclic back mouse down, X
collective up W
collective down S
pedal left A, pedal Z-
pedal right D, pedal Z+
Left Turn
Right Turn
Auto-Hover On 2 x Left Shift
Auto-Hover Off 2 x Left Shift
Gear Down G
Gear Up G

Vehicle

The Vehicle exit commands will clash with this remap. This is what I did to adjust.

action key
Exit Vehicle LCtrl + v
Eject 2 X V

CTAB controls

Additionally, if you fly with CTAB, these are mad useful to know.

Located in Controls - Addon Controls - CTAB

action key
Toggle Main H
Toggle Secondary Ctrl + H
Toggle Tertiary Alt + H
Zoom In Shift + Ctrl + Page Up
Zoom Out Shift + Ctrl + Page Down
Toggle Position Shift + Ctrl + Home, Shift + Ctrl + End

While flying Alt + H will bring up the personal CTAB, which can handle messages sent from other players CTAB consoles.

Research

History

manuals?

Dyslexi

CallMehTOMMEH

Misconduct

Patchwork

Rotor Bird

Practice drills to do around an airfield

  • Pick up and Set down
  • Quick stop
  • Quick stop with Set down
  • Quick Stop at speed
  • Quick Stop with Set Down at speed
  • Controlling speed through a turn
  • Controlling speed through a turn with Set down
  • Controlling Yaw around a point
  • Confined area landings, pre-planned
  • Confined area landings, map roaming

Workshop scenarios for practice

Combat

Putting rounds on target.

Safety tips

Pedestal Attack

While looking at the target and immediately after flying over or past it, give full aft cyclic to begin a maximum rate climb. You can apply light roll before the climb as the situation requires.

As you approach a vertical orientation, lessen cyclic. Keeping the target in sight, apply pedal in the direction of it as if you're doing an ag turn. You may end up looking through the top of the canopy during this, but ensure that you don't roll completely over onto your back. The goal is to get your nose to go from pointing straight up to down at the target via mostly pedal movement, without inverting yourself in the process.

As you come down from the reversal, roll to align yourself with the terrain, such that an upward pitching movement will act as recovery.

At this point you will have a short window in which to refine your aim via pedal input and fire. You should be constantly thinking "break, break, break" in your head to remind yourself of just how important it is to not get target fixated here.

So, to reiterate the process: - Conduct a max-performance climb as you pass the target - When vertical, slow your pitch and begin using pedal and roll to ag turn in the direction of the target, avoiding becoming inverted - Level yourself as you're descending to the target, get your sights on it, and fire. Break from the attack and recover

Pawnee Videos

Art of flight 7 - Light attack guide

Survivability

  • speed (speed is life)
  • altitude
  • maneuvering
    • changing speed / direction / altitude

also

  • hovering
    • lateral drift while doing precise minigun fire
  • taking cover

Defensive maneuvers

  • break turn: hard bank cyclic back for dramatic, swift turn
  • break low: evasive bank, rapid decent or corkscrew to low altitude to evade
  • jinking: rapid changes in direction

Attack types

  • slashing
  • break-off
  • stand-off and pop-up

Turns

  • sliceback
  • ag turns

FM-1-140 Helicopter Gunnery references

Target, Torque and trim is what every gun pilot says to himself just before an engagement of a target to ensure the attack helicopter is in a steady state position for accurately shooting the target.

This sequence is known as the 4 Ts (target, torque, trim, target). The use of this sequence, regardless of your aircraft type, will assure a consistent launch. The following is a description of the sequence.

  1. Target. Verify that the correct target is being engaged. Verify the correct azimuth. The pilot may select key terrain to assist in lining up on the target.
  2. Torque. Verify that the torque required to maintain altitude and DO NOT CHANGE IT. Any torque changes during the firing sequence will affect the distance the rockets fly based on the changed induced flow from the rotor system.
  3. Trim. The trim of the aircraft includes both horizontal and vertical trim. During hovering fire, the pitch attitude (vertical trim) should be verified for the range and adjusted with the cyclic. During running fire the trim of the aircraft (horizontal trim) should be verified and adjusted for with the pedals prior to firing. An out of trim condition will cause a deflection of the rockets on the opposite side the trim error occurs.
  4. Target. Finally, re verify the correct target and azimuth prior to firing.

Conclusion

aviate.png

A great article on "Pilot Rules" that is worth reading.

https://pea.com/blog/6-pilot-rules-that-everyone-should-live-by/

  1. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate
  2. Always leave yourself an "out"
  3. Nothing flies without fuel
  4. Take off is optional, landing is mandatory
  5. Stay out of the clouds
  6. Never let an airplane take you somewhere that your brain didn't get to five
    minutes earlier

Meta

  • Acronym helo
  • UUID document_dacb802c-a30d-4168-8a7b-ee9dbc471e61
  • Created 2025-09-19 19:28 UTC (4 months ago)
  • Updated 2025-12-03 19:04 UTC (2 months ago)

Authors

Dent
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