Collective pitch display

[Rod Harmer]

Will you guys at KE "PLEASE " consider adding the collective pitch display to Navguides ? It is so helpfull when setting up a Heli for 3D when using my own radio as you can see exactly what pitch you are getting for different stick positions which is vital if you want it to be just like your own heli . It was in G2 and it is a very handy tool indeed . I would have thought that It can't be too hard to do. . I have asked this once before but cannot find a reply to this request.
I sincerely hope you can do this
Thanks
Rod H

[vitek]

Rod,

I have to argue a little here. Although I am arguing, it is already a known issue and is in our bug/feature database.

you can see exactly what pitch you are getting for different stick positions

Knowing exactly what pitch you have at a given stick position is not useful. Every helicopter will hover at a slightly different pitch because of weight, rotor speed, blade efficiency and a host of other reasons.

Many guys setup new machines without using a pitch gauge at all. They eyeball center stick to zero and look for approximately even throw up and down. After they have had it in the air they will tweak the top and bottom so as to not load the engine when at full pitch.

which is vital if you want it to be just like your own heli

Having the pitch exactly the same won't make the simulated aircraft the same as your helicopter. We may be modelling the amount of drag or lift differently that it really is or we may not be taking some factor into account. Your helicopter may produce slightly less lift in real life, so you would need less pitch in the simulator to get the same feel.

If you still need to know what pitch you are getting, you can do this pretty easily. Set the pitch range for the main rotor to +/-10. Then, in your radio or the software radio adjust the pitch curve. Take the pitch that you require and multiply the number of degrees by 10 to get the output value for that stick position... Say you want a pitch curve to be -10, -3, 0, +3, +10. Your pitch curve would be -100%, -30%, 0%, 30%, 100%.

Travis

[Rod Harmer]

I feel that your arguement is basically flawed.
I really think that being able to see what collective pitch you have in the sim IS usefull. When setting up for 3D it is a good idea to know just what your pitch setting is at various stick positions and as for eyeballing the pitch I feel that would make it rather hard to get both blades to the same pitch during set up ( for real helis of course ).
I have edited the dominion 90 3D to be as close to my X-spec as possible and if I had the pitch display it would make it even easier to set up . I found that the edited version I made of the Dominion flies very much like my X-spec and is a great learning device , I have also found that what is set in the radio is not always what you get at the mast , so this would help to ensure it is set up properly.
I am referring all of my comments in respect of using my own radio for the heli's in G3 .
Finally : There is not much point in having Nav Guides at all if you follow your philosophy because every tool that can be made available to assist editing must be usefull to sim users and why have any parameters displayed at all because you don't have them for the real thing but you do have some in G3 so you must consider them usefull . I reckon that Collective pitch display would be very usefull in G3 and it can't be too hard to include it as you already had it in G2 .
Thanks for a great product in spite of this minor item that is missing .
Rod H

[vitek]

Rod,

Wouldn't it be annoying to show the collective pitch in a nav guide? Many users are using the software radio and are changing the settings in the Aircraft Editor. If we put it in the Nav Guides, they would have to open/close the editor every time they made a change to make sure that they got the desired effect.

Travis

[Rod Harmer]

It should not be a problem at all as those who don't want to use it simply don't tick the appropriate box when selecting what is displayed in Nav Guides. You only see what you want so if you don't want to see it you don't have to .
I want to see it so I would be very happy to have that option .
I do thank you for your time in considering this and hope you will see the wisdom of it and make it available soon . Just joking about the" wisdom " but I do hope that you will make it available soon .
Thanks again
Rod H

P.S.
I think that I have miss read your reply . Are you saying that it is already in the editor and that if you put it into nav guides then you would have to go from editor to nav guides and back to editor to se if you have the correct pitch? If thats so why cant you put it in both ? I cannot see anything like it in the editor so maybe I am missing something .
Rod H

[vitek]

Rod,

What I am saying is you would have to close the editor and open up the nav guide to check their pitch settings after every change. This would get old if you were editing more than one aircraft.

The collective pitch is not in the editor right now. It would be relatively easy to put it there, and that is where we have been putting those kinds of things (servo position, governor settings, gyro gain, ...). Things that involve aircraft setup are in the Edit Aircraft dialog, so it seems like it belongs there.

I don't care to use it for setup, and of course I can ignore it if I want to. I'm trying to avoid feature creep with the nav guides. You ask for collective pitch, the next guy asks for cyclic, someone wants smoke output and another will want the current date and time.

Travis

[Rod Harmer]

I understand what you are saying now and appreciate that there are many different requirements that others may have .
Can you set up a downloadable data base (like some sites have ) so that registered users can simply download extra tools that they find pertinent to their own requirements ? That would enable heli flyers to pick what they need and plankers to pick what they need , thus alleviating the need for one large download/programme containing things that you don't want.
I realise that all this takes time but it is worth a thought .
The most compelling thing I have in favour of collective display is that you had it in G2 so I reckon it should be in G3 as well .
Anyway it's up to you guys but I can only hope you do put it there .
Thanks for your time .
Rod H