Landing on Carriers (Heli)

[Twombly]

I'm pretty new to PR, but in most games I really enjoyed flying choppers. Naturally, I went to do that in PR.

I think I'm doing alright so far, and I'm almost comfortable enough to try it in a live server, but I have one issue. When I land on carriers (any of them that I've found so far), the back side of my skids get caught in the carrier deck and it tends to either hurt the chopper or even in some cases launch it forward at varying speeds.

This happens whether I land front first or back first (I normally try to land evenly, but over the course of it happening, I've tried a lot of different things; note: landing upside down does not cause this to happen, if that helps).

Is this normal or am I doing something wrong? Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Rudd]

its a strange but that no1 knows why it happens afaik, the solution I've found is to land more gently

[Twombly]

I guess I'm not landing as well as I thought, then! Time to practice more.

Thanks a lot for the quick response!

[Spec]

Ye, you'll have to experiment a bit more to get it right. It's possible, for sure. If all else fails, bail out and the heli at least won't further flip, most of the time. You might die that way, but at least your passengers (if present) and the expensive helicopter will survive

[Zoddom]

the trick is to land as your supposed to, slow down in flight and land while hovering, and not coming down like a fighter and hoping that the friction between the landing gear and the carrier will slow you down before u crash into something else.

[Rhino]

its a strange but that no1 knows why it happens afaik, the solution I've found is to land more gently

I've never experienced this or heard of it before? But it dose sound like your landing way too hard and if you land hard in r/l, epically with skids like the Huey has, you can seriously damage the chopper.

[whatshisname55]

Doesn't that only happen with the huey? When you hold down 's' for too long the back of the skids will sink into the carrier and you have to turn the throttle up for a bit before they pull back out.

[Twombly]

Doesn't that only happen with the huey? When you hold down 's' for too long the back of the skids will sink into the carrier and you have to turn the throttle up for a bit before they pull back out.

I think that's exactly what I was doing. I'm too used to other games where you had to hold S or its equivalent to stay on the ground, I think. I'll get the hang of it, though.

[havoc1482]

This is how I land on carriers.
The first and third landings were good. The second one was bad because I was too high and you can lose control if you try to force it down too fast.
Best thing to do in my opinion is to just come at the carrier low and bring the chopper down when you are over the deck and the chopper should stop instantly. Please note that this is only good for choppers with skids because wheeled helicopters will go a little far forward.

[Jigsaw]

I've never experienced this or heard of it before? But it dose sound like your landing way too hard and if you land hard in r/l, epically with skids like the Huey has, you can seriously damage the chopper.

Lol how have you not heard of this? :s One of the oldest little bugs I've seen!

The short answer is that you're landing too fast, come into a hover just above the deck and then set down rather than coming in like a fixed wing aircraft would - i.e. at high speed. There's not any particular urgency when landing on the carrier so just take your time and take it in gently.

[TheComedian]

The short answer is that you're landing too fast, come into a hover just above the deck and then set down rather than coming in like a fixed wing aircraft would - i.e. at high speed. There's not any particular urgency when landing on the carrier so just take your time and take it in gently.

If you do fly carefully the grunts say you are too slow. If you fly too fast they say you can't fly. There is no pleasing the infantry grunts *puts on a silver suit*.

[Jigsaw]

If you do fly carefully the grunts say you are too slow. If you fly too fast they say you can't fly. There is no pleasing the infantry grunts *puts on a silver suit*.

Pfft, one of the best bits of advice I think you could give any new pilot is simply ignore anything that the infantry lads say, other than where they approximately want to go. If you trust your own instincts and do things how you want to do them then you will succeed - starting to pander to the whims of the infantry will get you (and quite likely them too) killed very quickly.

[PFunk]

When I fly the Huey I tend to try and fly about a helicoper's height below the carrier deck as I approach and then come up, drop the speed and flare at that moment and if you do it right you'll kill a lot of speed and can kinda touch down. The other way is to come in fast but do it in such a way that you're just gonna glide onto the deck and you kinda slide to a stop.

Either way should work fine. I mean the Huey is the chopper you can land the hardest and not die. Those skids are amazing.

[Zoddom]

i wonder why so many people dont know how to slow a chopper down?
landing while flying forward ( the first landing in that video) is only necessary when its a hot LZ and you have to get your troops out quickly and have to get away fast.... why re you using such methods on the carrier? the risk of crashing is much too high .... i think ill record a video how i do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLBnjzl3VPA
here are 3 different landing types by me. forgive my unsteady controls, i usually dont have 30 fps when flying (fraps fps lock)

[Ford_Jam]

Everyone has their own way Zoddom, I dont like to come in too high because then you spend too long pressing 's' to drop and I hate pressing 's' when flying helicopters, I avoid pressing it like the plague. With Huey's you can almost do jet style landings because it just glides across the ground or carrier to a safe stop

[bcradio]

IRL you want to maintain some forward speed when approaching in case you have an engine problem... maintaining forward airspeed will help you keep your rotor speed up if you need to autorotate, and avoid settling with power.

Settling with power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I understand that BF2 and PR are not helicopter sims, so it's not an important part of the game. But maintaining foward airspeed is important IRL

i wonder why so many people dont know how to slow a chopper down?
landing while flying forward ( the first landing in that video) is only necessary when its a hot LZ and you have to get your troops out quickly and have to get away fast.... why re you using such methods on the carrier? the risk of crashing is much too high .... i think ill record a video how i do it.
‪PR Heli Landings‬‏ - YouTube
here are 3 different landing types by me. forgive my unsteady controls, i usually dont have 30 fps when flying (fraps fps lock)

[Zoddom]

Everyone has their own way Zoddom, I dont like to come in too high because then you spend too long pressing 's' to drop and I hate pressing 's' when flying helicopters, I avoid pressing it like the plague. With Huey's you can almost do jet style landings because it just glides across the ground or carrier to a safe stop

yeah i know, i jsut showed it because you sometimes dont have a choice. but if you keep tapping s slightly the drop is still managable.
I myself use pedals, so i can slightly push the brake so im loosing height continously and controlable

i dont think the auto rotate aspect is playing such a big role when landing, because at low alttude you wont gain enough dropping speed for effectiv auto rotate

[PaveHawk]

if you land hard in r/l, epically with skids like the Huey has, you can seriously damage the chopper.

That's not entirely true. The crossbars of the skid assembly has a very forgiving amount of flex built into them. Granted if you slam the helicopter into the ground hard enough it can screw things up. But every huey pilot is taught and trained how to make high speed skid landing. It's something they practice all the time. It's also why most hueys depending on the unit and it's mission have heavy duty skid shoes installed. This is basically a long piece of metal that is bolted to the bottom of each skid. Welded to the bottom of the heavy duty skid shoe is a half inch piece of metal which protects the skids from wear when sliding along the ground. It's like horse shoes for a helicopter. Once the metal is worn to thin they are replaced. This saves on the wear and tear to the actual skid tube.

Now I have seen where a pilot has landed to hard when doing a high speed skid landing. And the worst they've done is crack the rear crossbar. We do a hard landing inspection, jack up the helicopter and replace the cracked crossbar and all is good. Where I've seen the most damage done to the skid assembly is when landing straight down. Mostly when practicing or having to preform an auto-rotation.

Here's a nice video of a C.B.P. UH-1H doing some skid landings and autos so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about..

‪Bell UH-1H "Huey" flying, hovering & autorotations on 11-20-10‬‏ - YouTube

[Jolly]

Consider flying a helo like dancing,your helo is your partner.you should be gentle and careful,be ware of the "character" of your lady,you'll do a fine job!

[Bringerof_D]

tip, DONT TOUCH THE S KEY! in PR it serves little to no purpose in a chopper save for lightly tapping it at long intervals to descend slightly faster. this happens regardless of what you're landing on, i've had it happen to me in a black hawk too on land in ramiel.

my advice to you, approach the landing site low and just let gravity do it's work once you flare and slow down. you can tap S a few times to speed it up but be careful with it.usually if you're almost touching the deck/ a flat surface, it is better to nose forward slightly and skid into the ground rather than touch the S key.