How to properly build helicopters?

[Darkuss]

i can't build any normal helicopter any tips or advice would be appreciated.

[Hotel26]

Try this to begin with...  (And a big welcome to the KSP Forum!)

 

[XLjedi]

Question is,

Do you want something that's actually usable for missions?  

...or are you bent on the idea of modeling some sort of pristine vision of "accurate helo" without reaction wheels and relying purely on cyclic and tail rotor?  Although the idea of "accurate helo" in this game with the physics engine and control system "as-is" is just a misnomer to begin with.

If it's the former; I can definitely help you!

If it's the later; it has no in-game mission use.  A useless toy for KSC landing pad play and not of any value to me, so I can't really recommend them in this game.  Go build one in "Stormworks!" a far superior rescue vehicle sandbox game and infinitely better engine for building helos and rescue craft in general.

Interesting that Stormworks has begun adding solid rocket engines to their repertoire.  If they manage to nail orbital mechanics, there would be no reason to play KSP anymore.

Edited April 4, 2020 by XLjedi

[Darkuss]

7 minutes ago, XLjedi said:

Question is,

Do you want something that's actually usable for missions?  

...or are you bent on the idea of modeling some sort of pristine vision of "accurate helo" without reaction wheels and relying purely on cyclic and tail rotor?  Although the idea of "accurate helo" in this game with the physics engine and control system "as-is" is just a misnomer to begin with.

If it's the former; I can definitely help you!

If it's the later; it has no in-game mission use.  A useless toy for KSC landing pad play and not of any value to me, so I can't really recommend them in this game.  Go build one in "Stormworks!" a far superior rescue vehicle sandbox game and infinitely better engine for building helos and rescue craft in general.

Interesting that Stormworks has begun adding solid rocket engines to their repertoire.  If they manage to nail orbital mechanics, there would be no reason to play KSP anymore.

i just want to build helicopters. i already build planes , many rockets , landing platform , etc.

 

[AHHans]

38 minutes ago, Darkuss said:

i just want to build helicopters.

If you want to build one that uses the collective and cyclic control schemes that SQUAD introduced 1.9, then you can have a look at my Basic Helicopter on KerbalX. If you have more concrete questions then please ask.

[XLjedi]

Well try flying these and tell me if you consider them "helicopters" ?

https://kerbalx.com/XLjedi/MH-45-Cyclone-III

https://kerbalx.com/XLjedi/AH-11-Dragonfly

I get into irritating semantics arguments regarding these at times...  People telling me they are gyrocopters (they're not) and not helicopters and complaining about cyclic controls.   Technically, the craft would be classified as either "Compound Helicopter" or "Gyrodyne" which simply means they have a forward propulsion component that makes them fly fast like a jet.  Which is what actually makes them useful in this game.  As for the lack of true cyclic... If it were implemented or functioned a little better in game; I would use it.  As it is now, I ignore it.

To start, I would recommend:

1. Ignoring and disabling cyclic controls on the rotor blades
2. Go with a coaxial design and no tail rotor
3. Use a reaction wheel or two (five... ten?) for yaw control
4. Look at how I setup the KAL-1000 as a helo ECM (engine control module)

So you would be focusing almost entirely on your control setup, the collective and stable hover.  ...from there you can expand and build in about any direction you want to go.  Even dabbling in the use of the cyclic and a tail rotor, although... it's just not that good.  My "spinny things" guide here is still valid, although I had to add a few notes at the bottom of the OP to deal with changes that occurred between 1.7 and 1.9.1.

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by XLjedi

[MichaelMoore]

On 4/4/2020 at 8:38 PM, XLjedi said:

Well try flying these and tell me if you consider them "helicopters" ?

https://kerbalx.com/XLjedi/MH-45-Cyclone-III

https://kerbalx.com/XLjedi/AH-11-Dragonfly

I get into irritating semantics arguments regarding these at times...  People telling me they are gyrocopters (they're not) and not helicopters and complaining about cyclic controls.   Technically, the craft would be classified as either "Compound Helicopter" or "Gyrodyne" which simply means they have a forward propulsion component that makes them fly fast like a jet.  Which is what actually makes them useful in this game.  As for the lack of true cyclic... If it were implemented or functioned a little better in game; I would use it.  As it is now, I ignore it.

To start, I would recommend:

1. Ignoring and disabling cyclic controls on the rotor blades
2. Go with a coaxial design and no tail rotor
3. Use a reaction wheel or two (five... ten?) for yaw control
4. Look at how I setup the KAL-1000 as a helo ECM (engine control module)

So you would be focusing almost entirely on your control setup, the collective and stable hover.  ...from there you can expand and build in about any direction you want to go.  Even dabbling in the use of the cyclic and a tail rotor, although... it's just not that good.  My "spinny things" guide here is still valid, although I had to add a few notes at the bottom of the OP to deal with changes that occurred between 1.7 and 1.9.1.

 

 

 

Tried them, seems good but still not heli

[XLjedi]

3 hours ago, MichaelMoore said:

Tried them, seems good but still not heli

Go play Stormworks.  To me, they are helos in kerbal-world.

You're not gonna get "real" helos in this game anywhere near as controllable without use of reaction wheels.  Not without some better control interaction between main and tail rotors.  ...or adjustments based on airspeed, etc.

I have a third (new) helo airframe that I'm gonna try one last time to linkup rotor and tail control with KAL blending...  Everytime I've tried in the past though, the result has been a pretty iffy flight model and I just scrapped it for actual mission use.  Nothing better than toy quality.

I haven't seen where anyone yet has a better control approach/scheme than what I'm using, but always willing to take a look and revise.

 

Edited April 9, 2020 by XLjedi

[fourfa]

I've been spending a lot of time flying helos with counter-rotating mains set up for standard cyclic pitch and roll, and ducted fan unit on the tail for yaw control.  Tail rotor turns full speed, blades deployed at zero degrees, yaw in collective.  No KAL, no reaction wheels, nothing complicated.  Flies like a helicopter to me, and happily delivering loads in career.  Not fast, to be sure - like 80m/s max over the surface and somewhat fiddly matching the collective main rotor pitch to the angle of attack in flight.  MUCH easier with an analog flight stick, so I can hold constant AoA.

I built some compound designs with jets for forward thrust, and can get up to high subsonic speed.  There's a pretty usable happy medium in there somewhere.

Just wondering what "toy quality" means to you here.

[OHara]

I enjoy flying both XL Jedi's and fourfa's craft over on KerbalX.

They get very different things out of the same game.  XLJedi is user-friendly controls.  fourfa  uses the fundamental controls more directly.

Two of several ways to "properly build" a "helicopter".

[XLjedi]

10 hours ago, fourfa said:

Just wondering what "toy quality" means to you here.

Comparatively unstable hover and/or finicky controls...  So it's difficult to land/hover with precision and doesn't track straight without constant yaw input/adjustments. 

I don't see your helos on KerbalX, but would be happy to fly them.  I can imagine a coax design with a tail rotor might be 'OK'.  ...but you have no counter-rotation to offset, so you're just using tail rotor as a directional fan.  Then of course people say, "What coax helo IRL needs a tail rotor?  ...that's not a helicopter." 

I guess I view the reaction wheels in a coaxial helo design to be "that mechanism" that allows yaw to be controlled without the tail rotor.

I'm gonna try one last time for the stereotypical single rotor 'pristine helo' that people love to refer to but can't really get right in this game.  Problem is there's just no good way to map the lift vector of the tail rotor so the thing will track straight.  So you just end up with an interesting but not very useful toy to fly around and try to land on KSC pads. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by XLjedi

[XLjedi]

5 hours ago, OHara said:

I enjoy flying both XL Jedi's and fourfa's craft over on KerbalX.

They get very different things out of the same game.  XLJedi is user-friendly controls.  fourfa  uses the fundamental controls more directly.

Two of several ways to "properly build" a "helicopter".

You're hired BTW, official Untied Technologies Test Pilot!

I will go make you a badge...