This lesson describes the recommended way to land a helicopter with FS(X)Pilot.
GENERALLY for helos:
Please set the general realism slider (FS realism menu) to left position (easy) and AUTORUDDER OFF.
Scenario 1:
You are cruising around with a helicopter at 3000 ft (target alt defined: 3000 ft, altitude controlled by pressing LVL, VS, ALT), IAS 80 knts (SPD button on) and want to perform a uncomplicated landing on ground.
(1) Press the LND button. The helicopter will enter a controlled descent at about 500 ft/min. During this procedure, you can concentrate on:
(2) Reducing speed (IAS) by reducing the IAS target reading stepwise to around 15 or 10 (take into consideration the ground wind)
(3) Define the current heading into the target heading field by right-clicking into the field
Press HDG button. Use the target heading field to maneuver the helicopter to the place you finally want to land.
You have several minutes for the whole procedure.
(4) approximately 50 meters inbound the place where you want to land or about 100 ft above ground, press the Hover button (the one with the arrow down) to enter the stationary hover procedure.
Operate gear if your helicopter has retractable gears.
Finally the helicopter will land on ground.
Good luck.
Scenario 2:
You want to perform an autolanding at a given GPS target.
Demo: Start your free flight in the Munich area in a Jetranger and approach the airport from south at 3000 ft, 80 knts.
(1) Define the current heading into the target heading field by simply right-clicking into the field once. Press the HDG button. The helicopter will fly towards the airport, heading around 010 degrees.
(2) Click into the text input field of the AP panel, Type 'select eddm_heliport' and press return.
Press NAV. The helicopter will turn exactly into the heading to the heliport.
(3) Approximally 2 nm inbound the heliport, press LND button.
(4) Press VCT button.
From here, the helicopter will perform a complete autolanding including: Controlled descent, IAS adjustments. stationary hover, and land. The actual landing will be about 30 m inbound the H of the pad, depending on the wind, which is normal. This also works at bad weather and strong winds.
If you want to define your own helicopter GPS targets, this is easy and fun. There are two main options:
(1) Fly to the position you want to define, and select 'add GPS waypoint here' from the FSPilot menu (FS2004) or from the FSXPilot AP Panel menu.
(2) Google Earth to the position that you want to define. Write down the LAT and the LON of the place. Convert gps coordinates from degrees (minutes / sec) to decimal (google for websites descibing you how). Enter a name and the coordinates into the file gpsdef_earth.cfg in the FS(X)Pilot home folder.
If you save changes to gpsdef_earth.cfg, please make backups. A new installation of FS(X)Pilot may overwrite your edited file.
Happy landings.