A few notes for the folks that are new to helicopters: you don't need to center the collective, the throttles and the toe brakes. You just need to do it for the cyclic and pedals. Austin got the throttle working in the opposite direction that it should. Keep that in mind if you're setting things up, folks. Also, rotors do not do negative pitch. And it's not "auto-throttle" but governor. The PFT Puma is an amazing kit. It's the one I use and can't imagine myself without it.
@@Kirkfall it depends on who you ask and the helicopter model. No consumer market product will be 1:1 but a lot of real world pilots use it and are happy with it.
@@talon2577true. Some helicopters, such as military and aerobatics do have negative pitch that can go up to -12 degrees but not in general. I should have said rotors do not usually/normally pitch negatively. There are some exceptions.
Austins energy is boundless. The joy he gets creating and tweaking XPlane is infectious. Michael also is very knowledgeable about the hardware needed to run the sim so they make a great team!
I'm saying this in a nice way, but Austin is the biggest aviation dork I've ever seen. I admire his knowledge and enthusiasm for aviation when he is on videos and I always learn something interesting watching him!
The quote "if you can fly this, you can fly a real helicopter" reminded me of the classic line from the movie Dodgeball. "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball". Anyway, always fun watching you guys in these videos and looking forward to X-Plane 12 release!
I guess Austin agrees with you (me as well). At 15:40 he says "To me this graph is backwards to the way it should be. But that's the way Tyler coded it." I really think the graph should be rotated by 90 degrees to make it more intuitive.
pulling back the cyclic would drag the swashplate down on its rear position and cause the blade disk as a whole to lift its frontend to a higher position. the swashplate is connected with each rotoblade by its individual connector. the cylic controls the direction of flight, not the lift. if you want to increase the flap of each of the blades you would lift the collective stick instead. collective is changing the root angle of the blades adding pressure to the airmass underknief the entire blade disk area which pushes the mass of the helicopter vertically away from the ground. an issue is that x-plane has: it'is not even reading "throttle". it's not assignable in regard to power increase (rpm). X-plane is not ready yet for helicopters like the uh-60 for example, speaking of the missing spool up handling at start up for example.
Got mine yesterday and returned it immediatly. The 4 way switch on the cyclic does not work properly (it sticks when pushed down). The 2 way switch on the collective is not correctly aligned. The "stick" feels cheap like a 20 $ toy. The 4 way switches on the collective have ultra long travel and they are 3D printed. For nearly 2.000 $ that is a joke.
Hope all this recent interest in helicopter controls and the electric vtol project they are working on leads them to revisit the S76. That would make a great default helicopter to run alongside the Robinson in 12 if it ever gets a re-work.
When I was crewing helicopters the one thing I was taught is American helicopters the blades go clockwise and European helicopters go counter clockwise. So you use a left and not right pedal.
This is what I use. Best I’ve found for size and weight… I can literally lift this with one finger. Because of the weight you need a folding chair to brace the cross supports.
Great presentation, Austin. Looking forward for X-Plane 12. Especially with a light helicopter like the R22. Please, for your passengers, small inputs on the controls with helicopters.
Hello, helicopter pilots. Why doesn't a tail rotor auto re-center to it's center position when you release the foot pedal? Why Doesn't the cyclic spring loaded as well? Why Doesn't it return to center like aircraft controller? Thank you in advance.
I have one of these. Spent $1400 on mine. To be honest save ur money it’s trash. It’s cool to have a helo setup but the product is extremely low quality for the price. The switch’s are shit you can buy off Amazon for like 15 cents. You’d be better off buying a Virpl collective and sticks truthfully. The weight of the stick is too light there’s way to little resistance where the weight of the grip will make the stick fall to whatever side it’s leaning to. There’s no intuitive design for it to work with a chair due to the back stabilizing legs, especially if you’re 5’6” like I am. The collective is too close to ur seat and will hit your chairs arm rest. Unless ur building something around it it’s not comfortable to use. I couldn’t tell you that last time I used it. I bought it for DCS to fly the Huey. There’s not feel for center on the stick which I know is mostly accurate on a helo but even in the real aircraft in my experience in the pilots seat there is a feel of center on the stick albeit a minor one. I feel like I wasted $1400 honestly.
Yes, really nice, huge improvement. It seems to be a gras strip (windsock at the end), so I think these are the default airport gras textures. I am very sure they wouldn't show anything but default XP12 here at this point.
would love to try this set up with armored core 6, or if this guys come up with a proper set up for it :D, this robots are like heavy armored helis but propeled by super rocket trusters instead of blade rotors.
Hi, this was very helpful. We can’t seem to get ours to work . Keep crashing 😂 Would it be possible to get a personal tutorial for set up and installation via zoom or Teams?
Gentlemen, really enjoyed the video and am hoping that I could get some perspective from the experts. I'm getting into flight sims specifically for helicopters, and I'm looking to invest in quality equipment that still makes sense for a beginner. Now, the Puma X is undoubtedly overkill for someone starting out, but could you provide any recommendations and what a quality yet reasonable set up would look like? My research so far has yielded that 1) quality anti torque pedals are a must 2) a cyclic that doesn't have a self centering mechanism is also needed. Most items I'm finding say using a throttle for fixed wing rather than a collective and throttle would suffice until I'm ready to spend money on a big boy rig. Would you agree with this, and are there other products you'd recommend? Long term goal is to actually be a pilot, but I'll start in the comfort of my home until I'm ready for that journey.
Your goals might match. Quality equipment but reasonable don't go hand in hand in simulation - at all. The puma, while it's nice, is not what I'd call quality it's more entry level - it's price comes from the niche it sits in. What I suggest is actually using stuff that works. So in practice a few comments on your research: 1) No, you don't need high quality anti-torque pedals. Helo flying is super easy, it's immersion you gain with better gear. If you want decent starter point you can just use Thrustmaster TPR pedals and unhook the springs at the back or even better: MFG Crosswind pedals with the fighter pedals and a dampener. Most just retrofit bike steering dampeners anyways. 2) No, also wrong. Most simulators allow center trimming. If you don't want that you can just use an extension. If that is long it will give you the same control even having a centering mechanism. There's basically no reasonably priced gear that really uses dry clutches, dampeners, electromagnetic brakes etc. to allow full trimming etc. - it's always a workaround. Also most importantly: you don't ever get the butt feeling so believe it or not, your biggest challenge will be to avoid chasing the needles etc. and get a natural feel for the helo in a dead sim. What gave me the most joy was actually just deskmounts. It will actually make you fly if you don't have a sim pit yet. So my recommendation: Get MFG Crosswind pedals with dampener and the military pedal set. Get deskmounts and a stick that can be used with a gooseneck extension for precision. Brands would be virpil, VKB, thrustmaster and mount companies like monstertech. Optionally get a collective (virpil has their stuff on black friday sale right now) or just use a throttle from a HOTAS - It's much cheaper and no biggie at all, I can easily fly all (combat) helicopters in DCS and civil ones are much simpler and easier.
Hey Michael fantastic upload I have been looking at purchasing this unit and now I am going to do you think you could do a comprehensive set up for x plane for the controls including how the auto throttle works Cheers Stu
I couldn’t find a way to message you privately, so hoping this comment makes it to you. We purchased the puma x about a year ago, along with the x plane 12 software. We purchased a computer system to go along with this so that we have everything just dedicated to create a simulator. We have been unable to successfully get the system set up and running. We’ve calibrated it to some degree but still have issues with rolling, acceleration, display, etc. We’re also far from getting all of the buttons on the device configured to the software. We are a bit desperate. We’ve spent quite a bit of money into a device that we cannot use. Is there any chance you have information on someone that might be able to engage with us until we actually have this device 100% set up and running? Anything you can do to assist would be Greatly appreciated. Thank you Chuck.
I dont own any flight simulator software but does or can it teach you as you go for example can it give you a command like autohover at 7500 feet for 60 seconds and if you dont it corrects you kind of interactive
Is there a way to setup racing wheel pedals as the rudder pedals in xplane 12? You know....for those of use that aren't ready to drop the 1500$, hehe. Currently, I have to depress the clutch half to find centre and if I pull off, that equates to right rudder. If I push beyond semi depressed, then that's left rudder. Is there a way to setup the clutch as left rudder only and say the accelerator pedal as right rudder? I'm using the G29 racing pedals if that is helpful.
Its CRAZY how expensive these things are. If this set up, with the total material it comes with, had absolutely NOTHING to do with flight, they'd be hard pressed to be able to charge 200 bucks for it, much less 1500 to 2100 dollars. But because, its ASSOCIATED with helicopters they think they can get away with getting an extra grand or two? No thank you.
@@zagan1 Although in fairness, he said he was getting 90fps. Maybe it was on a 3090 (he didn't say) but at least it should okayish on a lower spec PC if he was getting 90fps.
They are smoking a bad batch of crack if they think that thing is worth $1900 all in. They need a new dealer who will sell them good stuff with no formaldehyde in it.
Looks very nice. When Austin says its running at 90fps, I assume that's 30fps on each screen? Was this whole setup running on just one PC or was it three networked PCs? What were the specs of the PC(s) please?
You can see the PC in the video so probably 1 pc maybe amd 5950x or 58003Dx cpu and 3080 ti or 3090 ti running all 3 screens at 90 fps not sure of the res but something like 6000x1440? the res is the important part
@@pakiomg90 No offence, but unless you were there, how could you answer the question? XP11 gets nowhere near 90FPS on each screen on a triple monitor setup, so it would be amazing if they have achieved that with XP12. Having said that though, Austin is flying a simple aircraft away from a large city, so I'd expect good framerates in that scenario.
@@zagan1 You are plucking PC specs and resolutions out of the air. It could be anything. I agree that it is probably a high spec system, but only Michael can really answer the question
Must be 90 across all screens. You don't usually add up the number per screen when quoting fps. Now that 12 utilizes the GPU more the fps should be much higher, especially over water like this.
I didn't understand why in a real helicopter the pilot won't use the hat-button in the stick to look around. Must be dangerous to fly around without a good situational awareness though :/
Austin, goes into his rapid speech mode, that shows a lot of stress. He needs to stop tying to be a fliight instuctor and explain to us how and why these controls work and how it works with his X-Plane 12 and which aircraft it works with. For this we really need a real helicopter instructor explaining how it feels. My take is that Helicopter simulators are no substute for a real helicopter except for heavy turbine helicopters where you have systems and procedures that need practice and polish.
